Snap, a Lot of Crackle—and a Pope!

By Ed Raymond
Staff Writer

Three men stood over the naked woman strapped to a sloping platform. Iron prongs held her jaws open while her nostrils were stopped up, allowing breathing only through the mouth. One man placed a piece of linen over her mouth while another stood poised to pour water into it.

The Inquisitor, under the command of the The Grand Inquisitor Tomas De Torquemada of the Roman Catholic Church of Spain, read the charges against her while she screamed and fought her bonds. Witnesses had proclaimed that smoke had not emerged from her chimney on several Saturdays, a very strong indication she was Jewish. Judaism forbids manual labor on the Sabbath, and starting a fire would constitute manual labor.

So the waterboarding began because here was a practicing Jew pretending to be a Catholic, thereby secretly undermining the Catholic Church. The water was poured quickly because only eight liters of water could be used during a single torture session according to the rules. After water was poured down her throat the woman signaled ”yes.” She was then declared a heretic and taken to the city courtyard where hundreds watched her burn to death at the stake.
This incident of the Jewish woman during the Spanish Inquisition search by the Roman Catholic Church was just one of the estimated 2,000 “heretics” executed in Spain by the Grand Inquisitor Torquemada during his 15-year tenure. Torquemada, a zealous monk who had dedicated his life to God’s service, was appointed Grand Inquisitor in 1483, 500 years before Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, now Pope Benedict XVI, was appointed Grand Inquisitor of the Inquisition, now discreetly called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Ratzinger’s Pursuit of Theological Dissidents, Malcontents, and Women Protesters

When Ratzinger was archbishop of Munich he was clearly more interested in doctrinal debates than he was in dealing with over 200 cases of sexual predators masquerading as priests on Munich altars. He was the perfect candidate for following Torquemada and others as Grand Inquisitor where he spent 23 years maintaining church “tradition.” He was called “God’s Rottweiler” by many Catholic theologians.

And Ratzinger is responsible for, as one prominent Vatican watcher put it, the Roman Catholic Church facing a revolt equal to the problems it faced during the Protestant Reformation. That’s 500 years ago when Martin Luther hammered those 95 theses on the door at Wittenberg. In the year 2001 when Pope John Paul II asked Grand Inquisitor Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to investigate child rape and torture by Catholic priests, Grand Inquisitor Ratzinger sent out a memo to all bishops that in the end, will probably cause as much trouble to the Vatican as the Protestant Reformation did. In this memo Ratzinger threatened excommunication if any aspects of a rape or pedophile investigation were leaked to civil authorities or the press. In other words, all criminal sexual acts would be handled by church authorities under their “exclusive jurisdiction.” Charges were to be investigated “in the most secretive way restrained by a perpetual silence…and everyone…is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office (of the Pope).”

Christopher Hitchens in a March 15, 2010 article quoted the Rev. Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist of the Vatican: “The Devil is at work inside the Vatican. When one speaks of the smoke of Satan in the holy rooms it is all true…including these latest stories of violence and pedophilia.” We haven’t heard anything from the exorcist since that statement.

The Brothers Grimm and the Grim Christian Brothers of Ireland

We are all familiar with sexual abuse committed by priests in almost every parish office and sacristy in the United States. It has cost Roman Catholic dioceses billions of dollars paid for by both Sunday collections and real estate sales. It has also cost the trust of thousands of Catholics in their bishops and the priests, who have betrayed them. Over 700 priests have been dismissed. Complaints are still being levied, cases are still being tried, dioceses are still facing bankruptcy from judgments, bishops are still defending pedophiles by midnight transfers, and the cardinals are still lying.

But now Catholic churches and their bishops in Europe and Ireland are just beginning to go through what the U.S. is experiencing now. What happened in Ireland in particular is like a grim, grisly, bloody tale from the myths and legends of the Brothers Grimm. But these terrible crimes have been committed by the Christian Brothers of Ireland. The government of Ireland had ceded the schooling of 35,000 poor children and those with behavioral problems to the religious order, the Christian Brothers. Physical, mental, and sexual abuse permeated these Catholic schools. Priests, nuns, and workers became sexual sadists while pretending to live a life of celibacy. The priests whipped themselves to cure “sexual urges” and then committed sexual acts on children under their care.

Please Read the Murphy and Ryan Reports on the Schools

The Internet has the reports of the Murphy and Ryan Commissions investigating 250 schools and detention institutions. We must remember that the Catholic Church is the largest property owner in Ireland. The reports total 2,600 pages, contain 15,000 complaints, and extensive testimony from over 1,000 witnesses. It makes for chilling reading. The words “appalling, sickening, revolting, and shameful” are often used to describe the contents. 170 priests in Dublin alone have been charged with sexual abuse. The reports contain descriptions of the thousands of offenses:

**There are 99 witness accounts of beatings by nuns using leather straps, cinctures (with metal tips), thin whips, and beatings utilizing the large Rosary beads and metal crucifixes worn by religious orders.

