Blockbuster Book "Goodbye! Good Men" Exposes Gay Subculture in Catholic Church Hierarchy

This book is going to rattle a few cages I'll reckon. As described on the web site:

"In this explosive new book, investigative reporter Michael S. Rose reveals how deliberate discrimination against traditional, or "orthodox," men has been effected by well placed ideologues who want to change the Catholic Church in America to suit their personal tastes and politics."

The following snippets are taken from the 'feedback' page of the Good Bye! Good Men web site. They are currently soliciting even more responses.

-----------------------------------

I couldn't believe what I experienced in seminary
Submitted by Daniel W. Krueger, Ph.D., 8 April 2002, 5:43 p.m.

I am an ex-seminiarian. St. John Vianney College Seminary, Miami, Florida. Diocese of Orlando, Florida. I could not believe what I experienced while in Seminary. I have told few people and far fewer believed me. My experiences were in the early 1990's while I was in my late 20's. My bishop told me that I was obviously confused about my vocation after I complained to the rector about the gay subculture and the unwanted advances. I was told to take the Summer to think about it. I spent the summer in total isolation from my diocese, unreturned phone calls, treated like a second-class citizen. The vocations director told me I had an unhealthy need for attention. Needless to say, I never returned. It was a very sad decision for me and for the small parish in Bushnell, Florida who somehow came up with the money to sponsor my pre-theology education so I would not be strapped with student loans. It was also devastating to the pastor.

I am excited to read this book. I hope that many people will see where our seminaries need help and thus be inspired to push for reform. Congratulations on the upcoming publication!

A crisis that is not peripheral
Submitted by Michael S., 7 April 2000, 6:28 a.m.

I am glad you put out such a book, and without reading it I know its sorrows and woes. I still hope to become a priest if they will let me. The current craze of finding a conservative haven is not easy; in fact I have been in two "conservative" orders recommended by EWTN, and they both have all the trimmings of insanity and untraditional understandings of the Church. While I have not read the book I can say the crisis is not peripheral but shoots directly to the top of the Church as part of the problem. The fostering of a neo-Modernism, under the guise of a New Springtime, has caused irreperable harm to many priests psyche, and the beauty of it is they claim this insanity under the title of "pastoral sensitivity." As a 25-year-old man stuck in a Church that perceives men like me as ossified integrists with a distorted, fossilized perception of the Church, the saddest part is that the Vatican knows our woes, but won't give us the necessary means to overcome these problems with practical solutions. Until the Vatican and those who lead the Church are inevitably held accountable and change, I fear we have blinded ourselves to the true cause which has plagued many good Catholics and will continue to do so in the future.

We need to demand changes
Submitted by T.C., 2 April 2000, 12:50 p.m.

I have talked to many good priests who told me they were lucky to make it through the seminary. They were not allowed to pray the Rosary, not allowed to kneel during the Consecration at Mass, not allowed to have adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. They were taught lies about the faith--not to believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, to masturbate, to experiment with their sexuality, and that homosexuality was OK. There were more homosexual instructors than there were heterosexual. Instructors who taught the truth about the Catholic faith were kicked out. Most of the seminarians who believed in the true teachings of the faith were kicked out or went through a living hell to make it through the seminary. Thank God for those good ones who did. Also thank God for the young men coming into the seminary now who are demanding to be taught the true faith. I really wish you would list every single seminary, rector and instructor who has been a part of this destruction of our Church. We all need to demand changes from our bishops. The seminary that I have been speaking of is St. John's Seminary in St. Paul/Minneapolis. The instructors haven't changed, but the good seminarians are out-numbering the bad ones and starting to demand change. I am still horrified about the lack of courage and integrity of our bishops.

Confused and floundering in seminary
Submitted by Mike W., 2 April 2002, 10:13 a.m.

Unfortunately the Church has a number of irresponsible gay men in positions of influence, which is one of the things that has led us to the present crisis. Gay priests have often been active in 'progressive' movements aimed generally at undermining the authority of orthodox Christianity. Maybe in part this is just their neurotic way of dealing with male authority figures; but also it is ideological and tactical: undermine the authority and you undermine the sanctions against gay sex. And, pace Garry Wills, who of course has his own agenda, it isn't merely fear of being tarred with the same brush that has inhibited superiors from disciplining deviant padres, but fear of being attacked and smeared: few things have made me, a mere nobody, more cautious about expressing an (orthodox) opinion than fear of being mugged by charges of conservatism, or worse --and evoking a more vicious response-- homophobia. Most of the time I think: it's just not worth it. The problem, further, lies in a Church adrift after Vatican II, which left most of the bishops, as well as the faithful, confused and floundering. Spirituality was replaced with pop psychology (there was a fad per week on offer when I was a seminarian in the 80's at a place where anti-clericalism was the norm), and discipline was replaced with 'tolerance.' Church progressives can be distinguished by a craven need for validation by the secular left, and their abandonment of orthodox sexual doctrine was inevitable. We now have the result.

And it goes on and on and on like this....

Is anyone else as furious as I am?

Here's another beauty from the feedback page. Seminary really did wonders for this poor kid. Text in brackets is mine.

Did seminary make me lose my faith?
Submitted by Joe C., 28 March 2002, 6:07 p.m.

