US Cardinal soon to be outed as homosexual...Which one?

O'Reilly, NY Post, The Diocese Report, others... ^

[Polycarp]

On Fox tonight O'Reilly said a cardinal is about to be outed as an active homosexual. Rumor has it Bishop Bruskiwiecz sent a letter telling this Cardinal to "resign, or else..."

NY POST: WHICH American cardinal recently disclosed to insiders a confidential letter he received from a bishop urging the cardinal to resign for the good of the church? The cardinal is being urged to quit before his much-gossiped-about homosexual indiscretions are uncovered by the media . . . WHICH ranking priest of a major diocese predicted over a boozy dinner the other night that if the media outs this particular cardinal, "then the dominoes will really start to fall"?

[Mike Fieschko]

Whether the stereotype of the anal retentive grammar teacher is based more on fact than fantasy is...well...something which can be debated, I guess. I've seen that type in action (as well as the entertaining style of language teacher).

They do exist: CENTURION: What's this, then? 'Romanes Eunt Domus'? 'People called Romanes they go the house'?.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

I thought I remembered a Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch along those lines. I think the old SNL did one as well. Bill Murray and Al Franken were in it and it had something to do with declining cornus, cornu, if I am remembering correctly. Too many beers ago.

[maryz]

Some students claim to find some of these grammar and vocabulary courses boring . . .

Part of the grammar problem is that English grammar seems not to be taught much any more. When my sister was a teaching fellow in French, she always had to spend what she considered way too much time explaining such esoteric concepts as subject-verb-object in English before getting to the French.

[sinkspur]

I really, truly don't even know what religion I am, for the first time in my life.

The Church is much stronger than one scandal, because Christ founded It and will never let it perish.

The Church will eventually be much stronger, but the lack of trust in the hierarchy will last at least a generation.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Ditto. You can say that again. It seems a tad ridiculous though that if seminarians are supposed to understand the strange, bizarre hybrid synthesis of Teilhard de Chardin, Gustavo Gutierrez, Erich Fromm, Gramsci, Foucault, revisionist social justice theory, and Enneagram numbers, which forms the ideological backdrop of liberal Catholics' gibberish, such as that found in America or The National Catholic Reporter, they should also be able to cultivate some grasp of the Latin terms of the Mass. I think the latter is actually the more reasonable and less stressful project.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Bruskowitz is a good guy. How many seminarians is he graduating this year? How many does he have studying there? Why do you suppose his seems to be the ONLY seminary engaged in an expansion program?

By contrast, OUR diocese is graduating only ONE seminarian this year, and I don't think there were ANY last year or in some recent previous years. I think there are only about 7 or 9 enrolled at this time.

I suspect that there isn't a lot of attraction to aspire to the vocation when the examples around seem so wishy washy and when relativity rules. A recent picture of our Bishop on the front page of the paper might explain the difference. I'll try to find it and post a link here.

[sinkspur]

You never seem to have anything positive to say about any conservative prelate. Why is that?

You mean like Eldon Curtiss, who covered for a child-pornography-viewing priest for eight months before the priest was turned in by a kindergarten teacher? The kindergaten teacher who was later upbraided by Curtiss in public and told to resign.

[maryz]

. . . if seminarians are supposed to understand the strange, bizarre hybrid synthesis of Teilhard de Chardin, Gustavo Gutierrez, Erich Fromm, Gramsci, Foucault, revisionist social justice theory, and Enneagram numbers, which forms the ideological backdrop of liberal Catholics' gibberish, . . .

Once they've boiled their brains in that witch's cauldron, nothing sane will make sense to them. Remember the old saw, "Latin teaches you to think logically." Maybe that's why emphasis on Latin was dropped --

When I was a teaching fellow in English, I wrote one sentence from a freshman essay on the board (not from someone in that class) and asked whether the class thought it was a good sentence. (It was absolute gibberish -- long and polysyllabic and totally without meaning.) Almost every hand went up. I asked whether someone could tell me what it meant. No hands. I took the opportunity to explain that, while humility is a wonderful virtue, the fact that you don't understand something doesn't make it good.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Abuse in the Catholic Church

Photo/Mary Jo Walicki
Archbishop Rembert Weakland (left)
and Father Len VanVlaenderen listen as Beth Glynn
of North Lake confronts Weakland Thursday at
St. John Vianney Parish in Brookfield.

Note the body language here. The article said that he had told this woman that he wouldn't answer any questions. This was at a Dioscesan-wide "Question and Listening Session" organized by the Bishop. There were six sessions in various locations, running concurrently. The Bishop showed up at one, unannounced, and refused to answer any questions. There were more than 1000 people at each session.

