Posted on 10/13/2006 4:59:56 PM PDT by NYer
Well, yes.
And... was there something else you wanted to say about that?
I'm interested also.
Do you feel marriage continues into heaven? I've heard Orthodox sources disent on this (and seen lengthy trheads on Orthodox lists about it).
If you comitted adultery in the past and I knew of it, do I have sufficient cause to warn your neighbors that you are an adulterer and that they should protect their husbands from you?
As to pedophilia, having sex with teenage boys (the crime in focus here) is not pedophilia. It is homosexuality, and really, is not particularly different than the crimes covered by marriage of minors laws and statutory rape laws. Lets get off the whole pedophilia schtick.
Protecting parishioners and their families from a man with a history of sex abuse is "sufficient cause" to blow the whistle.
Is a singular instance a "history"?
If a man comes home early once and has sex with the teenage babysitter, does he need to be permanently seperated from all contact with teenage girls?
In any case, all this is a bunch of nonsensical speculation. As Rod notes about the Priest in question:
"He had been suspended by his diocese in Pennsylvania after formal abuse accusations had been leveled against him. The priest came back to his hometown, Dallas, and got other work -- but was helping out on the weekends in this particular parish. It turned out that the pastor knew all about his past, had concluded that he had been falsely accused, and put him into active ministry in the parish -- without telling the parish, or even his bishop. Now, this priest might well be innocent -- nothing has been proved against him"
http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/crunchycon/2006/10/orthodoxy-and-me.html
So with no proof whatsoever of anything other than the Priest - Fr. Christopher Clay of the Diocese of Scranton - having supposedly been suspended pending his case being ajudicated (this is the new policy that came out of the 2002 Dallas meeting - make an accusation and the Priest is sent packing without proof or ajudication needed), Rod outed him and the up till now secret accusations by publishing unproven allegations about him in a local newspaper, and simultaneously slandering the rest of the lower clergy as a "herd of moral geldings" (another crime in Canon Law is to encourage animus against the clergy). "Can. 1373 A person who publicly incites his or her subjects to hatred or animosity against the Apostolic See or the Ordinary because of some act of ecclesiastical authority or ministry, or who provokes the subjects to disobedience against them, is to be punished by interdict or other just penalties."
The actual history of the Fr. Christopher Clay case is here:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2004_07_12/2004_07_02_Adams_ExBishopPriest.htm
Apparently, the Police found no cause to charge him, and his alleged victim declined to sue. Maybe because he was innocent! A priest friend of my family is in this conundrum right now. He was suspended by Bishop Wuerl in Pittsburgh 4 years ago now, and has been forced to sit in suspended animation at an old seminary since then, with no progress being made in his "case" (which apparently centers around him having taken pictures of kids flexing their muscles poolside at a trip he had organized 20 years ago). If this is the level of some of these acusations, they are really quite flimsy.
What has Rod been through, exactly? Getting himself angry and scandalized at sin? Allowing his faith (if he ever had any), to die in a fit of anger at the Church?
If I went Maronite I wouldn't be leaving at all, would I? I left the Episcopal church because of the immorality, but that didn't mean I naievly thought there was none in the Roman Catholic Church. It was because I decided that the RCC was the true repository of Christianity on earth. Furthermore, though individuals, too many of them, behave in an immoral way, our church is not afraid to say what's wrong is wrong. That was very important.
The Church discourages remarriage, but does allow it. What that means, I don't know. We clearly aren't given that information.
Since this is what Rod said about this priest, the charge that Rod is guilty of the sin of detraction needs a little more substantiation, wouldn't you say?
You also charge Rod with the sin of taking scandal. This means being shocked-shocked when there was nothing to be shocked-shocked about. For instance, I saw this on an unnamed bee-in-the-bonnet blog:
"Cardinal Karol Wojtyla on a hiking excursion around 1975. His intimacy with this woman is such that he is comfortable being pictured with his knees touching hers. "
Geez! if somebody has a problem with this picture I'd say that's a pretty clear example of "the sin of taking scandal."
In Rod's case, the scandals were real--- and serious. As a journalist investigating the sexual-abuse situation for a major metropolitan daily as well as for the Catholic World Report, he saw and heard a lot more than was ever published. (That in itself shows discretion, not scandal-mongering.)
More than one bishop of Dallas was implicated in cover-ups involving clergy who were guilty of multiple crimes of abuse. You should read up if you don't know this.
"If a man comes home early once and has sex with the teenage babysitter, does he need to be permanently seperated from all contact with teenage girls? "
He'd certainly be separated from contact with MY teenage girls; and from me as well.
