Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Investigators have much to do

The episcopal line-up to investigate the Irish Catholic Church seems impressive. They seem a decent enough bunch of men. But is it at all possible to get to the core of so many issues that need serious investigation?

One aspect all the media seem to get wrong and that is a link between so-called liberal minded people and homosexuality. Within the church it is the opposite that is the case. Most closet homosexual priests and brothers espouse to a right wing style of thinking.

The resignation of the Lib Dem member of the British Cabinet because of his fear in expressing his sexual orientation surely has to be a powerful allegory for similar issues within priesthood.

Hopefully when the investigators arrive in Ireland there will be full, open, honest and candid discussion. It might a chance for truth to happen.

1 comment:

Michael said...

"It might a chance for truth to happen." I doubt it. The 4 men chosen along with Tim Dolan from NY for the seminaries are all Vatican insiders, men who have honed their yesmanship over many years.

In a recent report in the NY Times, it was reported from Brooklyn that "In the densely populated Diocese of Brooklyn, officials are confident of their results in one respect. “We have no gay men in our seminary at this time,” said Dr. Robert Palumbo, a psychologist who has screened seminary candidates at the diocese’s Cathedral Seminary Residence in Douglaston, Queens, for 10 years. “I’m pretty sure of it.” Whether that reflects rigorous vetting or the reluctance of gay men to apply, he could not say. “I’m just reporting what is,” he said. "

Within the Church there has been an overt and covert conflation of being gay with being a risk to children. I am not aware of any effot by any of the visitation team to condemn that line of thinking.

But more than that, the idea that the visitation team is composed entirely of high-ranking bishops (no laity, no women) for the seminaries and the dioceses but admists women for the visitation of female religious, makes manifest the thinking of the Vatican on the role of the laity in general and women in particular.

It's hard to think that this is anything more than a public smokesacreen by the vatican for puvblic consumption which will only serve to increase its stranglehold on church governance and personnel.

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