He helped lead the church into a more open institution with girl altar servers, more laity involvement including women lectors, and ministries to help gay Catholics, among other measures.
That's the "spirit of Vatican II" at work again. The call for "openness" was a call for the Church to be less insular, a call for the laity to go and evangelize and bring the Church to the world, not a call to create more altar jobs for chicks and tell homosexuals that their lifestyle was a "gift" and should be accepted as such.
I don't know if this Albany scandal will outst Bishop Hubbard but those who are honestly and prayerfully evaluating his leadership in conjunction with the state of his diocese know the truth.
Fr. Wilson writes concerning the priest who turned up dead in Albany this past Sunday (February 15)
Friday evening, upon returning to my rectory from Manhattan, I found an email from a friend telling me that a Fr John Minkler of Albany would be contacting me, that he was in trouble with his bishop and needed advice. There was a phone message from Fr Minkler. I phoned him at about 8PM, and he chose to return my call immediately. We spoke for about an hour.
He was apprehensive and very burdened. He explained that he had just returned from five days of retreat, to find that his name had been mentioned publicly in the media, in connection with a report that had been sent to John Cardinal O'Connor about the state of the Albany Diocese.
This was the first confirmation I had ever had of something I heard a couple of years ago -- that Cardinal O'Connor, a couple of years before his death, was extremely disturbed about the state of the Church in Abany and Rochester, and was trying to stir up interest in the Holy See in intervening. Fr Minkler confirmed this and said that he had written a report and submitted it to Cardinal O'Connor.
Now, he was very upset that his name had come out in this regard, and he was seeking advice, which I gave him. I will say nothing else about this part of the conversation, because it is between me and a brother priest.
He did not tell me that he had actually been to the chancery that day and spoken with Bishop Hubbard. Nor did he tell me that he had signed an affadavit stating that he had not written the report.
At the end of the conversation, he was much more relaxed than he had been earlier. I told him that I'd be glad to be of any help I could to him, that I'd find him canonical counsel if he needed it, that we have a guest room here at the Rectory if he needed a place to crash. By the time we signed off, he had promised to keep in touch, knew that he had support, and I was in no way anxious about his state of mind. I expected to hear again from him in a few days. Our mutual friend phoned me the next morning (Saturday) to ask if we had connected; I said yes and briefed him, and he phoned Fr Minkler and found him in good shape.
Just to clarify: when Fr Minkler said, "They forced me to lie," I don't think we have to take that as meaning that they knowingly forced him to lie. More likely, it seems to me, was that, frightened, he denied to the Bishop that he had written the letter (I believe that he did indeed deny it), and then, when they pressed him for an affadavit or statement, he could see no way to back down, and signed it.