(1) If you went to a Maronite Catholic Church you would not be breaking communion with with Pope and the rest of the Church, founded by Christ on the Rock of Peter and the Apostles.
(2) Our church is not afraid to say what's wrong is wrong. At least, dadgummit, when we Catholic sinners sin, we know damn well that we're sinning.
And that IS an advantage. It makes it harder for us to fool outsleves into thinking everything's OK, and makes it possible for us to repent.
This is the book I first read it in:
http://www.narrowpathbookstore.com/PRODUCTS/CON-PTL.htm
I've seen very strong supported conclusions on both sides...
No, what Rod wrote was basically a smear job on a man who appears to be innocent. See these two articles:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2004_07_12/2004_07_01_Dreher_BlowingThe.htm
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2004_07_12/2004_07_02_Adams_ExBishopPriest.htm
Rod claims proudly: "I helped reveal troubling information about Father Christopher Clay, an accused sexual abuser"
However: "Bishop James Timlin and others say the Rev. Christopher Clay was entitled to resume ministerial duties when no criminal charges resulted from a young man's accusations against him."
Rod decided that it was better to publish what are apparently hafltruths and innuendos to help further his career than it was to take the proper route of going to his Bishop with his problems with Fr. Clay. He even publicly said that even had St. Ambrose been his Bishop, he wouldn't have given him a chance to resolve the issue before splashing it in the press.
But you've touched on a difficult point about which I have a perplexity of conscience. I have grave doubts about it because of the bishops' very poor decades-long history of prompt effective action (yes "the" "bishops," 75% of whom have personally shuffled and covered up allegations of abuse). And this is triply true of the man who wears the mitre in Dallas, Most Reverend Charles V. Grahmann, who frankly has a substandard record in this regard.
Your allegation that Rod Dreher published what he knew "to help further his career" is uncalled-for. You impute the worst possible motive, when Dreher's stated and perfectly plausible motive was to inform the public about a matter which was already public (the Scranton bishop had issued a press release) and to protect his parish and his fellow parishioners.
Why are you, who are laudably committed to protecting the reputation of a priest, so casual about impugning the motives of a layman: a husband, father, parishioner, and journalist?
So many good Catholic lay people have tried to act in filial trust toward their pastors, only to be ignored by chancery functionaries and obstructed by layers of clerical bureaucracy. Isn't it amazing, how chancery offices communicate with us now through press releases and lawyers!! How lay people long for a bishop who is at least accessible when serious matters arise ---a spiritual father and shepherd of souls!
The parish in question is in Arlington in the diocese of Ft. Worth.
At least the Orthodox have a correct theological understanding that Christ is the head of the church and that councils decide issues, not one man.
I visited one before, and it was an incredibly beautiful service.
No, Dreher is stating the worst possible interpretation of the circumstances, and has been riding herd scandalmongering for several years now, building himself up as quite the "expert" in the matter. The Dallas Morning News is also a known anti-Catholic fishwrapper according to local Catholics. He is helping to push forward an anti-Catholic agenda in the Liberal/Masonic press. And of course he is doing it for career advancement - that is what we all strive for at work.
when Dreher's stated and perfectly plausible motive was to inform the public about a matter which was already public (the Scranton bishop had issued a press release) and to protect his parish and his fellow parishioners.
The matter was not public until Dreher gave his Newspaper to the story. The press release and Dreher's piece followed.
Why are you, who are laudably committed to protecting the reputation of a priest, so casual about impugning the motives of a layman: a husband, father, parishioner, and journalist?
Because he has made himself a public heretic, by renouncing the Papacy in public, which brings to the fore his questionable judgement and thought processes already to be seen in his very extremist reaction to the homo Priest scandal in the Church (essentially, "the Church is untrustworthy, most parishes worthless and snares of the devil, I can't let them near my children, and all/most the Priests and Bishops are guilty of being part of this cover-up"). His questionable judgement has been used to help impugn the 99% of priests who are innocent, and seperate them from influence on the lives of Catholic children. What a masterstroke for the Devil for Rod to do this work for him!
What need is the to protect the reputation of someone who lets it all hang out in public? All I am doing is drawing conclusions from what he has done and written.
So many good Catholic lay people
Rod is no longer good or a Catholic. He has denounced and renounced Holy Mother Church and its Pastors. Don't get confused on this point.
After much research, I was able to locate the editorial written by Rod Dreher 2 years ago.
Blowing the Whistle:
Troubling Information on Priest Could Have Made Me a Hypocrite
By Rod Dreher rdreher@dallasnews.com
The Dallas Morning News [Dallas TX]
July 1, 2004
Troublemaking whistleblower or peacekeeping hypocrite which would you rather be? I made my choice earlier this week when I helped reveal troubling information about Father Christopher Clay, an accused sexual abuser ministering in the Roman Catholic parish I was attending. Here's what happened.
