Again Junipero Serra: “What not to do”

Edd Doerr of  Silver Spring, MD had this letter (“What not to do”) published in the Nov 6/19, 2015, issue of the rather liberal National Catholic Reporter (NCR) newespaper.    

Loring Abeyta’s excellent critical review of Gregory Orfalea’s book about Junipero Serra, Journey to the Sun (NCR, Sept 24/Oct8),(she called it "

Cloying book skirts damage Serra wrought") is backed up and reinforced by California Latino author Elias Castillo’s well-researched and documented 2015 book, A Cross of Thorns: The Enslavement of California’s Indians by the Spanish Missions. Serra’s mistreatment of the Indians was so bad that the Spanish civil governor of California, Felipe de Neve (1775-82), criticized him.

From a review of A Cross of Thorns:

The myth of California’s missions as a nurturing environment for Indians is stripped away by Elias Castillo. Instead, he reveals the Indians’ enslavement by friars who used whips, chains, and shackles to restrain the unwilling prisoners who provided the labor force for the missions.

Through study of historical reports and letters, Castillo describes the efforts of Father Junipero Serra, father of the state’s mission system, to gain more souls in heaven. But it came at the expense of Indians wrenched from their lives close to nature into a worse one. Serra may be canonized by Pope Francis, but his legacy is stained.

The book is thoroughly researched and well written. It depicts a sad period in California history.

The Church’s Sins Are Ours

Edd Doerr (arlinc.org) thinks that Frank Bruni op ed ( Nov 4 NY Times) “The Church’s Sins Are Ours,” re sex abuse scandals" is right on target.

"It’s fashionable among some conservatives to rail that there’s insufficient respect for religion in America and that religious people are marginalized, even vilified.

That’s bunk. In more places and instances than not, they get special accommodation and the benefit of the doubt. Because they talk of God, they’re assumed to be good. There’s a reluctance to besmirch them, an unwillingness to cross them.

The new movie “Spotlight,” based on real events, illuminates this brilliantly.....

“If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one,” says a character in “Spotlight.” Indeed it does: a village too cowed, and a village too credulous."

There were 414 comments on this OpEd including:

"American history is replete with examples of religious institutions and ministers betraying their spiritual mission through the pursuit of political influence. Catholic authorities who valued the church's power and influence over the welfare of the faithful violated, in the most egregious manner, the commission they believed they had received from Christ. The Protestant evangelist, Billy Graham, while innocent of any criminal behavior, also betrayed his spiritual calling when he used his pulpit to claim that God wanted Christians to vote for Richard Nixon...."

Below it the comment Edd posted in the Times on-line is a good column.


Bruni's point is reinforced by the 2014 book, Potiphar's Wife: The Vatican's Secret and Child Sexual Abuse, by church-law trained lawyer Kieran Tapsell.


Also note a report this week in the National Catholic Reporter by Jack Ruhl titled "NCR Research: Costs of sex abuse to US church underestimated."


Ruhl's research shows that the sex abuse scandal has cost the Catholic Church in the US $4 Billion in the past 65 years. Ruhl adds that "separate research recently published calculates that other scandal-related consequences such as lost membership and diverted giving has cost the church more than $2.3 Billion annually for the past 30 years." That adds up to a total of $69 Billion! No wonder church officials have been seeking public funds through vouchers and tax credits for their shrinking system of private schools.

Vatican, a bastion of extravagance?

Edd Doerr (arinc.org) posted a comment to the Nov 4 Washington Post article, 

“Pair of books paint Vatican as a bastion of extravagance,” by Anthony Faiola and Stefano Pitrelli.

We do not need to wait for these two Italian books to be published in English. We have lawyer Gerald Posner's 2015 book, God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican (Simon and Schuster). 

Further, we have a report in this week's National Catholic Reporter by Jack Ruhl, "NCR research: Costs of sex abuse crisis to US church underestimated." 

Ruhl writes that "The US Catholic Church has incurred nearly $4 Billion in costs related to the priest sex abuse crisis during the past 65 years, according to an extensive NCR investigation of media reports , databases and church documents." 

Ruhl adds: "In addition, separate research recently published calculates that other scandal-related consequences such as lost membership and diverted giving has cost the church more than $2.3 Billion annually for the past 30 years." 

That's a total of $69 Billion! No wonder church officials have been pushing for tax aid for their shrinking private school system through vouchers and tax credits, a scheme of course overwhelmingly opposed by American voters. 

NCR research: Costs of sex abuse crisis to US church underestimated

Link provided by Edd Doerr

A three-month investigation of data by National Catholic Reporter (NCR) , including a review of more than 7,800 articles gleaned from LexisNexis Academic and NCR databases, as well as information from BishopAccountability.org and from reports from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops concludes that:

"The U.S. Catholic church has incurred nearly $4 billion in costs related to the priest sex abuse crisis during the past 65 years, according to an extensive NCR investigation of media reports, databases and church documents.

In addition, separate research recently published calculates that other scandal-related consequences such as lost membership and diverted giving has cost the church more than $2.3 billion annually for the past 30 years."

Edd notes that " NCR is the leading liberal Catholic newspaper in the US. NCR has published a number of my letters over the years. Let’s note also that Catholics tend to be more liberal than Protestants and that most Catholics are out of sync with the Vatican on many issues, such as contraception, abortion, marriage, divorce, clerical celibacy, ordaining women, and  the necessity to send kids to church schools. "

See NCR research: Costs of sex abuse crisis to US church underestimated for details.

Silver Spring's (MD) Edd Doerr had this letter published in the Feb 13-26 issue of the National Catholic Reporter ---

“Push on climate change”

Pope Francis, Tom Roberts and Brian Roewe (NCR, Jan 2-15) are to be commended for their forward push on climate change. Many of us are hoping that Francis will do the one thing that he and he alone can do about climate change: rescind Paul VI’s 1968  Humanae Vitae encyclical, promulgated in defiance of the vast majority of his own advisers.

Since 1968, there have been 1.5 billion abortions worldwide, 50 million in the US alone. Vacating Humanae Vitae would seriously lower the abortion rate, save women’s lives, and contribute to reducing overpopulation and such concomitants of climate change as resource depletion, environmental degradation, deforestation, soil erosion and nutrient loss, biodiversity shrinkage, rising sea levels (40% of the world population lives in coastal areas), and increasing sociopolitical instability and violence.