Boston Catholic Blogger Community Roundup

A lot of news in the Boston Catholic Blogger Community (BCBC) over the last few days.   To be honest, there's a lot of news every day!   Boston Catholics started  the whistleblower project because there was (and is) no forum to report or people of good will who will do something about it internally.  This was (and is) giving people who want to take advantage of the situation the opportunity to do anything they want without any accountability.  


The situation over the last 8 years has become untenable.  


Our priests, our deposit of faith, laity are being victimized in all kinds of ways.   No lover of justice and righteousness could watch it and stand by and do nothing.


I've got to tell you something, now that there is a venue for people to report things, the river flowing is not a pretty sight.  We're blown away by the magnitude of the mess.


But enough seriousness.  Let's get to today's roundup.




For giggles, I thought we'd start with a post at Boston Catholic Insider taking a trip down memory lane to refresh your memory on how the Archdiocese gushed over Voice of the Faithful when he met with VOTF "reform group leaders".

By way of the request, the VOTF representatives expressed a desire to be helpful to the Archdiocese. Cardinal Sean continues to demonstrate a willingness and openness to dialogue, and is committed to vibrant parish life throughout the church of Boston. We welcome the participation of all people who wish to assist with this work.”

But the BCBC expressed a desire to be helpful and demonstrates a willingness and openness to dialogue with the Archdiocese too, didn't we?


 The only beef we have is trying to pin down who would be doing the talking and who would doing the listening.  


Remember the communication Catholic bloggers received from the diocese?

Good morning,

The objective of the meeting is to have a frank conversation about what is the best way to serve Christ and His Church.  I believe there is much on your blog that is untrue and harmful to individuals and to the Body of Christ. I know of your convictions based on what you write in the blog. I hope our conversation would give you a broader frame of reference for future blog entries.   I anticipate Fr. Hehir, myself and, perhaps, one or two of my colleagues from the Pastoral Center being present for this meeting.

This indicates the objectives of the diocese are frank conversations and lessons on how to sweep things under the carpet.


The dialogue of reporting corruption is when we do the talking, show the documentation, ask for injunctive relief for whoever and whatever is being victimized by it so that everyone present can be a witness to what the diocese knew and when they knew it.  


We've each been to the diocese individually to have frank discussions controlled by diocescan cronies.   


If you like tricks and treachery and have a few hours of your life you feel like wasting, by all means, head to 66 Brooks Drive.  Pull up a chair and have some conversations with the people who wrote the wikpedias on how to stretch and obfuscate truth to give this world broader frame of reference on their ineptitude and corruption.  


The conversations we want to engage in are about freedom and justice. We want to know up front that the games they've been playing for the last decade in Boston are not going to be played with us.  


The conversations they want to have are not "Christ-centered" at all.  They are them-centered.


They don't know the difference.  We are not playing the game just when the whisteblowing project is giving people the forum they have needed to report situations and have something done about them, instead of victimizing the people doing the reporting.


Yesterday, the two million dollar plus PR machine sent out the following email to add to their 50 year pile of Memos on how they kept themselves in the dark so they could claim things are unfounded:




From: Terrence_Donilon@rcab.org
To: 
Sent: 8/23/2010 9:58:10 A.M. Eastern Daylight 

Subj: Globe story on blogs

Good morning,

Today you may have seen a story in the Boston Globe regarding blogs which have been critical of the Archdiocese and its leadership.  

Following is a statement we provided to the Globe and any media following up on today's story:

"Cardinal O’Malley and his staff are dedicated to building unity in Christ and Christian community within the Archdiocese.  Toward that end, we have reached out to bloggers on numerous occasions to ask them to enter into a professional and  Christ-centered conversation with us.  We are concerned about the harm caused to individuals and to the community by anonymous and unfounded claims on blogs.”

In addition, we wish to share with you information which is made available to dioceses by the USCCB on the use of social media.  While these USCCB norms specifically refer to use of social media by Church personnel, they are illustrative of good practices/habits for everyone within the Church.  The guidelines and information are available at http://www.usccb.org/comm/social-media-guidelines.shtml.  If you are unable to access this site, please contact Kate Zabriskie, in the Chancellor’s Office and she will assist you in retrieving this information.  Kate is available at 617-746-5659 or via email at kathryn_zabriskie@rcab.org.  

Finally, some priests and parishes of the Archdiocese have been sent unwelcomed emails, including a request to take a survey, from an anonymous blogger. Please know that this request has not been authorized or endorsed by the Archdiocese.   

Thank you,

Terry

********************************************** 

Terrence C. Donilon 

Secretary for Communications 

If you never let people put the evidence on your desk in the presence of witnesses, if you never have a good faith forum to listen to scandals your accountable for - you never have to order an investigation that leads to a pursuit of truth.  You never have to claim your critics complaints are true.  You never have to fire an employee who is hurting somebody or the Church.

When you spend your time obstructing yourselves from receiving the information - or keeping the information from your employees, when people go outside of the Church to seek justice, this crowd dips into the treasury of answers they deliberately didn't find to claim the allegations were 'unfounded'.

This Chancery blocking and banning the information is simply another round of the game.

Finally, you won't believe this - but there is yet another scandalous proabort 'social justice' conference headed up by Bryan Hehir.

With blogs blocked, they march on.

Stand up and fight.