"Faith" in the Hierarchy

Wow, I had my aunt as well. She was so sweet and I remember all of us children treated her like she was a snow flake. Because she was beautiful, and loved us all without distinction. I also had an uncle who loved us all with one distinction. He thought I was the cat's meow and for Christmas one year bought me an Annie Oakley six shooter.

Whether we ever believed it would happen or not, we are becoming a community. Love you too star.

Thanks, Star. Your stories have certainly enriched my soul. It somehow both strengthens and saddens me to hear you have an aunt story similar to mine and Bob's. My aunt, too, was wonderful and very kind to all of us as children. Unlike my rather strict (but well-loved) grandmother, who believed children were to be seen and not heard, my aunt--who did all the shopping and cooking for her mother and brother while teaching school during the day--had a child-designed kitchen. All the snacks were kept in lower cabinets, so that tiny hands could reach them without having to climb on a stool and risking harm while fishing around in the upper cabinets.

I, too, found the inexplicably mean things said by other family members about this aunt--well, inexplicable. Only as an adult have I begun to fathom the subtext of never-spoken-out-loud homophobia within the inexplicable stabs at this selfless human being.

Thanks for reassuring me that my ceaseless tapping away at the computer keys to tell my story is not totally irritating.

I spent part of the afternoon reading to a group of students from Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings--part of a black history month read in. When I had finished reading the portion of the text I chose, one of the members of the audience sighed and said, "Wow!" This had absolutely NOTHING to do with my reading. It was because the power of the story had reached into his soul, and released a caged bird there. It was marvelous to witness this--deeply moving to my own soul.

You are much appreciated, Star--keep clucking away as often as you wish :-).

William D. Lindsey

Somewhere you asked about Bud and about the weather here.
Bud has taken over ownership of the house and like most houses with children what we do here revolves around what Bud likes, dislikes, and wants to do. So he and I both enjoy a carnivorous diet of wonderfully healthy, tasty, and safe to eat Kansas beef and pork with an occasional Arkansas chicken thrown in. He now weighs about 55 pounds, is reasonably healthy, very active, and not at all fat. He has a couple of dog friends he runs around with . One is a black and white mutt about his age and it's a real joy to watch them run and "play fight". They knock each other around and make growling noises, one knocks the other down and stands over him, then they both get up and run for awhile, and then play fight some more. The other dog friend is a spayed female a couple of years older than Bud. She is also an Australian Shepherd. Very shy. But she and Bud race down the old abandoned railroad track and through the lake that furnished water for the steam engines that used to come through. They love the snow and roll and play in it like a couple of kids. We have had below freezing weather for about 3 weeks. The ground has been white for the same length of time. We've had more days of bright, beautiful sunshine than the cloudy, dismal days. I kind of like things nice and white with all the junk covered over and I don't look forward to the mud and the dismal, depressing, cloudy, not quite freezing bone chilling days that are coming in February and March.

Thanks for catching us up on Bud and what is going on around your area, Bow! It is so good to hear from you this way! Based on what has been happening here in snowy Colorado (and Kansas usually gets our weather) snow may be around for quite awhile, it seems, so Bud may have more to play in. I didn't realize Bud was an Australian Shepherd. Aren't they supposed to be among the brightest of dogs?

I loved this update on Bud. Here the weather has been all over the map. Today it hit mid 40's and 24 hours ago it was below zero. It's driving me nuts. I even frost bit my face while hotubbing. The dog loves the snow, the two cats hate it. They won't go out, and I'm sick of changing litter.
I suspect the fact the snow level is low up here only means more is yet to come. I spoiled a doe because she had her own two fawns and adopted another. Now I have a free loader. The cats love her and she loves them, the fawns aren't too sure, and the dog is confused.

Oh well, might as well be the Church.

I have formed the opinion that the only thing you love more than the sympathetic clucking of the grandmothers on this site is the sound of your own voice and/or the sound of your keyboard clicking. I have observed page after page after page after page ad infinitum of the same old stuff from you.So I have formed the further opinion that the Benedictines by you claim to have been mistreated more than likely did give you their reasons for letting you go but you lacked the ability to be silent long enough to hear what they said. So, nothing's changed. You have repeatedly sought on this website to tell in detail how they are to live the rule. However you have conveniently forgotten that part of the rule that says the abbot must remove anyone or anything that seeks to upset the tranquillity of the house.
I have formed the opinion that no response from them would be adequate for you even if you were quiet long enough for them to respond, unless, of course, they were willing to let you come in and tell them how to run their house.
Finally, I have never used the word "queer" in reference to you, anyone, or anything. But you wouldn't know because you have never been silent long enough to listen.

