To: american colleen
Thanks. It appears that letter in "Sound off" was a response to this entry in the same column:
Lavender revolt in Altoona-Johnstown
A group of anonymous, homosexual priests in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Penn., sent an open letter to their bishop demanding he immediately stop publicly defending the diocese against lawsuits and settle them all out of court. Are they afraid that such defense would be a further harm to victims? Do they think it is only just for the bishop to accept responsibility for his and his predeccesor's actions? Not exactly. They want the bishop to settle all the cases because they want "to protect the reputation and well being of those priests so named and others that may be revealed in the course of any trial." In other words, guilt or innocence be damned, no matter whether anybody has actually been abused, their reputations, their homosexual lifestyle, and their cronies must be protected first. These are priests dedicated to serving God and His people? We can't let any more names of alleged abusers get out!
They also demand that the bishop turn the diocese's lawyers on those who would dare speak out against homosexuality and especially against gay clergy. And they want the bishop to form more priests in their own image.
Whereas our bishop has ordained several men to the priesthood over the last several year [sic] who are unfit to serve the modern, post-conciliar church, we demand our bishop conduct a complete review and overhaul of the priestly recruitment program. [emphasis added]
What kind of overhaul? "Cease and desist sending seminarians to the present rigid seminaries used by our diocese and begin to use more pastoral seminaries for formation." [emphasis added] For one thing, what's with the pseudo-legal language? Why add "desist" when you could just say "cease?" Because it makes it sound more important and pompous. And have you noticed how the whole thing reads like a very good parody of typical liberal, "spirit of Vatican II" tripe? These people and their clones throughout the Church are becoming shrill parodies of themselves. For a good laugh, read the whole thing.
229 posted on
05/17/2003 11:51:08 AM PDT by
Polycarp
(the homo issue could be the albatross that "Read my lips" was for Bush's papa -- CKCA'ers, UNITE!!!)
To: Polycarp
Yes, Dominico Bettinelli's webpage. I hope you respond to this and let them know what you know.
To: Polycarp
Just found this posted today at
Catholic Light. Sorry to post this stuff but Dom Bettinelli and one of the Catholic Light guys are local and I read them every day.
Agitprop in Altoona?
Catholics used to opening their web browsers and reading the Outrage Of The Day were greeted with this manifesto today, purporting to be the work of gay priests in the Altoona diocese. The document criticizes Bishop Adamec for kowtowing to the demands of "conservative" Catholics, ordaining men of "rigid" views as priests, and failing to defend the interests of priests accused of sexual abuse. Now, this is strange, because the "conservative Catholic" activists in that diocese, including the folks at the "Diocese Report" web site, have been making more or less the opposite complaints against the bishop for some time.
It looks like the folks at DR believe it's for real, and even Dom of CWN took it at face value for a while, but the text doesn't look legit to me. The writing's bad and it doesn't use the terminology you'd expect to find. It reads like some critic's not-too-sharp idea of "this is how the liberals really think".
So be on guard. My guess is that the statement is disinformation from some "conservative-Catholic" activist, somewhere between a joke and a smear. More at Dom's.
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