The Cardinal McCarrick Syndrome

Both McCarrick and Law have been my bishops. There is such a well-fed, well-groomed sleekness about both of them, for all that one is thin and the other fat.

I don't know why the pope can't swoop in and appoint as bishop a good, rumpled, down-to-earth, joyously faithful man like my pastor, who is an excellent administrator and a counselor to abuse victims, instead of another political climber from the hierarchy.

Probably because the Holy Father never hears the names of priests like my pastor. Maybe the laity should be able to vote.

The McCarrick situation is the only one I've had many conversations with a variety of Catholics -- few of whom knew each other -- about, all of the stories pretty much the same, and repeated to me not as "I heard this from somebody" but "I saw this" or some close variation of.

I've never heard anything like this about Cdl Mahony, and nothing about Cdl Egan that was remotely like the McCarrick stuff.

Cleveland, you're simply wrong about this. Just last summer my bishop openly destroyed a whistleblower despite press coverage.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2006/01_02/2006_02_07_Lombardi_OutingCardinal.htm

http://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/a01o_Pedophilia_Mahoney.htm

I could've logged another 400 or 500 google hits about each. This stuff is out there. It's been out there forever. Granted, some folks have axes to grind. But there's simply too much on both of these prelates for it all to be nonsense. I sincerely with it were otherwise, and that instead we had decent cardinals and bishops like Sean O'Malley of Boston or retired Cardinal Bevilacqua.

What horse manure! First, the press would fall all over itself to break this story if it could, knowing that it would even forgo confidentiality if push came to shove.

Cleveland, pal, you're talking through your hat. You're making assumptions based on ideology, not based on how the press actually works. How many stories involving no identifiable violation of criminal can you identify that the MSM broke based entirely on anonymous accounts, provided without documentation? This is why I keep saying that only a small fraction of what reporters who covered this beat actually know, or believe to be true, has ever been reported.

Believe me, I've been in the position of begging sources to go on the record, because I firmly believed they were telling me the truth about scandal stories, but they wouldn't. The three that I found most heartbreaking was the laywoman who worked for the Church, whose story I was able to independently corroborate to some degree, but who wouldn't go on the record for fear she would lose her job, and her ability to support her kids (her husband had left the family). Another was a religious who knew of criminal activities (not child molestation) but who would not go on the record for fear he was betraying his vows. A third was a novice who knew of criminal activities (not child molestation) who was not American, and who feared he'd be sent back to his country if he told what he knew (other publications later reported on the case that so upset him, using other, on-the-record stories).

The McCarrick case is important not because it's important to get rid of Cardinal McCarrick, because of what he symbolized. The Vatican knew about the accusations against him, but it didn't hurt his rise. It used to make me so angry to hear him appear on TV talking about how gosh, none of us in the hierarchy knew how bad this scandal was, we just couldn't imagine it, blah blah blah. Mahony was doing the same thing at the height of the crisis, but we now know from extensive documentation that has since come out in court that he's a liar. That stuff has been in the media, and why? Because of court documents, mostly.

The reason why the entire scandal blew up so big starting in Boston in 2002 was because Judge Constance Sweeney refused the requests of Church lawyers to do the usual thing, and put documents under seal. That made the documents public. The rest is history.

Rod, as I have been saying for years, the ultimate culprit is the fact that the bureaucratic, centralized hierarchy governing the church inculcates arrogance among its members, isolates them from the people they supposedly govern, discourages any form of accountability and transparency and demands blind deference from the faithful. How else could priests and bishops get away with sexual abuse? How else could they cover up and support each other?

What "orthodox" Catholics fail or refuse to realize is that Matthew 25 applies to such de facto apostates. "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to Me," Christ said. As I said previously on another thread, if that's true then Christ was sexually molested by priests who then were protected by the "apostolic successors'!

Be not deceived, fellow Catholics, God is not mocked. God is judging this wayward Church for its infatuation with power, prestige and secular influence. Why do you think vocations are falling, people are leaving and dioceses are declaring bankruptcy?

