Catholic Interest Groups See in Scandal a Chance to Further Their Causes

FOXNEWS.com ^ | Tuesday, April 09, 2002 | Catherine Donaldson-Evans

[Orual]

Traditional Catholic Churches in Maryland

St. Francis de Sales Church
7185 Benedict Ave., Benedict, MD 20612
Fr. Saverio Vitturino, (301) 274-3416,
francben@bellatlantic.net
Diocese, SU 11 am

Our Lady Queen of Poland Parish / Old St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church
9700 Rosensteel Ave., Silver Spring, MD 20910
Fr. Vincent Ridgdon et al., (301) 942-9577,
latinmasscongreg@aol.com
Diocese, SU 7:30 am

St. Alphonsus Church
114 Saratoga St., Baltimore, MD 21201
Fr. John Bowen, S.S., (410) 685-6090
Diocese, SU 11:30 am (1st/3rd Cantata), Holydays 7 pmp St. Joseph Church
47 DePaul St., Emmitsburgh, MD 21727
Fr. Alfred Pehrsson
Diocese, 1st SA 8:30 amp

St. Hilary Church
3823 2nd St., Brooklyn, MD 21771
Fr. William Jenkins, (410) 795-4317
SSPV

[inquest]

Well now you're beginning to make me question my blind faith in the mainstream media's vigilance in covering all relevant aspects of a given story!

OK, you can stop laughing now. Seriously, though, that is a very interesting underreported aspect of this whole mess. But I do want to ask one other thing. Suppose these crimes were to have been committed in the 1930's (assuming that there would have been priests back then who'd be given to such behavior, which I'll admit seems a bit of a stretch). What would have been the reaction of the church authorities then? Would the incidents even have been reported? Would they even have taken seriously someone who dared accuse a priest of having molested him?

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Wasn't alive in the 1930s, I'm afraid. I think what changed in the 1970s was that homosexuals "came out" and it was not vigilantly discouraged or stopped in seminaries. There were other changes in American Catholic religious life. #1: In some seminaries and certain religious orders, it was no longer customary or even required for seminarians or priests to wear clerical garb. They could dress and look like anyone else, come and go as they pleased. This made the "priest" option for homosexuals more attractive.#2: The Church in America also tended to begin giving priests more money. More funds - more clubbing, gourmet dining, and clothes shopping (all key aspects of gay subculture). #3:They dropped requirements to seriously study Latin and Greek. Not as academically hard anymore.#4: And most importantly, disappearance of curfews. Was anyone watching where they went on Friday and Saturday nights? #5:And then, above all else, the homosexuals organizationally challenged and defied Church sexual teachings. Whatever homosexual predophiles may have encountered in American Catholic seminaries in the 1930s, it was hardly like this. If anyone can find an example of a Catholic priest speaking our publicly in favor of homosexual pedophilia in the 1930s without discipline from his bishop, I'd like to see that source.

If you are interested in the subject of changes in the Church in the U.S., Prof. James Hitchcock's book The Pope and the Jesuits, published almost 20 years ago is a good place to start.

[father_elijah]

Your post is nothing but cyber-vomit. Vade retro, Satanas.....

[father_elijah]

Thank you for your excellent post. I was about to post a tome when I glanced down and saw your succinct and well phrased post. Again, many thanks.

Mary, Queen of All Saints, pray for us.

[Stavka2]

Read some articles, even Mother Terrisa was quoted as wishing to see this. This is not some made up crap. US News and World Report ran a special issue on this last year. So don't go around accusing me of being stoned out of reality.

[Stavka2]

And you guys don't recognize the legitimacy of the Patriarical order and councils, that until the Schism, were the only ones (through Ecomunical assemblies) that were allowed to create/decide on Church dogma.

[Stavka2]

Gee, strike a cord in you or something? I find it quite humerous that the Catholic church has allowed itself to sell itself down it's own river...which by the way, started with all those Latin American communists mascarading as priests. As for your little ignorant comments on being universal and not broken down on ethnic lines, that is pure ignorance that you have proven to own. Any Orthodox of any ethnic group can go to any Orthodox church. We have greeks, etheopians, syrians, palistinians, russians, serbs and bulgars in my last church.

[.45MAN]

You might be right and I pray you are. People are taking a stronger stand in many church's around the country and demanding the real rules be followed and there are a number of new priests that really believe in the traditional ways...

[EODGUY]

Holy smokes...you should have said you got your information from US News and World Report. I would have accepted your ridiculous claim on it's face if I had known your resourse was that great theological periodical. /sarcasm off/

How about quoting Mother Theresa's comments on this issue, and the context in which they were spoken?

