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.  

A Come to Jesus Meeting with the Enemy Within the Archdiocese of Boston

Boston readers will want to check in to Bryan Hehir Exposed for an update on Fr. Erikson's outreach attempts to get the team to come to the Pastoral Center for a Come to Jesus Meeting.

The bloggers have released their emails to Fr. Erikson.   Do take the time to read them. They are quite powerful and uplifting.

The objectives of the proposed meeting have been, and remain, elusive.

Frankly, I think the Cardinal and his Cabinet are underestimating the interests and objectives of Catholics who see this period in the history of the Archdiocese, as one commenter rightfully characterized it, as "the turn the tables over in the Temple moment".

Clericalism that pervaded a period in history where Cardinals and their underlings coddled perverts and pedophiles is one and the same with the clericalism that pervades the current administration in the Cathedra of Boston: The bullying of clerics and lay people who want sexually active priests defrocked, and priests teaching sexual promiscuity removed.

We are up to our neck in bullies running the Archdiocese of Boston.  Fr. Hehir's 40 year history of dissent now being cataloged at BHE is a threat to this administration.  The Pope appears to be ignorant of what is going on in Boston due to the corrupt at the Vatican, whom everyone knows is an obstacle to getting the truth in front of the Pope.  The corrupt continue to be successful in shielding and protecting the sexual (and abortion) mafioso on the ground in every diocese.

This is not acceptable reform.

ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE.


Fr. Erikson writes:

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.

Blessings,

Fr. Erikson

In a conference call with the bloggers last evening, (a few of whom want to move forward with the meeting with the archdiocese), I was frank about the font of skepticism springing forth from my interpretation of Fr. Erikson's email and the history of how the Cardinal handles meetings when people of good faith present him with trails of evidence of dissent and scandal.

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.  

Actually, I think we know the convictions of the Cardinal and his team of advisors based upon what he writes on his blog, says in the newspaper and the power structure he has set up based upon these convictions.

What is the basis for any frame of reference that they are interested in bringing dissenters into conformity with the teachings of the Church so that those being taught misguided precepts will be brought into a state of grace?    I don't see a shred of evidence there is consideration on the table regarding the objective to remove dissenters putting rings on their noses of practicing Catholics and leading them onto the road of perdition.

What we are after ( i.e., getting these misguided Catholics onto the road to salvation), has not been part of the tactical reforms coming out of the Chancery.


For example, when Fr. Hehir was a participant in the Booty Call Conference with Bishop Lynch (who for some "strange" reason was not removed from his position when a complaint of unwanted sexual misconduct was brought forth against him - the zero tolerance of unwanted sexual misconduct doesn't apply to Bishops policy) - the Cardinal called a chit in at the Vatican so he could post an entry on his blog about what an asset Fr. Hehir is to him and to Mother Church.   It was an indirect and cowardly insult to the truth being chronicled at BHE.

Nobody would argue that Ted Kennedy, God rest his soul, inherited the right to a dignified private funeral in the Catholic Church.  Instead, we got a political event in the Sanctuary sanctifying abortion and sexual immorality. Not to mention a lot of talk about "mercy" to grant themselves license to give a podium to the cast of characters - characters who have misled hundreds of thousands of people to their spiritual and physical death.   They lined up Kennedy's family and approved testimony riddled with dissent and witness that the funeral, worthy of Catholic saint, with the Catholic Cardinal blessing the event, was the fruit of  how Ted's played out 'faithfulness' to the precepts of the Catholic Church.

Catholics pointing out that the damages of this charade would be the false conviction that spending your life working for the "freedom" to decapitate infants alive does not impede our salvation - he dismissed as people doing a disservice to the Church,  as he did when we released information that he had set up an abortion business through Caritas.

Meanwhile, as reported on Boston Catholic Insider, back at the Archdiocese of Boston clericalism dude ranch, priests selling sex in Catholic Sanctuaries are flourishing and empowered.   Fr. Austin Fleming's and Fr. Hehir's ideas are seen as so consistent with truth, as the Cardinal sees it, they are given their own gig at BTCV.     Fr. Cuenin, Fr. Josoma, Fr. Ron Coyne and other dissenters are Cardinal O'Malley's circle of advisors.

We have had meetings.

In fact, I have personally asked several times for a meeting with Fr. Hehir and have been declined.

We have sent letters and faxes.

We have taken the trail to the Nuncio.

We have sent the trail to the Vatican.

What was the result?

Cardinal O'Malley was appointed by the Pope to "fix" another diocese and Fr. Hehir was given a podium to receive an honor at the Vatican.

Ladies and gentleman, the time for meetings has passed.

We do not have the structures in place to remove priests and administrators who are selling sex and abortion inside of the Catholic Church.  

Unity with people who sell sex and abortion inside of the Catholic Church is not all it is cracked up to be, actually.     In fact, the Lord himself has set the enmity between us.    We are not going to overcome the enmity in some cheap meeting where Boston bloggers are lined up to listen to their "broad perspectives" about  how they want us to blog.  

They're hoping we will sell the grace that left a trail of Precious Blood on the Via Dolorosa for a chance to smoke a peace pipe up the Chancery with the people leading souls into the crevices of Dante's Inferno?

Thanks but no thanks.

Get to a parish where the truth is taught and the Sacraments administered to faithfully so that we can remain in a state of grace.  Strap yourselves onto the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord because the battle within has just begun and the seas are about to get rough.

If you don't get the gist of what I think about a meeting with Fr. Hehir and Fr. Erikson to listen to what they think, I introduce Nancy Sinatra to get the point across in a little jingle:





Are you ready boots?



Have a fantastic weekend!