Posted on 02/23/2004 7:12:24 PM PST by Land of the Irish
STATEMENT TO THE PRESS Crown Plaza Hotel, Albany, February 22, 2004
by Paul Likoudis
The death of my good friend and close collaborator for the past 13 years is devastating to me personally and completely unnecessary.
Do I blame Bishop Howard Hubbard for this tragedy?
Yes, I do. But there are other culprits and hosts of guilty bystanders.
After the release of Agony In Albany 13 years ago, a ten-part series on the dismal record of Bishop Hubbard in this diocese, which I wrote with the close cooperation of Fr. Minkler, the bishop should have had the decency to resign, for his own good and for the good of Catholics and the general population of the Diocese of Albany.
Instead, he instituted a reign of psychological and institutional terror, focused in particular against the good priests and the good Catholic laity of his own diocese, as evidenced by the demand that priests individually and collectively rise to his defense and denounce me, The Wanderer, and, in particular the Agony in Albany series, and members of the Coalition of Concerned Catholics - from the pulpits on Sunday mornings - without any attempts to answer or rebut any of the numerous crimes and malfeasances which were exposed and documented. This has continued to last week when Hubbard brought unbearable pressure to Fr. Minkler himself.
The abuse of Fr. Minkler, this reporter, and the Catholic people of the Diocese of Albany continues.
Bishop Hubbard's decision to pressure Fr. Minkler to sign a phony disclaimer is part of that 13-year campaign.
His current decision to hire attorney Mary Jo White at $770 per hour - higher than the average weekly wage of most of his struggling flock - with unlimited budget for her expensive investigators and ancillaries - is yet another example of his willingness to fleece his flock.
No amount of money - and Mary Jo White's investigation could end up costing Catholics ten thousand dollars a day - can possibly absolve Bishop Hubbard or rehabilitate his shattered image.
During the 10 week run of Agony in Albany from the first week of March 1991 to the second week of May, 1991, Bishop Hubbard went to his friends at the Albany Times Union to generate a series of positive reports that portrayed him as the very model of a very modern bishop. At the same time Agony In Albany was reporting the concerns of priests and laity that Hubbard had a policy of recruiting homosexuals to the priesthood, some of whom had been expelled from other seminaries, he even defended his policy of recruiting homosexuals in the Times Union.
After Agony In Albany was printed, the Coalition of Concerned Catholics in Albany circulated more than 5,000 copies of the assembled ten articles, and sent copies to all reporters and editors and priests in the Diocese of Albany, politicians, police, other professionals and diocesan bureaucrats and parish leadership.
It had no restorative effect. To the contrary, Hubbard's persecution of good Catholics, lay and clerical, intensified, and the abuses continued and increased during the past 13 years.
Because an acquiescent media was told to ignore The Wanderer, because it was "extremist," Hubbard was emboldened and empowered.
Additionally, Hubbard would never have been permitted to conduct his reign of terror against the Catholics of Albany if he did not understand implicitly that he had the protection of the press, the politicians, the police and above all, most of his fellow American bishops.
Why didn't Catholic Governor Mario Cuomo intercede for the Catholics of Albany and advise Hubbard to step aside?
Where is Catholic Governor George Pataki? Why, for the good of the Church, doesn't he quietly tell Hubbard he has lost all credibility?
Where are all the prominent Catholic politicians and professionals and the influential, wealthy Catholics? Why not speak the truth to Hubbard and tell him he must step aside.
Where are the media? Why are they giving Hubbard a pass on one of the most notable fleecings of his flock for his own personal benefit and protection?
If an institution cannot correct its corruption from within, it needs to be corrected from outside. It is time for the politicians, the police, the press and the Catholic people to demand that Howard Hubbard step aside or be degraded from the office of Bishop of Albany before there are any more tragedies like the death of good, courageous Fr. John Minkler.
# # #
Where is Catholic Governor George Pataki? Why, for the good of the Church, doesn't he quietly tell Hubbard he has lost all credibility?
Where are all the prominent Catholic politicians and professionals and the influential, wealthy Catholics? Why not speak the truth to Hubbard and tell him he must step aside.
Likousis left out the sole person who could remedy this problem in one day: the Pope.
Trying to see it from their angle, I suppose they get deluged with complaints and have no patience for tattle-tales. It may come back to haunt them that they didn't listen and do more. Their priorities sure seem screwed up to me.
It is the Pope who tolerates these bad bishops and refuses to fire them.... But he lets this corruption continue. What should this tell us?As I see it, right now, on one hand we have Brady and Likousis, again undertaking a sincere, worthwhile effort in a fight against the evil attacking and infiltrating The Church, and they are not implicating JPII, much less blaming him. On the other hand, well, we have the enemy, the smoke of satan.
Maybe more like Windswept House?
Yet the disgraced Bishop Ryan still dispenses the Sacrament of Confirmation to young children.
STATEMENT BY THE NORTH AMERICAN DISTRICT HEADQUARTERS OF THE PRIESTLY FRATERNITY OF SAINT PETER REGARDING MISLEADING REPORTS IN THE MEDIA
ELMHURST, Pa—The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter notes with deep regret the appearance of an offensive and misleading attack upon its leadership, its members, and its apostolic mission within the Church, published in the Fall 2000 issue of the magazine The Latin Mass. This attack—the most recent in an ongoing series of alarmist reports about the Fraternity by this publication—is spread over three articles, all of which are rife with innuendo and supposition as opposed to facts, and errors as opposed to truth. They also betray a significant amount of selective reporting and quoting, as well as a great deal of underlying personal animosity.
The entire rather lengthy article is well worth reading. I don't mean to be rude or ungrateful to you but in this situation I believe what the FSSP says about themselves. I'm not sure where you got your information?
The people who get on the wrong side of the Vatican might as well kiss it goodbye. They do not kindly to constructive criticism. I saw what they did to the Abbe George of Nantes who accused them of heresy. Maybe the guy was nuts, but they were definitely personna non grata in St. Peter's Square. I could name you a couple of bad characters who weren't so ill treated, but I don't like to put their names out there. They have powerful protection.
I do think the answer is that the pope is only concerned with what makes the church look good. It wouldn't be a bad thing to have all the abused at a special mass in Rome.
I will say this. That little nephew of the Bonneau guy who is accusing Hubbard who died in that home up in Watervliet deserves more to be a saint than almost anyone I can imagine, and over the centuries there must be thousands of little children like him. That will never happen because it doesn't make the church look good. There may be some real surprises in the next world.
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