Erin, there's a lot to the McCarrick story. I know personally that evidence was presented to a curial official, by faithful orthodox Catholics of professional standing, including a priest. The Church has the power to investigate these things if proper authorities deem them credible. The reason priests and religious who have direct knowledge of bad deeds by hierarchs won't go public with them is usually fear of retribution by those same hierarchs. Pope Benedict could free them to speak, in private, to his investigators about what they know. If there is credible suspicion, grant the whistleblowers protection, hear what they have to say, and weigh the evidence. There is no need to make this public if the Church doesn't want to.

Cardinal McCarrick is gone and therefore not an issue as far as I am concerned. Whether he was or wasn't does not bother me.

Maybe Pope Benedict will act more proactively and WISELY on the appointment of bishops. Whether all the rumor, innuendo, gossip, etc is used or not used is of no concern to me. I think the main issue is that better bishops be appointed in the future.

Erin, I'd be interested in what you have to say -- I'm considering becoming Catholic at great personal expense, and when I read stuff like this, it really makes me step back. I like and trust Rod on most things (except the global warming thing; Rod, you're suspicious of everthing else; how about that?), so when he writes on this issue, it affects me. As you're a thoughtful person, I'd appreciate your thoughts. If not here, how about emailing me at maximusconfessor[atsies]gmail[dotsies]com?

I've read pretty much everything there is to read, but thanks.

Irenaeus: I read and like your blog very much. Even as one who chose differently than how you appear to be leaning (I became Orthodox, not Catholic), let me tell you very simply that if you believe Catholicism to be true, let nothing stop you from joining yourself to that communion. These men will have much to answer for, not just in terms of what they have done directly but also in terms of how their actions have raised doubts and created stumbling blocks for people such as yourself (and Rod, for that matter), but that itself is not a question about the content of the faith. To paraphrase G. K. Chesterton, sin does not disprove the efficacy of the Church any more than rain disproved the efficacy of Noah's ark.

Pray for the bishops, as we all pray for all bishops and all sinners (including ourselves) -- but when considering the impact of obstacles put up by men, also consider the words of J. R. R. Tolkien in a letter to his son: "Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament....There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that: death: by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste (or foretaste) of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, that every man's heart desires."

Hope this helps.

Richard

This reminds me once again of why I'm so glad to be out of that church. Jesus said we would know the tree by its fruit, and there is certainly too much rotten fruit in the Catholic clergy for me to stomach. So many of them seemed to have absolutely no understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Dang Irenaeus. You beat me to it.

I love Ed Peters.

"The inherent rot at the heart of the Catholic Church is all about power. The sexual harassment detailed in the article as about power and the abuse of power, not about any "homosexual agenda." These men enjoy complete power and impunity over the priests and religious and lay people under their authority."

What--and you don't think people compartmentalize? Many heterosexual men I've talked to who were in the seminary, especially up into the late eighties or early nineties, will tell you that there was most definitely a homosexual aspect to these sorts of things. Absent the bishops who had to give the appearance of towing the line, many of the folks doing the harassing were not your straight laced orthodox.

The left and the right both have valid points when they talk about the scandal.

problem with that, Elizabeth, is that you'll find rotten people and rotten clergy in any communion, and I don't think there is a higher ratio of bad apples in the Catholic communion than others.

That's true, read the Jenkins book. But the deep pockets are absent, hence the non-story. I suppose a genius lawyer might figure out a way to milk small protestant denoms and extend the model.

George Weigel made this point in his excellent but largely overlooked 2002 book, "The Courage to Be a Catholic."

That is a good book.

What good is the episcopal structure? Well, as the joke goes, the problem with any church is that there are people in it. There are going to be stinkers with mitres wherever you go -- that really can't be useful as a metric. You can't reject the entire flock because of the misbehavior of the shepherd.

Without the Eucharist, it's dysfunctional club. With the Eucharist (that is, with Christ), it might still be a dysfunctional club, but the Eucharist transforms it into far more than it could ever be on its own, just as Christ transformed a bunch of not-terribly-bright, petty, and fearful guys into the Apostles who changed the world.

Richard

Many heterosexual men I've talked to who were in the seminary, especially up into the late eighties or early nineties, will tell you that there was most definitely a homosexual aspect to these sorts of things.

While I think there's a bit of a homosexual panic among these people that everyone seems to know but who are unwilling to go public with their gossip and allegations, it would be naive to pretend there isn't a gay subculture inside the priesthood. Of course, there is also an Irish (hard drinking, flirtatious with the ladies) subculture and an Italian (hard drinking, sexual with the ladies) subculture within the priesthood.

