Kill the messenger is not an adequate defense

Robert Royal has an excellent article on this today on his experiences over the weekend, go and read it.

This weekend my family was on a retreat for special needs families.  Every year, we send the kids to "respite care" - playtime with volunteers- while we care giving parents get a much needed break and a chance to talk.  This session is led by a priest.

This year, Fr. Raul told us a couple of things we really didn't want to hear.  The first was that this would be the last year he was able to come to this retreat, as he's been named as the priest for the deaf community in Portland (and yes, it was a joy to watch him say mass, as he's picked up the habit of adding American Sign Language to the mass- the closest thing I've ever seen to actual honest-to-goodness holy liturgical dance in accordance with the General Instruction- quite beautiful).  And yes, I did make the suggestion that next year, we add the deaf community to the English weekend for the Journey Together in Hope Retreat- I think they would add much to the rest of our disabled community.

The other thing we didn't want to hear, but which needed to be said, was that every good priest he knows- including himself- are burning up the ears of their spiritual advisers and father confessors.  He himself has gone from monthly to weekly confession, and same with sessions with his spiritual adviser.

This was on Saturday, before the last bomb dropped, and we found out the Pope himself had encouraged this cabal's resurgence in the past 5 years.

That bomb was received by many with what has now become the standard modus operandi for armchair apologists.  It is a game called "kill the messenger" or "discredit the messenger".  Archbishop Vigano gave us such a damaging report, that the first instinct is to slander him, rather than believe such awful things about Pope Francis.

But a pattern of this has emerged, for the same thing has happened repeatedly.  In Ireland, Italy, France, Chile, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Honduras, the Philippines, the story is always the same:  believe the clerics, discredit the abused.

It is time to stop this.  It is time to declare that killing the Messenger is not an adequate defense for what was done.