Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Free Preview Clip
Ex-nun Mary Dispenza was raped by her parish priest at age 7; in gentle, firm terms, she challenges Pope Francis…..Click here for free audiobook download from Audible that generates $15 to the PBC Podcast!
In this in-depth interview, Mary Dispenza tells of being raped by her parish priest in second grade. She joined a convent after high school, and did not deal with her trauma until age 52. In her gentle, but firm voice, she speaks out against the sex crimes of priests and the bishops and Vatican officials who covered them up.
She deplores the patriarchal system of the Catholic church, its treatment of women, and protection of serial molesters. After lawyers forced the Los Angeles archdiocese to release its documents, she learned that at least 32 other women also accused her predator, George Rucker.
We talk about retired Pope Benedict, who defrocked 400 priests, after he managed the coverup and denial of crimes by priests as a Vatican official before he became pope. We discuss former Boston cardinal, Bernard Law, who retired in disgrace and now has a cushy post at the Vatican. She relates her own private meeting with former Los Angeles cardinal Roger Mahony, who also retired in disgrace; today, we learned more from news reports about Mahony’s role in the 1988 coverup of a Mexican priest who was allowed to escape to Mexico after molesting 24 boys in less than a year.
Dispenza has strong words for the new pope, Francis, and calls him out to confront this scandal directly, instead of giving Vatican asylum to a Polish archbishop who is personally accused of abuse, and concelebrating Mass with the disgraced Mahony at the same time the UN was conducting hearings at Vatican City on sex abuse.
And we talk about the response of American bishops, who use surrogates like “Catholic Advocate” to launch scurrilous attacks on the UN instead of addressing the crisis it documented.