The lady in the picture claimed that her three daughters had been molested by a priest and that the Bishop had covered it up. She is really angry!

[Askel5]

He had this contest called "Find-a da Pope in da pizza." Those were such innocent days.

Not really ... not when you think about the fact the revolution was in full assault by 1967.

The Finda-Pope stuff was rather a bellwether that the Church no longer had any particular prestige for it already was deconstructing itself from within and had indeed become a joke in many respects ... Clown Masses and all.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

There is a Jesuit magazine I have around here somewhere in which there are some rather bizarre statements. Basically, the general thrust is that "theology" is not the "study" of God, teachings of the Church, sacraments, etc. Theology, properly understood, is a praxis (according to this). It is a way of "doing" social justice. Essentially, theology is a form of socialism. It would take too much time to explain what is wrong with this, but a careful and logical analysis of genus and species in formal definition would reveal why this is wrong. "Doing" theology (as socialism) replaces the actual teachings of the Catholic Church. Keep in mind, this is posited quite independently of any clear notions of the economy of grace through sacraments.

[livius]

I'm coming in a little late on this (I've been away), but I couldn't resist a little off-topicness about my favorite language - well, third favorite, the first being English, and the second being Spanish.

There are fantastic sites on the web for Latin learning at all levels. Much of this, I suspect, is motivated by home-schoolers.

The depressing thing is that there are Latin courses that first have to introduce the learners (probably college-age) to concepts such as "noun" and "verb." What in the heck have they been doing in school for the last generation or so?

Oh, I forgot. Sex Ed. Which is what brings us back to the topic...

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

I'm not sure who they're talking about, but a few weeks ago on Fox, Greta had on a priest who was nice looking and about 40ish but waayyy too smooth and suave for my comfort. I think he was local to the NY area and had dark hair. Anyone recall this one? I had a bad feeling about him.

[Askel5]

Good point.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

This is exactly what I noticed about the Jesuit School in Berkeley. They are very politically active and motivated. The program is in large part dedicated to social justice especially in regard to minorities.

[maryz]

There are fantastic sites on the web for Latin learning at all levels. Much of this, I suspect, is motivated by home-schoolers.

What are some of them, if you have the info handy? I think I'd like to look at them.

Oh, I forgot. Sex Ed. Which is what brings us back to the topic...

So it does. Remember when "all roads led to Rome"?

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Unfortunately, I've never actually studied the history of modern educational psychology in a formal sense but, from what little I have read on this, there were these schools of thought which seemed to have vaguely pseudo-Platonic or pseudo-Socratic notions of letting young students draw out from themselves linguistic skills gradually. Very subjective. I believe some kooky psycholinguistics ideology was behind this. In essence, the formal study of grammar was abandoned. Someone probably knows the precise Deweyite research seminars at Columbia Teachers College which spawned this monster.

[maryz]

"Doing" theology (as socialism) replaces the actual teachings of the Catholic Church. Keep in mind, this is posited quite independently of any clear notions of the economy of grace through sacraments.

And the Protestants went through the "social gospel" thing in the 19th century -- not so bizzarely, because such was not available at the time. It always struck me that the "social gospel" was propounded by those who had apparently had little contact with the actual gospel.

I went to a Catholic college in the late 60s. Senior year we had a required course in sacramental theology; naturally, we read such monuments of Catholic scholarship as Teilhard's Phenomenon of Man (hey, at least he was nominally Catholic), Robinson's Honest to God (of which C.S. Lewis remarked, "I'd rather be honest."), Harvey Cox's The Secular City, something of Tillich's that I forget, . . . and so on. I was young and I assumed that in a Catholic college I could trust what was taught. (I found it all incredibly boring, though, and only managed a C.)

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Tillich's project, as well as quite a lot of modern theology, seems a roundabout way to reintroduce ontological/theoretical categories into Protestant theology without being pegged as a Thomist or lapsing into Scholasticism (which, of course, would be...[horrors!] "Catholic").

[aculeus]

I'm not sure who they're talking about, but a few weeks ago on Fox, Greta had on a priest who was nice looking and about 40ish but waayyy too smooth and suave for my comfort. I think he was local to the NY area and had dark hair. Anyone recall this one? I had a bad feeling about him.

There's a Dominican Fr. Doyle (Dolan?) who's a canon lawyer who's been fighting the "lavender mafia" for years and who has been on tv a lot recently.

Andrew Greeley (who doesn't look too 'straight') writes novels with hetero sex scenes. He has also warned about homo priests.

But in a nutshell, I don't know no idea who they wrote about.