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Pro-Life Champion Bishop Martino Retires

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Kathleen Gilbert

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Scranton’s Bishop Joseph F. Martino, one of the most vocal pro-life and pro-family defenders in the American Catholic Church, announced at a press conference today that Pope Benedict XVI had accepted his resignation.  Martino cited wavering health triggered by stress as the reason for his resignation.

As Scranton’s Auxiliary Bishop John Dougherty is simultaneously retiring, the Pope appointed Cardinal Justin F. Rigali of Philadelphia to serve as Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Scranton until a new Bishop of Scranton is named.

Martino said that the stress from dissent among members of his diocese led to his petitioning Rome to resign in June.

"For some time now, there has not been a clear consensus among the clergy and people … on my pastoral initiatives or my way of governance," said Bishop Martino. In addition to causing him "great sorrow," said the bishop, the stress from the friction caused him to suffer from insomnia and "crippling physical fatigue."

Martino, 63, said the diocese ought to have a bishop "who is at least physically vigorous. I am not that bishop."  He thanked those who collaborated with him, and sought forgiveness for his shortcomings that were "due to my human limitations."

Rigali, who was at the conference, expressed his "deep gratitude" for Bishop Martino’s service.

Martino served as Bishop of Scranton for the past six years.  During that time, he attracted attention in pro-life and pro-family circles across America with his staunch guardianship of the Church’s teaching on abortion and homosexuality.

In February, Martino rebuked Scranton parishioner Sen. Robert Casey for supporting President Obama’s abolition of the Mexico City Policy, simultaneously reminding Scranton’s ministers of their obligation not to offer Communion to politicians who support pro-abortion policies.  "Your failure to reverse this vote will regrettably mean that you persist formally in cooperating with the evil brought about by this hideous and unnecessary policy," the bishop told Casey.

Later that month, when Scranton’s Misericordia University hosted a homosexualist speaker, Martino told his diocese that the school had "seriously failed" in maintaining its Catholic identity, and called on the school to give an account of its moral teaching on sexuality.

In March, Martino again displayed his commitment to Catholic teaching on the sanctity of life by reminding St. Patrick’s Day paraders that St. Peter’s Cathedral would be off-limits to the revelry if organizers honored any pro-abortion politicians.  The previous year’s parade had honored pro-abortion Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Pro-life Catholic leaders have praised Martino as an outstanding example of fortitude among the American episcopacy.

"[Martino] has become a real hero for a lot of us," American Life League president Judie Brown told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) earlier this year.  "We finally have someone in Bishop Martino who is willing to stand up and lead and be a good shepherd – regardless of what the media says, regardless of what people think – simply because he knows that it’s right to be as outspoken in defense of the Catholic Faith as he has been."

In response to a question on how he viewed his own national legacy, Martino said today that his devotion to the sanctity of life was "a longstanding and visceral concern of mine, a principle of acting and being, and I never talked about that with any desire to attract to myself any following."

Martino noted that, when once a local pro-life group wanted to honor him at a banquet, he declined the award: "You don’t accept awards, I think, for what you’re supposed to do," he said.  "I only did what I was supposed to do."

The bishop also mentioned that he has received letters from pro-lifers who said his example had given them encouragement.

"Many times, pro-life people, because they are very dedicated and passionate, get ‘sloughed off’ as – the media sometimes, the secular media, and even sometimes in church circles – as people who are sort of ‘pesky,’" he said.  "I always found that rather difficult to handle.

"I think that they are, because of their passion, because of their devotion, they are very dear to the Lord and certainly deserve the encouragement, the prudent encouragement of the bishop.

"Not to any radical fringe – all groups have radical fringes – but to the mainstream people who want to work to overturn a profound cancer in our society, the sin of, frankly, murdering 50 million people," he said.  "And I think we have begun to become quite blasé about that, and that scares me above all.  That scares me very much."

