Posted on 07/12/2004 10:26:32 AM PDT by Land of the Irish
Roman Catholic leaders in Austria called an emergency meeting today after officials discovered a vast cache of photos and videos allegedly depicting young priests having sex at a seminary.
About 40,000 photographs and an undisclosed number of films, including child pornography, were downloaded on computers at the seminary in St Poelten, about 50 miles west of Vienna, the respected news magazine Profil reported.
Officials with the local diocese declined to comment but were meeting privately on the scandal, Austrian state television reported.
It said the seminarys director, the Rev Ulrich Kuechl, and his deputy, Wolfgang Rothe, had resigned.
The Austrian Bishops Conference issued a statement today pledging a full and swift investigation.
Anything that has to do with homosexuality or pornography has no place at a seminary for priests, it said.
Church officials discovered the material on a computer at the seminary, Profil said. It published several images purportedly showing young priests and their instructors kissing and fondling each other and engaging in orgies and sex games.
The child porn came mostly from web sites based in Poland, the magazine said.
Bishop Kurt Krenn, a conservative churchman who oversees the St Poelten Diocese, told Austrian television he had seen photos of seminary leaders in sexual situations with students. Krenn, however, dismissed the photos as silly pranks that had nothing to do with homosexuality.
A group of St. Poelten Diocese officials planned to ask the Vatican to remove Krenn as bishop, Austrian radio reported.
Vatican spokesman Ciro Benedettini told the Austria Press Agency that the Holy See had no comment.
Krenn, 68, issued a statement calling the accusations groundless while conceding that he may have made some wrong personnel decisions at the seminary.
When MightyMouseMarcel defied the Holy See and ordained Bishops, he excommunicated himself.
The paperwork followed in due course.
Were BlackElk to be running a Church, it's not likely I'd join it--he's not much for musica sacra.
And your post consists of thought fragments, generally. You can do better if you intend to be a thoroughgoing schismatic.
"You can do better if you intend to be a thoroughgoing schismatic."
Being truly "in communion" with the NO Church will require going to Protestant churches and praying with heretics with my bishop on St. Patrick's Day. Or maybe adopting teenage boys with my bishops approval when he knows I'm going to do unmentionable acts with them will be better suited so I can claim to be obedient to my bishop. Or I can build a Jewish/Catholic camp where both can pray together, after all, both covenants are valid. Heck, why be Catholic at all, when I can remain in Christ's Church by being a Jew is perfectly justifiable to my bishop. Or parading down the street with 100's of "Catholic" queers, my parish's banner, and my bishop's approval will suffice to lift the stigma of being "schismatic"? Our local parish this year also welcomed charismatics with all their goofy antics. Point being, I must at least tacitly accept these events as they are authorized/approved by my bishop else I become a nasty schismatic, disobedient, pope-basher, etc. These are my alternatives, as my bishop will not allow a Traditional Mass (or rarely, and then in a hotel meeting room). So what will you have me do? What will it take to appease you, BE, and my bishop?
As to whether Ecclesia Dei was a lie (surely not) or as to its content which includes the quite justified excommunication of Marcel and the Econe 4 and the declaration that SSPX is a schism, I persist in calling Marcel's actions in such consecrations criminal because they are. Think of Marcel and the cone 4 as guilty of Grad Theft Ecclesiastical by appropriating unto the cone 4 and subsequently a few others authority not legitimartely (lawfully) delegated to them. We have not tried Osama bin Laden, but I have no doubt of his criminality. As to what constutes slander, slander must be FALSE and must be oral. Libel is written falsehood which would include internet posting. Truth (which I have), is a complete defense to any and all charges of defamation (slander, libel, false light, etc,.) I don't think you want these arguments. I practiced law for 25 years as you very likely did not.
You claim elsewhere to attend the once Catholic Seattle University. One can understand the hysteria of one who makes such a poor choice in higher education. You have apparently reacted by fully imbibing the perverse SSPX mythology in service to its schism and its excommunicated self-designated poobahs. Perhaps you will maintain an open mind and return to Catholicism. Perhaps not.
Contrary to the new imagining of some of the schismatics here, I am not posing as THE Catholic authority. That is far beyond my job description and yours too and excommunicated dead Marcel's and excommunicated Fellay's and excommunicated Williamson's and schismatic SSPX's generally. Luther, Calvin and Zwingli did not define Catholicism and neither will the noisy, pesty little schism. John Paul II has that job now whether you like it or not. If you are an undergraduate of normal age, you have not lived through what most of us (including many of your fellow schism adherents) have lived through with this magnificent pope. If you do not like or respect or obey him or the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, that's too bad. You do have free will, of course, and you are responsible for its use and misuse.
May you come to your senses. You will have to convince yourself one way or the other. I am certainly NOT going to add you to my fencing list unless and until you demonstrate something other than schismatic talking points sheets as your base of knowledge. If you abandon Catholicism for the schism, that is your choice. The experience on this website is that the RCC is missing little when it is abandoned by those who would substitute their cultural taste obsessions and cacaphony of disobedience for actual Catholicism.
