To illustrate the dilemma, here is an email I received from a friend who is a local priest, and my response below it:
Brian, It was good to see you and your family at Mass on Sunday.
I just read a review of "Good Bye, Good Men" in a magazine called Culture Wars. I liked it a lot, and I pretty much agreed with the author. I thought you might like to read it. It can be found at culturewars.com. Click on the link for the review.
Also, I hope you folks know what you are doing by bringing this man into our diocese. The crisis of the priesthood has caused so much harm to the faithful of the church. That is certainly true!! And, we are in great need of reform. However, I wonder if such an approach as you have embraced will not do an equal amount of harm. It's all very frightening to me. Please continue to pray for priests, the victims of abuse, and for the faithful of the church.
father *
Dear Father,
Three weeks ago I met up with an old friend who I played basketball with on our Catholic grade school team in 5th through 8th grade.
It turns out he was a victim of a priest in our diocese. I believe him, because he has the letters, and I read them, signed by Adamec dating back to 1994, where Adamec promised this victim the diocese would pay for his counseling and that the priest who abused him would never have access to boys again. I had never heard of the priest involved and knew nothing about him prior to three weeks ago.
In November, my 9 year old Mikey broke his wrist badly. We had to take him to Conemaugh Hospital, where he had to go to the operating room to go under general anesthesia to have his arm set and casted.
While recovering from anesthesia in his ER room, he was ministered to by a very kind, caring priest, who brought him soda and pretzels and gave him a blessing.
I was very impressed with this priest, and felt I could trust him and the nursing staff to watch over Mikey while I stepped out to call family members regarding Mike's outcome.
Nothing happened to Mikey.
But the priest who ministered to him, I found out three weeks ago, was the same priest who molested my friend while he played for St John's basketball team. I'll be talking to the President of Conemaugh Hospital about this very soon.
He was just removed by Adamec and placed on medical leave within the last several weeks. Adamec promised my friend he would never have access to young boys again. Adamec lied. He had direct access to my own son!!!
I resent your implication that Michael Rose is a trouble maker. I've read the culture wars review. It does not hold up to scrutiny, IF YOU"VE read the book itself, and personally know the priest interviewed in Chapter 9, as I have and do.
I also resent your implication that the approach we have embraced will do an equal amount of harm.
For the love of God, David Brown is LITERALLY teaching heresy, in the name of our Church, and Sister Parks and Adamec defend him! There are many currently ACTIVE homosexual priests in our diocese, and many who were actively homosexual in the past, placed in prominent positions by Adamec, and you think us laity fighting this rot are the trouble makers?!?
Get your head out of the sand, stop wringing your hands in despair, and start doing something constructive to protect the children of our diocese. Wake up! And realize who is fighting on which side here!
I respect you greatly, but you are incredibly naive, judging by the tenor of this letter. I've done my homework. Have you?
I am angry. I am outraged one of Adamec's pedophiles had access to my own son, after he abused one of my own friends from gradeschool. I am livid that Adamec is continuing to lie through his teeth in the media to his faithful when he claims there are no other problem priests serving in our diocese. I know from personal communication with two judges, one federal, one local, as well as local lawyers, that this is a lie. I know personally victims of Adamec's pedophiles.
I will not stop until Brown is fired, all pedophiles are removed, and no more homosexuals are ordained into the priesthood by this diocese.
If Adamec will not do these simple things, demanded by justice in the eyes of God, then I will not stop till Adamec is removed.
Brian
Your response was perfect, Polycarp, simply perfect. I think the priest who wrote you is the priestly equivalent of slime. How dare he compare those of us who oppose the lavendar mafia and the homosexual rapist priests to those very same criminals. His head isn't only buried in the sand, Polycarp. I found his e-mail to you so offensive and so indicative of how we need to clean house not just of sex criminals and homosexuals, but we need to get rid of all of these hand-wringing quivering masses of protoplasm in Roman collars.