Comments

8 responses to “Pro-Life Champion Bishop Martino Retires”

  1. Arkanabar Ilarsadin Avatar
    Arkanabar Ilarsadin

    Pray for Bishop Martino!

  2. Pro-Life Champion Bishop Martino Retires | Pelican Project Pro-Life

    […] Read more from the original source:  Pro-Life Champion Bishop Martino Retires […]

  3. fatherjo Avatar
    fatherjo

    I get the impression Scranton is teeming with pro-choice Catholics and other boobs.

  4. elkabrikir Avatar
    elkabrikir

    What a gift to the Church you are Bishop Martino. My 81 year old Penn aunt LOVES you and told me this news on Sat. You are in my prayers. Persevere to the end. The Crown of Glory awaits you even as the thorns of malevolence pierce your scalp.

  5. maugello Avatar
    maugello

    Martino gutted his diocese (my diocese), closing churches and schools left and right. His problems locally had nothing at all to do with politics and everything to do with destroying 100-year-old religious communities where everyone in the church came from the same village or town in Sicily, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, etc. He destroyed these parishes and schools, all the while refusing to even listen to alternative plans to keep them open and serving the people who loved them dearly. Good Riddance.

  6. fatherjo Avatar
    fatherjo

    Abortion is fundamentally a moral issue, not a political one. Perhaps if the good people of Scranton had united behind their bishop on the moral issues they would have found a more sympathetic ear on keeping some of their parishes and schools open.

  7. fatherjo Avatar
    fatherjo

    Not only that, but had the Catholics of Scranton been faithful to the teaching of the Church regarding contraception and abortion, emphasized by their Shepherd, Bishop Martino, they would have had no trouble filling their now abandoned churches and schools.

  8. randyengel Avatar
    randyengel

    “The relocation and restoration in South America of the formerly suppressed, U.S.-based scandal-ridden Society of Saint John (SSJ) is one of the most outrageous examples of ecclesiastical malfeasance facing the Catholic Church today,” charges Randy Engel, Director of the U.S. Coalition for Life.

    “Disbanded and forbidden from representing itself as ‘a recognized ecclesial entity of the Roman Catholic Church’ by Bishop Joseph Martino, of the Diocese of Scranton in November 2004, after years of credible accusations of moral turpitude and gross financial fraud, the disgraced Society of St. John has found protection and solace in the arms of Bishop Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano of the Diocese of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay,” says Engel.

    “At the heart of the controversy is Bishop Livieres’ incardination of SSJ founder Fr. Carlos Urrutigoity into the Diocese of Ciudad del Este,” says Engel. “The incardination took place despite repeated warnings from Bishop Martino to Livieres that Urrutigoity’s unchastity, disobedience and outright rebellion, and financial extravagance made him “unfit for ministry,” and despite assurances made in March 2006 by Archbishop Orlando Antonini, the Apostolic Nuncio of Paraguay, that Urrutigoity (and his accomplice and rapist Fr. Eric Ensey) were temporarily in the Diocese of Ciudad del Este, but had been sent away by Bishop Livieres. “… It seems that it does not remain any trace of this Society in Paraguay,” reported Archbishop Antonini. “That turned out not to be the case,” says the Coalition director.

    “In his public letter of November 17, 2008, in defense of the SSJ and Urrutigoity,” says Engel, “Bishop Livieres states that Urrutigoity stands innocent of the charges against him; that there have never been any “serious and credible charges” against him; and that the “campaign of defamation” against him “was “orchestrated by one source.” “I believe that the record will show that the bishop’s assertions are incorrect on every count,” says Engel.

    “From his earliest days as a seminarian at the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) Seminary of Our Lady of Co-Redemptrix in La Reja, Argentina, Urrutigoity was accused of maintaining particular friendships, and of homosexual tendencies and acts against his fellow seminarians and layman living at the seminary,” says Engel.