[american colleen]

There really is something strange about this eye contact or look. I have noticed it but can't quite figure out whether they see something in us or we see it in them.I just "feel" something strange transpires

Absolutely! I've had it happen several times... you know of one, but there is the CCD nun in our parish as well. There are two nuns running the program... it happens to me with one ALL the time and with the other one not at all.

[american colleen]

Adding to my last comment to you regarding "the look in the eyes"... I attended a Mass said by Bernard Cardinal Law about a month back because I wanted to look into his eyes. What I saw in them was profound sadness and defeat... I do not think in and of himself he is an evil man, but I do believe he has succumbed to the evils of the world in the forms of money, comfort, false flattery, and I believe, blackmail.

The day of the Mass, I wanted to shake his hand and tell him I was praying for him and for him to help us in Boston through the crisis, but something held me back. I had 1/2 regretted it until yesterday's full disclosure regarding Cardinal Law's actions regarding Fr. Shanley. Cardinal Law should be the first to go among many. The cover up is almost as evil as the crimes by the homosexual priests.

[tiki]

Was this meeting set up to discuss the ''scandal"?

Naw, it was just an adult education meeting.

As far as the looks go, I think I have a gift or a curse for those looks when I was a substitute teacher they worked like a charm. I've noticed that a lot of people who are uncomfortable or knowingly wrong can't stand up to the scrutiny of a straightforward gaze.

Sorry it took so long to get back to you.

[american colleen]

While I agree with just about everything you state in your post, I don't know if the homosexual problem got worse in the 1970s

"I think what changed in the 1970s was that homosexuals "came out" and it was not vigilantly discouraged or stopped in seminaries."---- (quoting you there)

- almost every single accused priest here in Boston (and unhappily, seems we are the worst cesspool) went to seminary in the early 60s... in fact, Father Shanley was ordained in 1960, so he went in the 50s. I agree, the behavior seemed to "blossom" after 1970, but the huge amount of homosexual priests were all there well before that. Curious for your views on this.

[Sir Gawain]

[ejo]

Well said, there are so many misconceptions of Mary's role it is almost mind boggling. Yet, so simple that the intelligantsia misses it. Peace

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

In terms of the actual numbers and percentages, there's probably no real way to know since there are probably not records on the subject going back very far. In terms of the homosexual subculture becoming more aggressive, more open, and more organized, it would seem that it is actually the case that the policy and lifestyle changes in post-Vatican II Catholic religious life attracted more gays. Along with the open PC dissent from the Church's sexual teachings which became possible without discipline from superiors or the traditional social stigma. The 1979 Medeiros letter to the Vatican (HERE #25) which is on the Boston Globe site does actually mention the organized nature of the homosexual movement in American cities as one sociological aspect of the problem. Quite a lot of the relevant conservative literature on the subject focuses on the idea that things changed rather dramatically in the post-Vatican II period. James Hitchcock's studies, the articles in Crisis magazine, Rose's book Goodbye! Good Men, and even, oddly enough, Garry Wills' recent article, hype a new sociology at work within the ranks of the clergy. Still, quite a lot of speculation about homosexual clergy in prior history, without eye-witness testimony and real evidence, remains somewhat speculative. It would have been more difficult to cruise gay bars if one were in a seminary or a religious order which had a curfew, a requirement to wear clerical garb at all times, limited monetary allowance, steady, monitored schedule of study and prayer, a ban on using church funds for gourmet dining and clubbing, and a greater stigma for violating or denying church teachings on sexuality. All of these areas were subject to some change during the cultural revolution of the last 35 years or so. My father claims he never encountered openly gay people in Catholic educational institutions in his day. I could not quite say the same thing.

[american colleen]

Thank you very much for your detailed reply. Like I said, I agree with you on what you say. I did read the Boston Globe link with the 8 page letter from Cardinal Medeiros to the Vatican - interestingly, Cardinal Medeiros (now dead of course) was accused last week of molesting a child (now adult) who is bringing substantial (and most probably true) charges against a priest who worked with Medeiros and lived in the Cardinal's residence with him here in Boston. I don't think most Bostonians believe the charge about Medeiros, btw. He was a good man, evidenced by the letter referenced above. I think even a lot of the good men were/are corrupted by blackmail - else why did they reassign the evil priests?

My father (aged 65) told me that when he was a kid, he heard occasional rumors of seminarian "bed-hopping" but never, ever anything regarding child molestation. He attended Catholic School all over Boston (as did all Irish Catholics in the city back then) and had many priests as friends and aquaintances.

I'll be at the bookstore on Friday to buy "Goodbye! Good Men" and I will be subscribing to "The Wanderer" and also "Crisis" magazine.

Thanks again.

[nickcarraway]

These ``Catholic Interest Groups'' are supposed to teach us that if we were ``really Catholic'' we'd be Unitarian, right?