Insults from the schism are meaningless and weightless as are the schism's pseudointellectual contortions trying to justify dead and excommunicated Marcel and his criminal misbehavior. First, I am in the best company since the schism exists on vilifying JP II. Second, in matters of religion there is nothing about the schism to take seriously. Either Christ's promises are good (and they are) in which case His Church subsists in the Roman Catholic Church founded by Him, and guaranteed by Him to the very end of time OR Christ was wrong and Marcel et al. were right which seems raaaaaather unlikely.
Your last line suggests that Catholics need somehow worry where you attend Mass, in or out of the RCC. We need not worry. You have free will and the ability to use or misuse it. The consequences are yours. It is a big world out there. When a Robert Bork converts from a lifetime of agnosticism to the RCC, when a Senator Sam Brownback converts from Methodism, when a Lew Lehrmann converts from Reform Judaism, when a Pastor Richard Neuhaus converts from Lutheranism and is ordained as a priest, there is much to instigate joy in actual Catholicism. The schism is too busy pope-bashing to accomplish much along such lines.
For the record, the NO Church which I attend when I am not attending AUTHORIZED Tridentine Masses, is 75+ years old in a rural area, has two churches in separate locations and not even an organ much less guitars, much less dancers, much less drums, much less topless women (that would really rub the reserved rural folk here the wrong way) or liturgical dancers or clowns or parades or hand-holding fags (or any other kind of fags) or celebrating the queer agenda. The pastor is quite conservatively inclined and orthodox in his sermons, his moral teachings and his discharge of pastoral duties.
If you want to make claims about my bishop's teachings, perhaps you can provide citations. His name is Thomas Doran and he also serves on the Signatura. Specific citations please as to when Bishop Thomas Doran of Rockford, Illinois, ever publicly stated that it is now impossible to convert Jews or that the Old Covenant is still valid (didn't Someone authoritative say; I come not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it?)! Or, retract a false charge. First: Roman Catholic Churches and dioceses (the ones in communion with the Holy See and not the ones in thrall to dead and excommunicated Marcel) come in various forms. There are some so bad as to have left Catholicism almost as surely as did Marcel and company but lack the formal judgment of excommunication which he and his disciples earned. AmChurch is particularly infested with these bad guys. So is Seattle University and the USSCB (although the termites' numbers dwindle with each ecclesiastical obituary page). Catholics may be like Mother Theresa or they may be as far from saintly behavior as John Francois Kerry.
Second: You cannot very well adhere to the SSPX schism without accepting the leadership of dead Marcel and his fellow excommunicati in lieu of that of the pope.
That dual understanding can lead you back to Holy Mother the Church or not, as you see fit. Grow up!
Also, instead of whining about the Seattle Archdiocese, move to a Catholic one of which tyhere are plenty even in America. If you won't, then inquiring minds may wonder whether you are serious in your complaints in which case you place far too low a priority on your salvation compared to material considerations and whether you value convenience more than the Faith while insisting on service to your cultural tastes. I take it that you freely chose Seattle University in spite of its deviations in other directions.
Poor snookums! They're pickin' on him or her as the case may be.
"Also, instead of whining about the Seattle Archdiocese, move to a Catholic one of which tyhere[sic] are plenty even in America. If you won't, then inquiring minds may wonder whether you are serious in your complaints in which case you place far too low a priority on your salvation compared to material considerations and whether you value convenience more than the Faith while insisting on service to your cultural tastes. I take it that you freely chose Seattle University in spite of its deviations in other directions."
Are you implying the Seattle Archdiocese under Archbishop Brunnett is NOT Catholic by telling me to "move to a Catholic one"? There will never be a perfect diocese, especially in our times, so one must pick their fights. What would you do if your bishop died and Archbishop Brunnett is transferred to your diocese? Will you keep moving until anything resembling orthodoxy is gone? You also seem to think that in the Seattle Archdiocese one's salvation could be in danger by practicing the faith here. Why should this be if it is Catholic, headed by what MUST be a truly Catholic bishop? How can one's salvation possibly be in danger by adhering to a Catholic bishop? How would I explain this to my bishop?
I would not have attended SU if I knew the pit it was before I started. I also thought: "what could be wrong with a "Catholic" university?" There were no alternatives at the time for those working needing night school classes (UW just started an evening program, but I am almost done).
I would like to say I am serious about my faith, which is why I attend the Traditional Latin Mass. It is certainly not convenient for me, as I have to drive several hours each weekend for Mass. It would be much more convenient to go to the NO "Mass" a few blocks away.
You are an odd duck - you deride the NO bishops and AmChurch almost to the point of calling them heretics yet say if I don't obey them I am schismatic. In your posting to me you quite openly admit the Seattle Archdiocese is unCatholic and dangerous to the faith. Are you saying Catholics should move to another diocese because the Seattle Archdiocese and Archbishop Brunnett are dangerous to the faithful here? Or is it only dangerous to those who are not invincibly ignorant such as myself? THAT is your apparent solution to fixing a "bad" diocese - our shepherds are incompetent so move away. What are you telling me about the pope who is indirectly responsible for the souls here and directly responsible for our bishop?