Beyond the gay panic, at its core the priesthood has always had a level of corruption and power in its ranks. Talk to Catholics who remember the 1950s and 1960s can tell you stories about priests having affairs with female parishoners, priests getting drunk at the local bar, priests having girlfriends on the side. They can also tell you stories of physically abusive nuns and priests. All of these things were covered up by the bishops because "that's the way it is."

Fast forward to the sexual abuse scandal and suddenly everyone is acting like corruption and power is a new phenomenon and that it's all about homosexuality. But the cover-ups are nothing new and the unwillingness to respond is a product of decades of the powerful covering up the sexual and ethical lapses of the priesthood.

While McCarrick may have been furthering a "lavendar mafia," he was also furthering a tradition of covering-up for priests who commit ethical wrongs. It's just how things were done across the country. Irish bishops covered up for Irish priests, Italian bishops covered up for Italian priests, lecherous drunk bishops covered up for lecherous drunk priests.

"While McCarrick may have been furthering a "lavendar mafia," he was also furthering a tradition of covering-up for priests who commit ethical wrongs. It's just how things were done across the country. Irish bishops covered up for Irish priests, Italian bishops covered up for Italian priests, lecherous drunk bishops covered up for lecherous drunk priests."

As I said, Daniel, there are valid points made on the left and the right, and both sides seem to want to ignore the other.

I'm a bit sympathetic to allowing priests to marry, but I really fail to see how this has any connection to sexual abuse--other than the theory that celibacy may cause fewer candidates to the priesthood (itself a bit of a tenuous conclusion) and cause dioceses to accept some bad apples.

I've said this before on this blog--but a little bit of common sense goes a long way. Just because a man feels he has a calling to the priesthood does not mean that vocations directors should overlook common "worldly" signs that the man is going into it for the wrong reasons. We ought to ask ourselves--would this candidate do well in any other career? Would he make a good father? Is he someone that would, to some degree, be socially accepted in broader society? Does he have interests other than just reading theology?

Bishop D'Arcy is one prelate who asks these questions, and he was also one of the men who, though my memory is a bit sketchy, was pointing out the problems with the St. John's seminary in Boston.

And conservatives should by no means think being orthodox solves everything. It does not.

Things are tough all over. There is systemic rot and corruption in Rod's new communion, too. In fact, arguably, the contemporary Catholic Church is doing a hell of a lot better job cleaning up its mess than the OCA's in-denial, corrupt leadership is doing cleaning up its mess.

As a Catholic, I find these frequent tu quoque arguments really, really lame and rather offensive.

It is unquestionably true that scandals in the Catholic clergy are more likely to come to light than scandals in other churches or religions, because Catholic dioceses are more attractive targets for trial lawyers. The Church's legal structure under U.S. law makes the assets of an entire dioceses, comprising hundreds of parishes, potentially available to a plaintiff harmed by one priest. Not even the largest evangelical megachurches offer anywhere near as appealing a target to plaintiff's lawyers (whose principal motives are, let's be frank, self-serving and pecuniary). Absent pending litigation and documents made available through compelled discovery, there wouldn't be much for journalists to investigate.

That said, no faithful Catholic should be interested chiefly in the rate of abusive behavior among Catholic clergy relative to that of officials of other churches or secular institutions. What matters is that we have a serious problem on our own hands, one that needs to be cleaned up.

Much of the cleaning up began in 2002, and I agree with Fr. Neuhaus that the Catholic Church in 2008 is probably one of the least likely places for a young person to be sexually abused. But for Catholics, sin and scandal are far more serious evils than secular crimes. Potentially criminal behavior involving minors has been addressed with all sorts of programs and draconian penalties.

But there remain two problems involving gravely sinful, scandalous behavior: (i) gross misgovernance by bishops, and (ii) condoning of consensual sexual activity involving clergy. Rarely if ever do these problems involve criminal activity, and it stretches the legal mind to make an argument for civil liability. So we don't hear much about them. Yet if the Church is to become an effective witness to the Gospel in this broken culture of ours, these problems must be addressed and resolved.

rr- apostolic sucession has nothing to do with the sinfulness or sinlessness of bishops, the successors of the Apostles. But why would it? THe examples of the Apostles themselves proved that all men are sinful and require a Redeemer.