I haven't read the book yet, except for the excerpts. I just have some thoughts about the premise. I am a former heterosexual seminarian. [One wonders what this ambiguous statement means...] I first contacted the vocation recruiter in July, 1989. I entered formation in January, 1990. I was in formation until September, 1995. I hung in there six years trying to keep my mouth shut in that environment.

I was in a religious order that was supposed to be vowed to poverty. Initially, it was the upper middle-class lifestyle that bothered me most about my experience. Within a couple years, I slowly became aware that I was surrounded by gays. Eventually, in a formation house of 39 residents, 22 had "come out" to me, and I was pretty certain that at least 4 more were gay. There were some older men who seemed to be good priests by traditional standards. But they were in their seventies, and I was in my twenties.

At the theological union I attended (Washington Theological Union), men flirted with each other daily, and prayed that Pope John Paul II would have a happy death, "...and soon," they would add with a smirk. In the classroom, I was listening to professors, some of whom I still don't know what they believed.

I entered seminary fairly conservative. Like many Catholics prior to 1994, I was open to women's ordination, but willing to support the Pope. I had hoped that I would learn the theology for his side in the seminary. I was even open to the possibility of married priests, but thought that I might have a genuine calling to celibacy regardless of whether priests married or not. I was healthy according to the psych tests. I liked sports, voted moderately Republican or pro-life conservative Democrat, and had a taste for apologetic theology.

By the end of formation, I was on the verge of atheism, and had to drag myself to Mass each week until I recovered some sort of faith. I was furious with the Church. My faith has become very different -- even to this day.

By the day I left, I had become convinced that celibacy for the clergy was a big lie forced on the Church by repressed homosexuals who were finally coming out of the closet in the 20th century. I know there were a few straight men in there, but I felt pity for them. I even began wondering whether Jesus, in his humanity, was gay. As true God and true man, he had to have a human sexual orientation didn't he? I still wonder this.

I am now a thouroughly liberal-progressive Catholic angry at Pope John Paul II over Ordinatio Sacerdotalis....[Clearly, this poor kid had his spirit broken. There's a big millstone waiting in Heaven for someone...]

Another very immature screed. I think Sinkspur has a point.

Immature? Immature? Perhaps that gent needed some more psychological counseling like this fellow?

Unfortunately, it's all true!
Submitted by: Joseph Martinka, 19 March 2002, 9:17 a.m.

"Unfortunately, these allegations both inside today's seminaries and within the walls of today's churches are all too true. As shocking as much of this seems to those on the outside, those of us who have been "on the inside" know all too well what really goes on in the seminaries of the USA. I attended one year of seminary at Saint Andrew's Seminary in New Jersey. Although I was studying for a local religious order, I was sent to the diocesan seminary where I was to achieve my education and live among the students there and then on weekends be reunited with the "community" on weekends. What I heard and saw and experienced behind the walls of the seminary was more than I ever expected to see in a lifetime.

All of what has been said of clergy supporting the viewing of indecent movies, to the sanctioning and outright acceptance and banner waving for homosexuals and lesbians in places of power in the Church--all of these things were talked about in the seminary both among the students and also by the rector himself, who is now a bishop. I think what was more surprising to me, is that the more people I told of the things that I has experienced, the more I got the idea that these things were acceptable and normal for young men, many including myself who were just out of high school at the time, and that if we were in any way "scandalized" by these actions, that we were the ones with the psychological issues and that we were to be sent to the psych office for evaluation, and if we did not "pass the test" put forth to us, then we were "politely asked to leave."

My first and third (of three) psychological exams were given by lay associates. I am guessing that the "priest shortage" has caused them to fall back on lay people to give the exams. On two of the three occasions, I was told point blank that my results stated that I was "a tad too heavy on the Conservative side," and that the recommendation from the diocese was to "wait two years, live my life, find myself, and re-apply." It was at this point that I looked at the option of possibly joining a religious order. However, they too had the idea that there was something wrong with me, because they too felt the need to send me to a psychologist for testing and when the same results came back, it was their "plan" to "mold me into a different person."

All of the stories, all of the accusations of todays changing clergy, the "reforms in the Church, the cases going to court now, they are all caused by the same dysfunction in the Church today. We no longer want holy priests, we no longer want good priests, we want "Play-dough priests." These priests can be molded into the likeness of society. The Church no longer dictates what is best for society, now the tables have turned and "society knows best". I am no theologian, but I do know this, the "priest shortage" is the biggest ploy to hit the Church since the story of Pope Joan. And like Pope Joan this priest shortage does not exist, nor has it ever existed. It is a fool's game to try and turn the Church into a circus run by those in power who have their own secrets to hide. When Vatican II "opened the windows to let a breath of fresh air into the Church," it choked up a lot of people in power and now they are being forced to come clean, the stories are coming out and the truth is setting us free. Now maybe we will see that the changes that really need to be made are as close to us as a Council of Trent part II or a Jerusalem III. These priests that come out of toady's seminaries are not shepherds, they are wolves led to deceive rather than to bless, they will cause the sheep to be lost rather than found.

We need to vacuum out the seminaries and return the Faith and the morals, the sanity and the sanctity back into the seminaries so that in the four years that a man will be trained in the seminary, those four years will be in return a lifetime of holy service to Holy Mother Church."

The activities these young men describe are positively Stalin-esque. And yet you call THEM immature? You must be joking.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.