At least I never have to worry about you moving here, unless we get what you personally deem a good bishop.
I don't know anything about your Archbishop Brunnett who is rather unlikel to be transferred here to Rockford. You are the one complaining about Brunnett. You can transfer from eattle University. You can move from Seattle. I had the opportunity to visit Seattle for a week or so for a Young Republican National Convention in 1987. Outside our hotel, two competing groups of communist street thugs were shedding each other's blood in the street in front of the hotel until the Seattle Police personnel arrived to shed the blood of both by grinding their faces into the sidewalks with their shoes. Your weather is tolerable. At the very least, many of your fellow citizens of Seattle are not. I would not move there if you paid me to move there.
To remind those in schism but lacking the capacity to distinguish Catholics from AmChurch types, much of the American Church is in schism as E. Michael Jones reported in Fidelity twenty years ago was the view of Edouard Cardinal Gagnon, then of the Vatican Congregation on the family. For those who expect instantaneous results in accordance with their preferences and tastes, it is very exasperating, no doubt, to have to live through the imperfections of others when the pope could (in their imagination) hurl thunderbolts down to destroy the enemies of Catholicism. Of course many would need some lightning protection of their own, if he did.
Brunett, for all I know, may well be as schismatic as Marcel or even worse. What is your practical plan to resist Burnett to reform the Seattle Archdiocese back to Catholicism while yourself adhering to SSPX which is OUTSIDE the Church? Are you envisioning a press conference by Brunnett in which he apologizes to SSPX types, saying that he is thankful that they brought him to his senses, that the Novus Ordo is hereby suppressed throughout his Archdiocese and that he will be taking directions from such as Fellay and Williamson from now on, while renaming the cathedral as St. Marcel's in honor of the stiff-necked and deservedly excommunicated rebellious Gaul?
I have moved from Connecticut to Illinois because of the desire to live in a Catholic diocese rather than an AmChurch diocese. I have not told you to obey AmChurch or AmChurch bishops in error but rather to trust the papacy, trust the pope, and obey him.
You are schismatic if you adhere to the SSPX schism. JP II and his subordinates have made this clear. You have no obligation whatever to saitisfy me. Satisfy JP II.
"...those who made the argument that we were right and Paul VI was wrong."
But now you tell me to say my bishop is wrong. That Archbishop Hunthausen, who has not received any kind of censure from Rome (as far as I can find), and who recently had a school of theology at Seattle U named after him is a Judas. How do you make these arbitrary decisions as to bad/good bishops? Where do you draw the line of who is a schismatic bishop and who is not? That is, how do you know your bishop is not a Judas?
"To remind those in schism but lacking the capacity to distinguish Catholics from AmChurch types, much of the American Church is in schism..."
So would I be in schism if I attend a NO church/"Mass" in my diocese? And again you claim the Seattle Archdiocese is not Catholic ("What is your practical plan to resist Burnett to reform the Seattle Archdiocese back to Catholicism..."). I have yet to hear Rome declare any current US bishops are schismatic, so how could there be a schism if most US bishops were appointed by JPII himself? How am I to trust JPII as you implore me to do is this is so? Do you believe the pope appointed and maintains schismatic bishops in the church? You see, you confuse me when you say you had to "grow up" and could not do things as you preferred to do them, then claim our duly appointed bishops are in schism. You prefer to dictate on FR who you believe is schismatic and who is not. Again, how will I be obeying JPII which you implore me to do by claiming one of the bishops he appointed is schismatic?
I prefer to listen to those who present an arguement I can at least follow, such as UR who has posted a valiant defense of Archbishop Lefebvre a couple weeks ago. How can I listen to someone who claims our bishops are in schism when Rome has never made such a statement? How can I trust the papacy if he is giving us what you claim are schismatic bishops?
No, I'm afraid I haven't been around much, my wife and I bought a pizza shop so now I work two full time jobs, at the police station, 6 a.m. until 2 p.m., and then generally straight to the pizza shop from 3 to 11.
It's an answered prayer but it's true, be careful what you ask for. It'a alot of work. But it's nice working for yourself. And now hopefully I'll be able to continue to send my kids to Catholic schools.
I do miss alot of threads, whenever I get on FR I usually only have time for the shallow police threads.
Glad to see "The General" still in command of the troops. He certainly has a way with words eh?
Thanks for pinging me. Hopefully when we get our first year under our belts at the shop we'll be able to get another person in and help us manage the place so we can get away for a bit.
Until then, your all in my prayers and thoughts.
Cap.
JPII seems to be a very holy man, but his consistent non-action is letting the wolves run wild in the sheepfold.
rubbish.
reagan and gorby did it ALL.
reagan was a protestant.
gorby was an orthodox russian.
so what?
the catholics may have prayed a lot.
that's it.
so did we all.
this pope did NOTHING to confront communism.
and the catholic church in south america is doing little or nothing to stop communism there.
ridiculous to thump one's chest, and bow to rome, when they did NOTHING of note... to TEAR DOWN THAT WALL.
ping.
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