Don Altobello, as usual, is speaking good sense here. I think you're much younger than I am, Don, and probably much more conservative, and I always appreciate your posts. Daniel, if you remember kindly advising me on Northern VA parishes, you might know that I'm no fan of the "hush it under the rug" school of Catholic thought. I've tussled a bit on the 'Benedict and the Bishops' post, for example.
And, sorry, Rod, but I can't take your political columns anymore. You've played right into the idiotic "elitism and condescension" charges against Barack Obama, oh so funny when one looks at the background of any viable candidate fielded by either party. I only read this blog for the religious content, which is handled by our host with civility and intelligence.
Let's keep it there.

quote: "rr- apostolic sucession has nothing to do with the sinfulness or sinlessness of bishops, the successors of the Apostles. But why would it? THe examples of the Apostles themselves proved that all men are sinful and require a Redeemer."

Of course I realize that clergymen are sinners too. But I have a hard time seeing an ordination as valid when 1) it was known beforehand that the man being ordained was involved in serious sin (e.g. sexual or financial) and had no intention of repenting 2) the man being ordained got his office via simony, and/or had no qualifications and/or calling for the ministry, or in the worse cases was not even an adult.
Today it is clear than #1 has occurred in several cases, while in the middle ages both #1 and #2 occurred, including for the ordination of bishops and papal elections. Maybe it's just the Protestant in me that takes the Bible serious, but passages such as 1 Timothy 3:1-10 seem to rule out ordaining men in categories #1 and #2.

rr

It is hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea that until less than a hundred years ago, a Catholic prosecutor could be excommunicated for attempting to hold the clerical class accountable under the laws that everybody else had to obey.

Although I do think bishops should be accountable to civil law, I can see the wisdom in the Church being hesitant to expose their clergy to civil prosecution. It is very easy to see how civil officials could abuse this power against the Church - not as easily in the U.S., granted, but the Church is in every nation, including those which have a more "pliable" enforcement of the laws.

Rod,

The 1917 Code of Canon law was the governing code until the revision of 1983; so the strong defense of the privilegium fori was on the books within the past 25 years.

Apparently the Church has more or less abandoned the privilegium fori in concordats with various countries. I suppose it has been abandoned in the US as well -- but it seems to me assertion of this privilege contributed enormously to the Scandal.

I see the privilege as directly analagous to diplomatic immunity for foreign nationals. The Catholic Church in effect asserted and obtained an immunity for clerics that might also be awarded foreign diplomats -- while being completely unwilling or unable to appropriately sanction its clerics guilty of grave crimes.

It would be interesting to have a real canon lawyer weigh in here.

I think it is good this is coming out and that, if he is guilty, Cardinal McCarrick should be exposed. My one worry here is about how it is happening, no accuser(as far as I can tell) has publically gone on the record in this case, Richard Sipe seems to be citing anonymous files he has.

Any pastor, of any denomination can tell you about receiving anonymous, "poison pen" letters against parishioners. I'm sure bishops and the Pope receive them too. I invariably destroyed these as a pastor (none alleged abuse of minors), reasoning that if someone would not sign a name the person vilified should not have to deal with the accusations (usually they were just insults).

I worry that we may have gone from believing no accusations of abuse against Catholic priests to believing any accusations of abuse, even anonymous ones. Especially in cases like this McCarrick case that involve adults, do we really want to go to these lengths?

Due process and the ability to confront your accuser exist for a reason, and the Church has paid dearly for ignoring these rights in the past. I strongly believe in reform of the Church but I worry about the means in this case.

rphjr60 said: "My one worry here is about how it is happening, no accuser(as far as I can tell) has publically gone on the record in this case, Richard Sipe seems to be citing anonymous files he has."

That would be my worry too, if it were not for the following part of Sipe's statement:

"I know the names of at least four priests who have had sexual encounters with Cardinal McCarrick. I have documents and letters that record the first hand testimony and eye witness accounts of McCarrick, then archbishop of Newark, New Jersey actually having sex with a priest, and at other times subjecting a priest to unwanted sexual advances..."

As Ed Peters remarked on his blog, Sipe's statement "leaves little room for nuance".

