How do the other parishes in the neighbourhood compare?
Is such outrageous nonsense truly common in the Gainesville area, or is this freak-in-a-roman-collar noteworthy because he is unusual? Even in the Dreadful Diocese of Richmond, true freakballs like Fr. Quinlan are abnormal.
If sheer lunacy were truly as common as traditionalist rhetoric implies, I think I would have managed to run in to more than a few true freakshows by now. In fact, I have only witnessed one (at a 'Catholic' campus ministry on a State university in Virginia), and that was in the late 1980s.
I feel deprived. Where's my freakshow?
Gainesville is a university town where the university parish is presided over by a pastor who has been in place for 25 years, talks in his "homilies" about his orgasms, supports "We Are Church" and is hosting a Ramadan fast and get-to-love-Islam day.
We had a totally hands-off bishop for 27 years, and now we have one who is very left socially but orthodox religiously. He is trying to get a grip on the situation, but the problem is that these pastors have been in place for so long that the bishop is virtually incapable of dealing with them. He tried to transfer one and the guy simply refused to go where he was sent and announced that he would deign to go to another parish that he liked better.
If you haven't run into more freakshows, you've got to get out more. They're not hard to find, and the fact that the bishops in their synod are discussing this very matter indicates that it's not solely a "traditionalist" concern, but something that is affecting the entire Church - in a seriously adverse way.