Mother Teresa and the Paedophile Priest

Fr. Donald McGuire, Jesuit, serial paedophile and spiritual advisor to Mother Teresa

Catholicism's favourite new demi-saint, "The Blessed" Teresa of Calcutta, was a friend of a paedophile priest and intervened to get him reinstated in his parish, where he subsequently carried on with his predatory paedophilia, sexually abusing more boys before finally being arrested and imprisoned.

This was revealed in papers leaked to the San Francisco newspaper, SF Weekly in January 2012.

The priest in question was Fr. Donald McGuire, currently serving a 25 year sentence for what the judge described as:

[P]articularly detestable because he abused the trust of parents and had perversely taken advantage of their children. [His Actions were] abhorrent, unacceptable, and‘a very, very serious sin.

USA District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer
(quoted in Chicago Sun Times online, February 11th, 2009)

This sentence exceeded federal guidelines for sentencing for these offences because Judge Pallmeyer felt the crimes were exceptionally serious.

It transpired that Fr. McGuire, who had been closely associated with Mother Teresa since 1981 and had been appointed her confessor and spiritual advisor, had been suspended and sent for psychiatric assessment following his abuse of a young boy in 1994. In her letter to Fr. McGuire's Jesuit superior, Mother Teresa acknowledged that she knew of his crimes but still pleaded for Fr. McGuire to be reinstated as a parish priest.

I understand how grave is the scandal touching the priesthood in the USA and how careful we must be to guard the purity [sic] and reputation of that priesthood... I must say, however, that I have confidence and trust in Fr. McGuire and wish to see his vital ministry resume as soon as possible.

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu
(Mother Teresa of Calcutta)

McGuire, of course, immediately resumed his predation on young boys.

As with very many other senior church figures, what characterizes Mother Teresa's intervention is a concern only for the predatory priests and defending the reputation of the church. There is little or no regard nor compassion for the victims of these unrestrained predators operating under cover of a priesthood in a church that acted more like facilitators of abuse and providers of their victims, rather than guardians of vulnerable people in their care.

It is very clear that there was little or no vetting of people who obviously went into the priesthood for the opportunities it provided to practice their depravity disguised as people who could be trusted, and little concern, even when they were known about, to prevent these abuses continuing.

And these people still lay claim to be the guardians of society's morals, to set standards of behaviour for the rest of us, to be consulted over matters of ethics and law, and to meddle freely in the private lives or others, whether wanted or not. Yet we see time and again that the piety they put on display is a sham; a cover to hide under. There is no belief in a god of honesty and integrity who condemns abuse of children and will one day hold their abusers to account.

If we didn't now take it so much for granted, this nauseating hypocrisy would be shocking. As it is, people now barely raise an eyebrow when another priest is caught abusing a child or a bishop or cardinal is found to have covered it up, and avoided compensating their victims by financial sleight of hand and legal maneuvering.

And no-one bats an eyelid when a paedophile-defending nun, who systematically deprived dying people of effective pain relief in the perverted belief that Jesus would appreciate it, gets fast-tracked to beatification.

If Pope Francis is serious about atoning for the Catholic Church's crimes, then he could make a start by reversing the beatification of this repugnant nun and apologising to the families of her victims. And yet he hasn't even told her order, the Missionaries of Mercy, to repay the stolen money she accepted from people like Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier of Haiti and convicted fraudster, Charles Keating to stuff into her order's bank account while her nuns begged for food on the streets of Calcutta to feed her dying victims.

---