SusanF--thank you. A btw, Don Altabello is a psuedonym. He was the mafia don in Godfather III whose Canoli Connie poisoned.

Rod--I'll give a "common sense" anecdote of what I'm talking about (in addition to yours). A certain priest (recently ordained) frequents some of the same events I do. He is boorish, self-obsessed, and (though this word is much mis-used) rigid. He injects himself into conversations constantly, dominating the conversation to talk about theology. The man also seems to have control issues--likes to lord his authority and knowledge over others. Once in a discussion group that he visited, the leader asked him about his vocation story (as a courtesy), and he took about 25 minutes. There's other stuff I have personal knowledge of (nothing criminal or deeply immoral, just unseemly), but I won't disclose it here.

Every time he comes near a group I'm in, I'll just walk away. Now--many people will give this type of person deference because he is a priest. My contention is this--why in the world wasn't someone scratching their head or pulling him aside during seminary? I have no reason to believe he is abusive--but ordaining these types of people just influxes the priesthood with men who have all manner of character problems.

"Now why not everyone just take it easy, and please someone make me a drink of grain alcohol and rainwater, and help yourself to whatever you'd like.

Max, do you see your role as just being a bitchy Jay Leno or do you ever strive to actually further the conversation?

Monomania? I've read this blog for about a year or so, and Rod addresses subjects like gardening, peak oil, politics, and so forth much more often than he does Catholicism in general or Catholic sex scandals in particular.

rr

Actually, I was thinking more Paul Lynde than Jay Leno.

Damn misspelling again! Don, I am embarrassed...

"Actually, I was thinking more Paul Lynde than Jay Leno."

LOL! Of course YOU would! Wishful thinking and all that. Actually, a bit of projection on your part again! LOL!

Erin, as a long time lurker here let me say that you're the best.

As one of his noisiest critics, let me also add to kudos to Joe for retracting his remarks about Erin.

Rod, your' welcome; miles, thanks much. I'd appreciate it. I'm here, if you are curious.

"I know the names of at least four priests who have had sexual encounters with Cardinal McCarrick. I have documents and letters that record the first hand testimony and eye witness accounts of McCarrick, then archbishop of Newark, New Jersey actually having sex with a priest, and at other times subjecting a priest to unwanted sexual advances..."

OK looks good, where are the names? Why aren't they published? Will the accusers go public? Will they let their names be revealed to McCarrick as well as the Pope?

I hope McCarrick is exposed if he is guilty and sanctioned in some way, if only in the court of public opinion.

Keep in mind that what is alleged is serious sin, not a crime, it might be sexual harassment, but that is something someone is sued for, not put in jail for.

This is how the world works, anonymous accusations won't fly. The only way Maciel's accusers succeeded, after far too much time and trial, is because they went public. And his was not just a sin but a crime against minors studying in seminary.

Let's say you got an anonymous accusation that a prominent person in your business was sexually harassing employees? I'd hope you'd investigate it, but if no one would make a formal complaint what could you do? Confronting the accused is one strategy, sometimes it works. But for the hardened narcissists who are sexual harassers only sworn testimony can take them down.

Also, the idea of not reporting these crimes, is it not the very purpose of "Solicitationes crimens"? (pardon my lack of Latin).

No, it isn't, despite the fact that you keep insisting that it is. Why don't you bother to read Crimen Solicitationis if you think it's such a smoking gun?

CS deals with reporting allegations of a specific ecclesiatical crime ("solicitation") which involves abuse of the Sacrament of Confession. In Church law, solicitation is just about as serious a crime as there is, resulting in excommunication of the cleric. Most cases of ecclesiastical solicitation wouldn't have any secular criminal connotations at all. Likewise, very few cases of criminal sexual abuse involved ecclesiastical solicitation.

Rod is right, by the way, to note that we can't connect sexual abuse with doctrinal orthodoxy or heterodoxy. But I'm convinced that we CAN connect it to clerics (and others) whose lives lack any evidence of serious ascetical struggle, which includes frequent recourse to sacramental confession.

Because we do not consider that a 15 year old boy can have concentual sex with someone in an authority position over him, someone who uses that position to have the power over him that sexual relations at that age can result in.

"Because we do not consider that a 15 year old boy can have concentual sex with someone in an authority position over him, someone who uses that position to have the power over him that sexual relations at that age can result in."

