EXPERT BROACHED POSSIBILITY YEARS AGO THAT SCANDALS WERE RESULT OF 'CURSES'
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We believe the current crisis will purify and strengthen the Church, as have scandals in the past. In the last 2,000 years, the Church has ridden enormous waves -- and scandals worse (at least so far) than the current one. There have been anti-popes. There have been wicked popes. There have been popes who committed adultery. The papacy reached a nadir in A.D. 955 with a pontiff who gained the throne at age 18, turning the papacy into a stage of lurid scandal as he consorted with prostitutes, toasted pagan gods, and was accused of incest (along with sexual assault on a nun).
Such is the result, of course, of succumbing to evil, as is the case with the current scandal of sexual molestation, and it points out the need to pray for priests (more than to hold them all in suspicion). There is nothing more precious to heaven than a faithful, self-sacrificing priest, and we should recall the Our Lady of America apparitions, in which Mary referred to them as her "dearly beloved sons."
They're on the front line. They are the first the devil attacks. They are the ones he attacks most strongly. And they are the ones he seeks to defame. Nothing is higher on the devil's agenda than bringing the oldest Christian denomination down (and especially the powerful weapon of celibacy).
Might it be -- in at least some cases -- that priests are under a direct spiritual influence? We note that in 1995, a full seven years ago, a world-known expert on deliverance named Francis MacNutt came out with a book, Deliverance From Evil Spirits, in which he discussed how satanists cast problems upon others. "These curses may aggravate existing human problems, so experts may study the human dimension of the problem from a purely rational point of view but never identify the spiritual, supernatural component," wrote MacNutt. "I would not be surprised if the recent upsurge of pedophilia recently coming to light in a minority of Roman Catholic priests is caused, in part, by Satanist groups praying to destroy their ministry, and also the ministry of the Church itself."
[Next week we'll look at how this Church crisis was predicted and where it may go]
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