    “Later, after a brief stay at the priory of Cordoba (Argentina), Urrutigoity was shipped out of Argentina to the SSPX’ St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Winona, Minn. where he was ordained in 1989 and given a teaching position,” says Engel.

    “In 1997, shortly after Urrutigoity was expelled from St. Thomas for ‘subversive activities,’ that is, secretly plotting a new religious order, he sexually molested a seminarian who had left with him – an action prosecutable under both canon law and civil law,” says Engel. “Unfortunately,” says Engel, by the time the incident was reported to SSPX authorities, two years had passed, and Urrutigoity and his followers had found safe haven in the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania headed by Bishop James Timlin.”

    “It was Timlin who gave the newly formed pederast Society of St. John its canonical standing as a ‘clerical association of the faithful’; lent his financial assistance to the building of the Society’s “City of God,” a project which attracted more than $5 million in donations but never materialized; and appointed the SSJ members as chaplains at St. Gregory’s Academy, a Catholic boys’ prep school operated by the Fraternity of St. Peter,” says Engel.

    “Among the many warnings concerning Urrutigoity that Timlin received but ignored,” says Engel, “was a confidential letter dated February 10, 1999, from the SSPX Superior General Bernard Fellay confirming the charges of sexual abuse against Urrutigoity stated above, and citing earlier charges made at the La Reja Seminary.”

    Referring back to Bishop Livieres’ letter of November 2008, Engel notes that “while in 2001 the Scranton Independent Review Board reported that there were no explicit allegations of sex while Urrutigoity was sleeping with students at St. Gregory’s, the bishop failed to report the Board’s final recommendation made on March 21, 2002 which stated ‘In view of the credible allegation from the seminarian, his admitted practice of sleeping with boys and young men, and the troubling evaluation by The Southdown Institute, Father Carlos Urrutigoity should be removed from active ministry; his faculties should be revoked; and he should be asked to live privately (emphasis added).’”

    Engel reports that “Even after the Scranton Diocese in 2002 was named as a co-defendant in a $1million plus sex abuse lawsuit brought by “John Doe,” a former student at St. Gregory’s Academy, who charged Urrutigoity and another SSJ priest, Eric Ensey with sexual assault,” says Engel, “and the case had been settled in the plaintiff’s favor for $454,550, Timlin continued to praise and support the SSJ just as Bishop Livieres is doing today.”

    “There is no doubt that there is a ‘cult of personality’ that has developed around the charismatic and charming Urrutigoity,” says Engel, “and it is well-known that he has powerful familial, financial and ecclesiastical connections in Argentina and Rome, which explains the extraordinary degree of protection and immunity he has enjoyed over the span of more than two decades.” “But our concern is, and always has been, for the physical, moral, and spiritual welfare of the vulnerable and innocent children and youth who will fall into Urrutigoity’s path as a result of his appointment to the diocese by Bishop Livieres,” says Engel

    “I believe the Catholics of the Diocese of Ciudad del Este have every right to demand that plans for the canonical erection of the Society of St. John by Bishop Livieres be terminated and canonical procedures begun to return Fr. Urrutigoity to the lay state,” says Engel. “If Bishop Livieres refuses to take action in this matter, then the task falls to the Holy See and ultimately the Holy Father,” she says.

    “The U.S. Coalition for Life pledges its assistance to the people of Ciudad del Este by freely providing to Catholic organizations and members of the media throughout Paraguay and South America all the documentation necessary to back up the Coalition’s charges against Fr. Urrutigoity and the Society of St. John,” Engel says.

    “We also plan to challenge the Society’s IRS tax-deductible tax status which currently enables the Society to raise funds from clueless Catholics in the United States for shipment to Paraguay,” she says.

    “Neither Urrutigoity nor any other member of the Society of St. John is going to bugger his way through any youth or seminarian in Paraguay or anywhere else if we can help it,” says the Director of the USCL, “but we can’t do it without the help of the Catholic laity and clergy of the Diocese of Ciudad del Este.”

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