PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Bilgrimage
As the week begins, another powerful and informative statement by Jerry Slevin. Jerry is commenting in this posting on the news conference of Philadelphia archbishop Chaput last Friday. What follows is Jerry’s posting:
In 1776 in Philadelphia the key grievances stressed in the Declaration of Independence included (1) the British monarch’s interference in the justice process, especially in law cases involving his officials’ misconduct, and (2) the monarch’s imposition of unjust legislation by undemocratic means. I t was then, and remains yet today, among the fundamental principles of natural justice that (A) one cannot be a fair judge of one’s own crimes or of crimes of others who serve on one’s behalf, and (B) the governed must have a meaningful say in making laws that govern them.
After a bloody Revolutionary War against a monarchy, the fundamental principles of an independent judiciary and a democratic legislature were soon incorporated into the US Constitution, along with related protections for freedom of speech and the press and for religious liberty, balanced by an obligatory separation of church and state. The Founding Fathers had painfully learned their lessons about European monarchical tyranny and religious zealotry and wanted to expel these evils forever from America’s shores.
In 2012 also in Philadelphia several of these U.S. Constitutional principles are being substantially challenged by the current papal monarch acting through his bishops, especially Archbishop Chaput, leader of the Philadelphia Archdiocese (the “Philly AD”). The pope and his subordinates are, in effect, interfering in Pennsylvania in the administration of justice in sexual abuse cases involving clerics; as well as opposing by excessive lobbying the popularly supported enactment of needed reforms of related child sexual abuse statute of limitation laws, often under the cynical guise of “religious liberty.”
These challenges were made abundantly clear in Chaput’s recent “press conference,” available in its entirety in audio here and in summary in video in this national CBS Evening News Report from Scott Pelley available here.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.