I have little confidence in the judgment of Washington’s Cardinal McElroy. And although Msgr. Rossetti’s claim that UFOs “are, in fact, demons” strikes me as eccentric, I would not see it as a cause for ecclesiastical discipline. But if Rossetti has lost the cardinal’s confidence, I can’t say that I’m surprised. He lost my confidence 25 years ago.
Msgr. Rossetti has always had an instinct for topics that command popular attention, especially the attention of people who are emotionally vulnerable. Today his Saint Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal has an enormous audience of followers, who flock to his “online deliverance sessions.” But before he became a celebrity exorcist, he gained prominence for a different specialty: ministering to priests who were charged with (among other things) the sexual abuse of children.
Msgr. Rossetti was the president of the St. Luke Institute, the most prominent of the institutions that treated (some would say “recycled”) predatory priests. In that capacity, when the abuse scandal came to light, he advised the bishops: “We need to be careful that we don’t make anyone — whether it’s priests or gays — scapegoats.”
While he emerged from the scandal with a reputation as an advocate for abuse victims, at St. Luke’s he had developed an understanding of abusers, and a belief that they are not all that different from the rest of us. While anxious to stop the “scapegoating” of homosexuals, he was ready to cast suspicion on others. An article published in Catholic World Report in 1997, several years before the scandal broke, told of his approach:
He believes that most instances of pedophillia are never discovered, and this is especially true of pedophiliac acts committed by women. Rossetti is particularly suspicious of mothers, explaining that it is “easier for a mother in our society to disguise inappropriate conduct with youngsters as maternal acts of cleaning, grooming, and dressing.” Father Rossetti also stresses his belief that there is no connection between homosexuality and pedophilia. In his concluding essay, “Challenge of the People of God,” he reiterates his theory that most people have some degree of sexual attraction to children… He faults the Church for cultivating “a climate of repression and/or obsession.”
I’m scratching my head over this discovery because I can’t find anything to exactly corroborate it. Here’s a 2002 article about Paula Zahn’s interview with then-Fr. Rossetti about clergy sexual abuse: https://www.cnn.com/2002/US/04/11/rossetti.cnna/index.html?related
I think the article in Catholic World Report, of which Lawler was the editor, was pre-internet.
Here is a 2017 story on Catholic Culture also by Phil Lawler on St. Luke Institute:
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/unhappy-leadership-history-st-lukes-institute/
Ed’s on the ball this morning.
Here’s an article about alien deception from an Orthodox Saint from Spirit Daily: https://spiritdaily.org/blog/83368-2/
I just read the article on the link, CC editor, and thanks. I think the then-Fr. Rossetti was guilty of deflecting criticism about the clergy and sexual abuse onto society’s problem in general. He had convenient amnesia about priests being consecrated men which, in my lay-person’s view, makes priests answerable to a Higher authority and displaying greater moral rectitude.
I agree. Rosetti, and all clerics, must be held to a very high standard, above society, as they work for and represent Jesus Christ. Rosetti’s irresponsible comments that “most people are sexually attracted to children,” and that women who are mothers may be guilty of sexually abusing their children, are sickening lies. Very irresponsible for a priest and psychologist to say such things. People who commit sexual crimes are not normal– they are deviant, evil, selfish criminals The St. Luke Institute has a terrible reputation as an abysmal failure to “rehabilitate” criminal clerical sex abusers– they are usually “recycled,” and commit more clerical sex abuse crimes. They all belong in jail– laicized and excommunicated.
Original story: https://www.mosquitonet.com/~prewett/rcpriesttreatment.html
CATHOLIC WORLD REPORT
February 1997
pages 50-59
ESSAY
Salt for Their Wounds
Too many troubled Catholic priests are being assigned to “treatment centers” where unlicensed psychologists encourage them to flout Church teaching. Worse, they are denied an opportunity for genuine help with their emotional problems.
By LESLEY PAYNE
Psychological reports with diagnoses of clerical sex abusers, must clearly state that these men are criminals. They are not “normal” men. No more “psychological theory”-based excuses for their criminal behaviors, and “rehabilitation,” with the intent to “re-employ” them. The Catholic Church must stop deceitful lying about “re-employing” (“recycling”) “rehabilitated” criminals in Roman collars. Criminals must be laicized, excommunicated, prosecuted, and put in prison. No “second chances.” Catholic families and children must always be 100% safe in a church.
I’m waiting for the space alien to comment on this story. It comments a lot. I wonder why not on this story.
The psychological and legal approach to child abuse is the wrong approach to clergy abuse of children, in my opinion. Secular justice has no place in the Church as its theology concerns divine justice. The abuse in question is a sin and puts the soul at risk. Psychology cannot respond to salvation. Keep in mind, child abuse is greater in American society than it is in the Church as is sex traffic and pornography. The Church has been made a scapegoat. It is made to abandon its theology for healing to all parties to abide by social justice while the secular is not required to regard divine justice. No one is really interested in protecting children but rather make them wards of a godless state.
Tennessee Exorcist quetions DC Exorcist’s Removal From the Christian Post via Spirit Daily:https://spiritdaily.org/blog/tennessee-exorcist-floats-idea-of-cursed-spielberg-alien-film-questions-dc-exorcists-removal/