Mama Told Us So

Over a hundred years ago, the Queen of Heaven made the sun her plaything in the sky. She wasn’t showing off; she was trying desperately to get our attention. Her warnings from Fatima were echoed again years later in Akita, Japan, on the very same day as the Miracle of the Sun had occurred. She told us of terrible things to come, including corruption within the Church.

Well, Mama told us so. 

The hierarchical Catholic Church is rank with evil men in clerical garb. It’s a dreadful thing to say, but there is no point in pretending otherwise. The lay faithful are in an awful, damnable spot: we want to trust our shepherds because we truly love our good priests and bishops, we need Real Food, and we truly love the Church. We will not leave because we cannot. 

Yet all reserves of trust, good will, and benefit of the doubt are drained bone-dry. We have had enough with being made the fool. We are done with seeing lambs abused by vile priests unworthy of even being called a hireling. 

The poignantly crafted statements of sorrow continually offered by our fine-robed, crosier-carrying “servants” might as well be written in dung, for that’s what they are: empty words, stinking of excrement, served up not to apologize or confess but to placate and silence.

Anger is miles behind us. We are enraged. We are disgusted. We look at our corrupt prelates with revulsion. We know these wicked, perverted men protect and promote one another, and we know they do not care what we think or how we feel.

That fact was underscored this summer by Pope Francis when he made a cardinal out of a bishop who, by any right moral standard, should be defrocked and criminally charged. As bishop, Robert McElroy protected a priest he knew was a rapist and Satanist. He knew this scum had raped a young virgin he’d groomed for years, while defiling the Holy Altar with satanic worship.

Meh, so what. What’s a little rape and Satanism among clergy? All summer long we endured public notes of congratulation all over social media, as other bishops across the country chimed in to cheer for McElroy and extol his many “leadership” qualities. There was gushing and awe aplenty. 

None of them said a word about Rachel Mastrogiacomo. Who’s she? Robert McElroy knows. After enduring the rape and violation of a satanic priest, she had to endure more betrayal at McElroy’s hands as he sheltered the predator and tried to hide his crimes. What sparkling leadership!

So, McElroy’s got his red hat now and it seems the gushing and awe isn’t finished quite yet. Archbishop Cordileone of San Francisco just announced on social media that he will host a celebratory dinner in McElroy’s honor later this month.

Rachel shared with me personally her reaction to Archbishop Cordileone’s betrayal, and I hope the archbishop reads every word: 

I felt unexpectedly stabbed in the back by this. In fact, it was even more excruciating than the events of this past summer. You see, at least I saw the Francis betrayal coming. This, however, is the kind of knife wound that actually kills you. For instance, the betrayal by my friends hurt more than the abuse by my enemy, and Archbishop Cordileone’s complicity feels like salt in that very wound. I cried to heaven before the rising of the sun, “What are these men trying to do, stab me right out of the Church?”

I have been wounded by this brood of vipers over and over again. In fact, the stabbing just doesn’t seem to stop. First, I was groomed and ritually raped by a Satanic priest. Second, Bishop McElroy protected him and covered up the dark crimes he committed against me. Third, after I finally reported the crimes to law enforcement, my duped friends took his side and bullied me into the plea agreement. My rapist of course skipped right out of jail. And alas, seeing Francis put that red hat on top of McElroy’s head on that dreadful Saturday in August felt like a global display of my nothingness, a declaration to the whole world that “Rachel Mastrogiacomo does not matter!” It was like I did not even exist.

In light of Archbishop Cordileone’s celebration of the crook who covered up the crimes committed against me, I came to terms with the brutal guarantee that these things are destined to continue. Because the hierarchical Catholic Church is sick to the core and clergy sex abuse survivors face unending consequences as a result of the current sickness, I must make the decision to either flee in the face of all this or continue to get flogged. For me, choosing to remain Roman Catholic feels like an actual decision to get flogged until the day I die.

At the risk of being melodramatic, there’s that awful, damnable spot that all the faithful are in, including faithful clergy. Remain faithful, and get wounded, day after day. The vipers are many and they take care of each other.

Yet Christ is our Good Shepherd, and He will never abandon His sheep to the wolves. He will be the one to deal with all His priests, and earthly justice denied will not be forgotten for eternity. For the weary and bleeding faithful, those truths can be, I will dare to say it, little comfort. 

How long, O Lord, must we endure the abuse of wicked priests? How long must we watch them prosper?

His reply is His call to forgive as He forgives, and to trust Him with everything. Mary’s pleading was that we make reparation for offenses by our own sufferings. And to pray, pray, pray the Rosary for priests and bishops. 

Rachel said rather than spend the day agonizing over Archbishop Cordileone’s “disgusting celebration of a complicit cardinal,” she ran instead to Our Lady of Fatima, remembering Mary’s instruction to keep her eyes on eternity and Heaven. Mary has told us how to fight back. “In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph.” 

Archbishop Cordileone, use that “lion’s heart” to trample the vipers. Don’t celebrate them.