Replies

Perhaps some area Freepers could show up and protest them.

Has the USCCB even announced the hotel at which the meetings will take place?

The meetings will, no doubt have very tight security, and the Call to Action people won't get anywhere near the bishops.

From what I've read, the bishops are inviting in some outside experts on child sexual abuse, and some of the victims, to address them.

They are NOT going to entertain speeches from outside interest groups.

They are NOT going to entertain speeches from outside interest groups.

True; and unfortunate. As Chairman of ABE Ministries (Against Basically Everything) I had prepared a firey speech peppered with adamantine analogies, dyspeptic denunciations, numinous non sequiturs and incandescent irrationalities that I was prepared to deliver in an obstreperous rant castigating everything that has happened since the Thirteenth Century and now it looks like all my work has come to naught and the Bishops will content themselves listening with faux interest to "experts" ceaselessly droning, blathering, dithering and temporising about "norms, programs, committees, canon law," blah, blah, blah...

Had they accepted my offer, sparks would have flown, calumnies been shrieked and the possibility of an entertaining fist-fight would not have been so remote that Vegas would have taken if off the Board. It's their loss...

Has the USCCB even announced the hotel at which the meetings will take place?
The semi-annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will be held at the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas, Texas, from June 13 to June 15. They are NOT going to entertain speeches from outside interest groups.
No, but you can still make your voice heard as follows:

Most Reverend Wilton D. Gregory
President
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3211 4th Street, N.E.
Washington, DC 20017-1194 Tel: (202) 541-3000
or
Most Reverend Wilton D. Gregory
President
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
c/o Diocese of Belleville
222 South Third Street
Belleville, IL 62220
Tel: (618) 277-8181
Fax: (618) 277-0387

Happy FReeping! : )

The meetings will, no doubt have very tight security, and the Call to Action people won't get anywhere near the bishops....They are NOT going to entertain speeches from outside interest groups.

Maybe not, but you can bet if these people are on site, they'll be making their presence known and be splashed all over the press as 'official' spokesmen for the Catholic Church. Their spin will be the one that the ordinary Catholic in Scanton, Detroit, and Tacoma sees.

I think it would be great if local Dallas Catholics could get together SPECIFICALLY to protest groups like Call-to-Action and call upon the Bishops to remove dissenters from any position of authority.

Well, here we go again.

This meeting of AmChurch bishops, terribly afraid that effective action against pedophiles, pederasts and other perverts in the priesthood and in their own ranks or effective action against the enablers among them or effective action among the raving leftist heretics among them who make despising Catholicism their true profession while wondering over how their pal Father Lance could possibly have been diddling a series of little Johnnies, will now come to order. We have banned the press and media from, ummm, certain parts of our meeting, lest they report what mushballs we truly are as we agonize over what just happened to poor Rectalbert just because he championed all things alternative to Catholicism (like many or most American bishops) and because he was (sniff, sniff) so sensitively involved, (nose blowing in the background) so intimately involved in a loving personal ministry to a young artiste roughly of the male persuasion with a very strong lavender overlay. Even $450,000 of the money of the rubes in the pews was not enough (sob, sob). If they can do this to our Rectalbert, how many of us are safe from all this icky nosiness.

Roger Cardinal Mahoney: I move that we hear from the enlightened folks at the American Psychiatric Association. They were enlightened enough to stop, by democratic vote, referring to Rectalbert's and Paul's powerfully loving witness against God to no longer be evidence of mental illness. All they had to do was say so. Nobody loses and everyone gets prizes!!!!

William Cardinal Keeler: I second the motion. Can we also hear from the American Psychological Association? can we also do this quick? After all, Saturday night is date night and we are in Dallas where the action has been from the size of judgments handed down here.

Bernard Cardinal Law: We have arranged for bail for Father Paul Shanley, a definite expert in the area under discussion and a progressive in other areas too. Father will help us to understand Little Johnny's need for the NAMBLA treatment before 8, etc. I want this speeded up too. I can't be sure how long I will be free.

Unidentified voice: I think gay married priests might be the thing although monogamy is sooooo boring. Whatever we do, don't let all this scandal slow our progress. If we lose momentum and Rome acts efficiently, the catholics might be back in control.

Well, you get the picture.