It's not "child" rape, either. It's homosexual sex with a minor (ie. statutory rape).

The hurly-burly arising from Mr. Sipes' recondite treasury of innuendo concerning Cardinal McCarrick's erastic proclivities is indeed a most entertaining diversion. Uncle Ted, who is not accused of immorality towards children, is merely a benign example of the kind of perversely inflamed libido resulting from a sodality deprived of the charm, wit, and the (dare I speak its name?) gaiety of female intercourse. It is the inevitable consequence of the obtrectatious Pauline dictum exhorting female silence in church. The vulgar immediately propose the remedy of married priests and priestesses. This is an error. Temple prostitution would solve the problem and preserve the mental sanity and sexual salubrity of a baccalaureate priesthood.

A certain Greek professor of mine, himself a dévoué of the demi-monde, once informed a class, "you haven't loved until you've had a lover of both sexes." My look of feigned shock and befuddlement immediately drew his baleful glance and he asked whether I disagreed. I replied I had no opinion on the matter but I couldn't imagine that, like intact maidens in the seraglio, there were all that many hermaphrodites to be had. I then incurred his further wrath by solliciting his advice about whether, in a riot of pastoral rut, I should besmirch the honour of a flock of sheep, in anticipation of his possible empirical researches into bestiality in the upcoming semester. One really ought to do one's homework, particularly in a class on Greek poetry.

That homoerotic attachments were prevalent among the ancient Jews is clear enough: how else to explain the levitic condemnation of men lying with men? It is analogous to the condemnation of foreign baals. The natural lassitude of lawgivers is not to be disturbed by the proscription of iniquities yet unindulged in by the sinful masses. Further, the condemnation consists in the prohibition of a man lying with a man as with a woman; it was surely obvious to the Hebraic solons that a man cannot lie in the same manner with a man as with a woman since the man does not possess the requisite ventral anatomical accoutrements as the woman. The clear intent of the torachic author is that a man may not do with a man that which he may do with a woman: viz. sodomitic copulation. Likewise, oral copulation is forbidden among males, since that mode of gratification is restricted to heteroerotics. Then as now, Israel's survival was a demographic crisis.

I note in passing that the Law in many of its particulars has been triumphally superseded with the coming of the Messiah.

Furthermore, as is well known the Hellenic poleis were avid ideological practitioners of homosexualism, in variations from the decidedly non-laconic Spartan eromenoi, to the Theban band, and to those merry Athenian symposiasts, who buggered everyone from the flute-girl to the lyre-boy.

I mention this because it bears directly on Pope Benedict's persuasive defense of the rational faith of Christianity, as expounded in his Regensburg disquisition. There he extolled the liberating crasis of the Hebraic and the Hellenic fonts of the Christian faith, and drew cogent conclusions for the arete of that faith, specifically as against the Islamic, but also by implication the Hellenic and Hebraic individually.

But, to return to our sheep and their unblemished honour, it is clear that McCarrick's Helleno-Hebraic dalliances are no more to be condemned than those common to the confluential traditions which he inherits, on the one hand obtrusive and obnoxious, on the other unremarkable, uncensored, unchastened. A good Act of Contrition should suffice.

He is rather to be condemned for having invoked the false baal of Mohammedanism, as he did indeed do at Catholic University, an act of flagrant apostasy. But as he is forgiven the mortal sin, let him also be forgiven the venial.

"The hurly-burly arising from Mr. Sipes' recondite treasury of innuendo concerning Cardinal McCarrick's erastic proclivities is indeed a most entertaining diversion. Uncle Ted, who is not accused of immorality towards children, is merely a benign example of the kind of perversely inflamed libido resulting from a sodality deprived of the charm, wit, and the (dare I speak its name?) gaiety of female intercourse."

Ah yes monsieur Roland, and there is no better proof of this irrefutable tenet than the virile masculinity and throbbing heterosexuality of that most virtuous and chaste of prelates: the Episcopalian bishop.

Max Schadenfreude: Wow Roland! You better watch out. I've been called pendantic here just for using the word "calumny".

My dear Max, I sympathise, as I have also been called "pendantic", and by a demoiselle who was deeply appreciative nonetheless! (Aren't typos great?)