A few weeks back, my friend Rachel Dillard told me she wanted to be received into the Catholic Church. I suggested that she ask Father Clay, a dynamic orthodox priest at the marvelous St. Mary the Virgin parish in Arlington, if he would instruct her in the faith.
Father Clay seemed like the kind of priest lots of Catholics wish for, but rarely find (which is why my family had been driving all the way from our Dallas home to Arlington for Mass). He was not officially on staff at St. Mary, but he told me he was helping out while on leave from the Diocese of Scranton, where he'd run afoul of liberal diocesan politics. When he agreed to catechize Rachel, I believed she was in good hands.
About a week ago, I asked her how her lessons were going. She raved about Father Clay and what a "treasure" he is. I agreed enthusiastically, and said, "Can you believe the liberals ran off such a good priest?"
"That's funny," she said. "He told me he came home to Dallas because the conservatives drove him away."
Rachel went home and ran Father Clay's name through an Internet search engine. She discovered he had been suspended by Scranton in 2002 after a sex-abuse allegation involving a male teen. Rachel e-mailed this information to me that night, saying, "Please don't let this be true."
I spent the next several days trying to find whatever information I could about Father Clay's situation. It was true: Father Clay had been banned from active ministry.
What to do with this information? I wasn't worried about Father Clay. I was worried about Father Allan Hawkins, the parish's very fine pastor, and the good people of the congregation.
I thought: Can't this be handled quietly, so Father Hawkins and the parish aren't embarrassed?
And then I thought: If I go that route, I am no better than the bishops and others I have criticized. They kept it in-house for the sake of the church and led us all off the cliff. Public exposure is the only sure way to handle Father Clay.
But he might be innocent! Yes, he might be. But Father Clay is on suspension. He surely knew that before he presented himself to Father Hawkins and offered to help. Why was it so important for him to get back into parish work?
Because of my inquiry, the Scranton diocese had already issued a press release about Father Clay. Why not let the Pennsylvania media break the story?
If I do that, I thought, what do I tell my editors when they want to know why I didn't tell reporters at my own newspaper? The answer would have been: Because I was protecting a parish and a pastor I didn't want to see hurt. That is, because I am a hypocrite.
I couldn't be a hypocrite. The protection of children must come first. I wrote down everything I'd learned and sent it to the religion desk. Susan Hogan/Albach worked the story and wrote the article in yesterday's paper.
Rachel and I feel absolutely horrible about all this. But I have no doubt that we did the right thing. Father Clay had to be stopped. Parishioners looked up to Father Clay, liked him, admired him, trusted him. How ironic that his downfall came out of a conversation in which Rachel and I gushed about what a wonderful priest he is.
Rachel, God bless her, still wants to become a Catholic. I am searching for a new parish for my family, though my wife and I are left wondering if we'll ever be able to trust the church with the safety of our two young boys.
I am left with two lessons: First, the church's child-protection rules are only as reliable as those people whose job it is to enforce them. Catholic parents cannot have faith in bureaucratic procedures.
Second, I have more empathy with those I have denounced. I have never been able to understand why bishops and parents of abused kids would try to handle things quietly. Well, I get it now. The only reason I anguished over any of this was not for the sake of Father Clay, but for trouble publicly exposing his deception would cause innocent people.
In the end, though, kids have to be shielded, and the church has to be liberated from this curse of secrets, lies and clerical privilege. I did what I had to do, and am not sorry for it.
You're right: Ft. Worth, not Dallas. My error.
Saw this elsewhere, and thought it apropos ...
http://mliccione.blogspot.com/2006/10/doxing-of-rod-dreher.html
Dear Andrew Byler,
Thanks for the ping... any particular reason why you pinged me?
Not that I object, just curious.
Thanks,
sitetest
Dear Mrs. Don-o
Here is some of that which Andrew Byyer speaks:
"What I didn't understand, nor anticipate, was how difficult it would be to find an orthodox parish here. We have lots of faithful Catholic friends here, and I don't think it's unfair to say that most of them are doing what most (but not all) orthodox Catholics in this country do: grit their teeth and white-knuckle it out in their parishes, doing what they can to hang on."
Perhaps I'm not an orthodox Catholic, or perhaps I'm just not part of the majority of orthodox Catholics, but I'm not sure that I grit my teeth and "white-knuckle it out."
I think much of the criticism directed toward Mr. Dreher is appropriate, fair, and true.
sitetest
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.