**Hot pokers were used to burn children’s hands and other body parts. Some were forced to touch hot stoves.

**Children had fingers shoved into electric sockets so they were shocked.

**Children were pinched with pliers, jabbed with knitting needles, hit with shovels and serving spoons, whipped with electric cords, and threatened with scissors.

**Children were scalded with hot water, others had their heads held underwater until they choked.

**Teeth were extracted without the use of anesthetics.

**Because of constant stress young children often wet their beds. They were punished by beatings and often forced to wear the wet sheets during breakfast and to classrooms. Some were forced to recite the Rosary while wearing only the wet sheet. One child reported: “I started to wet the bed when I was six or seven. I had to stay with the younger ones until I was ten or eleven because I continued to wet the bed. We had to bring our wet sheets to the girl in charge who would swipe you across the face with it and bring you to the dressing room where you were flogged.”

**Children were forced to clear blocked toilets with their bare hands.

**Children had an underwear change every two weeks. If dirty, the child received 21 whacks with a hand brush. If underwear was stained with feces or urine the child had to wear the underwear on the head.

**If children vomited they were forced to eat their own vomit at the table. If the child retched he was beaten on the head.

There are hundreds of pages of testimony regarding such treatment. Reading too much of it at one time makes you want to vomit. One particular punishment I will never forget. A young girl of about ten hid a kitten she had found in a storeroom. It was the only bright spot in her life. But any kind of pet was forbidden. The kitten was discovered by a nun. She forced the girl to take the lid off a burning kitchen stove and place the kitten in the flames. If you want information on the sex abuse cases, read the two reports.

Does Sin Have a Statute of Limitations?

A tsunami of sex abuse cases throughout Europe are coming into the sunlight as a result of the charges against Pope Benedict’s brother, a priest who directed the famous Regensburger Domspatzen boys choir for 30 years. Thousands of cases of molestation are under investigation by authorities now.

But the situation that has the potential of destroying the Catholic Church in both the United States and Europe is the Wisconsin sex abuse case against the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy who is alleged to have molested over 200 deaf boys over a 25-year period at a school for the deaf. Murphy even solicited sex while the boys were confessing to him in the confessional.

The sexually abused boys told other priests. They told three archbishops in Milwaukee. They told two police departments and the local prosecutor. They used written affidavits, graphic sign language, and graphic gestures indicating what Father Murphy had done to them. No one answered. Nothing was done. Father Murphy died and was buried in his priestly garments without ever paying for his crimes against children. Evidently the Vatican believes that molestation is a venial sin but never a crime. Only 600 of the 3,000 accused priests reviewed by the Inquisition so far have faced church trials, and only a few have been defrocked.

Does the Pope “Get It?”

In a Palm Sunday sermon in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict said his faith in God leads one “toward the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion.” “Petty gossip”?!! Petty?!! I can’t believe that statement. Thousands of molestation cases are coming to the Vatican from practically every diocese in the world. Investigations are going on in many European dioceses right now–and the Pope uses the word “petty?”

The Vatican mouthpieces are now screaming about all the “ignoble attempts to smear the Pope.” Well, this is another “smear job” written by a person who spent 27 years in the Roman Catholic Church. But please dispute the facts before accusing me of a smear job. I have always said that there is much to admire about the church–and much to deplore.

An editorial in The National Catholic Reporter on March 26, an American publication, pleaded for Benedict to “directly answer questions in a credible forum” concerning his mismanagement of the clergy sexual abuse crisis” during his years as archbishop of Munich ( 1977 to 1982) and as prefect of the Office of the Inquisition (1983 to 2005). SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) will never be satisfied until he answers all the questions they have.

At the conclusion of the editorial, the authors put the crisis in perspective: “We now face the largest institutional crisis in centuries, possible in church history. How this crisis is handled by Benedict, what he says and does, how he responds and what remedies he seeks, will likely determine the future health of our church for decades, if not centuries to come.”

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, and a Catholic, had a solution for Benedict he will never follow–-but it makes a great deal of sense in this time and place. She writes he should resign and a nun (a Nope!)should be elected in his place. The church needs the advice and counsel of gray old women in skirts, not old gray men in skirts. She adds: “The church has been tone deaf and dumb on the scandal for so long that it’s shocking. The Catholic Church can never recover as long as its Holy Shepherd is seen as a black sheep in the ever-darkening sex abuse scandal.”

During the Spanish Inquisition Torquemada dressed the condemned in a sambenito, a black cloak covered with the designs of hell’s flames, demons, dragons, and snakes. Perhaps Torquemada’s successor, The Grand Inquisitor Joseph Ratzinger, would save his church by wearing one now.

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