TRP: Ah yes monsieur Roland, and there is no better proof of this irrefutable tenet than the virile masculinity and throbbing heterosexuality of that most virtuous and chaste of prelates: the Episcopalian bishop.

I think the relevant tenet is more likely that of my former Greek professor. Come to think of it, there was a Robinson fellow in the class. Abysmally bad oral Greek he had too.

TRP: Indeed, the libido of one particular prelate was so soothed by the "gaiety of female intercourse" that he opted never to have intercourse except in the role of a female, which no doubt brought him much gaiety.

Tsk, tsk. Though you may be right, I discerned no suggestion of Uncle Ted's preferred posture in the Sipe gripe.

Cleveland,
Bishop Lovede's vindictiveness is well-known in NoVa; Haley, Clark, et al. Are you referring to Fr. Clark? I believe he won his appeal to Rome, but he's still MIA. Or one of the others banished to the far reaches of the diocese, Stafford, Shenandoah, Colonial Beach, for speaking up? Or maybe Fr. Pokorsky, who will never be a pastor because he is a wonderful priest who is unafraid to speak up?

And, Bender, I do have a right to know if Loverde is doing anything wrong with Brother Eddy, for example; if my sons have a vocation to the priesthood, it isn't detraction to warn me that they should investigate another diocese, just like it was highly appropriate for people to warn them/me against the LC.

"we are just going to have to accept it as a given that some Catholic priests are going to betray their vows of celibacy with consenting adults of either sex." - Caroline

Caroline, the people that Rod's thread addresses are neither "adults" NOR "consenting".

The question now is, does this story have any legs? I have heard these rumors about Uncle Teddy's New Jersey beach house from people who work in and around the Church for years, but this is the first time I have seen accusations in any mainstream blogs.

Part of me hope this becomes public (assuming it's true), so that the Church will be forced to confront the problem of homosexual clergy.

If morality, natural law, and vows made to God aren't enough to encourage some of our priests and bishops to remain chaste, then maybe the fear of public humilation and disgrace will do it.

"Or one of the others banished to the far reaches of the diocese, Stafford, Shenandoah, Colonial Beach, for speaking up?"

You know, there's something seriously wack with this sort of thinking. Since when is being sent to serve God's people in a small town a punishment or a bad thing? As someone who lives in a rural area, I take umbrage at this. I am a Virginian, though I live in the Richmond diocese, but Shenandoah is right up the road from me and it's a lovely place, a real nice little town. Stafford??? The boondocks??? Oh, come, come!! Colonial Beach may not be the great tourist draw it was in the days before the interstate but still, it's a nice place!

That's one of the things that's wrong with the Church, the idea that if you are a success as a priest, you will get a large parish in a big city and if you are sent to the "diocesan equivalent of Siberia" you are being punished in some way. Tell that to the Cure d'Ars! I don't know about Arlington, but it is true in Richmond that being assigned to a large parish or one in Richmond, Roanoke, Charlottesville, or Tidewater, is seen as a sign of the Bishop's favor. The little towns, not so much. However, I know of several very good and holy priests who welcome doing pastoral work in the little towns and one very good man who volunteered for service in Southwest Virginia, which is pretty much seen as being akin to the dark side of the moon. One priest who served in my parish as a seminarian was sent to a parish on the Kentucky border. I asked him if he minded. No, he said, he was happy to go wherever the Bishop wanted him, and besides, he was much closer to his brother in Cincinnati than he was to Richmond!

The idea that being sent to a small out of the way town is a punishment is basing success in the Church on worldly ideas of power and influence. And besides, us hicks need good priests too!!!

I have friends at both the Washington Post and the Washington Times. Each paper, neither of which shies away from embarrassing stories about the Catholic Church, has pursued this story and dropped it-- nothing ever has turned up but rumor, and that won't wash. According to a reporter from the Post, it all melts away as soon as you try to pin anything down. And the Times reporter who got fired from the Haley story for inaccuracy even tried to drag McCarrick into that, but couldn't.

So IF there's firsthand testimony it's hiding awfully successfully.

Thanks for that update, Marty. I think you will see a gradual increase in seminarians and then priests now that Sullivan has been replaced.

What I cannot fathom is what some people are calling John-Paul, The Great,since all of these problems have mostly occurred on his watch!!