Why do you hate your grandmother?

The Rev. Dr. E. McCoy

"So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!" (2Cor 5)

I'm kind of perplexed by this myself. But maybe it's because I probably won't be a grandmother, in the biological sense.

123bow, in your preceding posting, which continues a longstanding very personal attack by you on my veracity and integrity, you say, "Finally, I have never used the word 'queer' in reference to you, anyone, or anything. But you wouldn't know because you have never been silent long enough to listen."

Please check out your November 21, 2006 posting on the Expanded Indult thread, which reads,

"Seems to me 'The Bishops' are being subjected on the NCRcafe site to the same sort of stereotypical characterization used to identify blacks, jews, queers, gays, mackrel snappers, etc. ad infinitum. Is there not one good shepherd among all of those who have been bishop since Vatican II?"

In response, the same day, I posted to you, with the following request that you please clarify your use of the term "queers." This is one of several postings in which I made the same request to you. I don't believe you ever did so. Would you please do so now? Here's my response to you:

"I also noticed that, in your posting to which I responded, you used the term 'queers.' If I may without being insulting, I'd like to probe your use of that term and ask what you mean in using it. You also speak of blacks and jews (lowercase use of the latter term). I notice you don't use the ugly derogatory term people used to apply to blacks as a group--the N word--or the ugly derogatory term people used to use to refer to Jews--the K word--though speaking of the jews without capitalization does verge on insensitivity, I would propose.

I am aware that we who are gay have tried to stand the ugly term 'queer' on its head and wear it as a badge of honor, as we try to assert our full humanity against semantic and other forms of violence that try to deny us full humanity. But it's different for a member of an oppressed group to use such terms in reference to the group--as I hear my African-American students sometimes speaking of themselves among themselves--and for an outsider to use that term. I myself wouldn't dream of using the derogatory term to refer to African Americans even in a jocular way with the African Americans with whom I interact daily. Used by an outsider who has the privilege of a white skin, it will always be a tainted and ugly term when I use it.

If you aren't yourself gay (and I gather you're not), do you think that your use of the term 'queers' might be insulting to a whole group of people to whom you don't belong? In the same way that the bishops--at least, the vast majority of them--have just voted to continue talking about queers as disordered...."

Would you please answer the questions I have asked you about your use of that term now? Thank you for your reply.

William D. Lindsey

No.

Thanks for the reply, wwob. Sorry that you don't want to deal with that question, or to admit that the following statement is flatly wrong:

"Finally, I have never used the word 'queer' in reference to you, anyone, or anything. But you wouldn't know because you have never been silent long enough to listen."

As you see, the material I cite from your November 21 posting proves you wrong.

So perhaps you are also very wrong in your analysis of what happened to me at that particular Catholic college.

In fact, I have concluded that your attempt to undermine my credibility and to challenge my veracity--with ugly personal slurs--actually reinforces the story I have told, since you seem to be operating out of the very bias that was at the heart of that institution's savage treatment of me.

Thank you for listening.

William D. Lindsey

123bow, you are a little off base with this post. You are the only one on this thread who identified the college in question as Benedictine. There are times when we should look to our animals for instruction on how to be a human 'being'. Read your above post to shootingstar. This is not a playfull fight exchange.

Your friend identified the offenders last summer as Benedictine and then carried forward his one sided attack on them for several weeks. And, a recent post refers to the "abbott" which indicates what is typically a Benedictine institution of one variety or another. The fact they have never responded on NCRcafe to his attacks is evidence, to me, that the opinions I have formed about his lack of ability to shut up long enough to listen and his lack of willingness to hold them accountable for what he claims is an unjust action in letting him go in a court of law is ample evidence that he does not want the problem resolved because of the evident pleasure he gets out of being a martyr. It might also be evidence of the fact that he has sought the counsel of an attorney who told him he had no case. Further evidence of his distance from the truth is the fact he said I called him a "queer" and then quotes a general statement I made that was in no way specifically pointed at him. I wrongly asserted that I'd never used the word "queer" because, like Scooter Libbey, I forgot I used in in that statement and because it is not a word I use typically. I have observed the posts on this site long enough to know no answer is good enough for your friend or for those of you who delight in holding him to your soft, grandmotherly breasts while you warm him with your sympathy at the abuse he has to suffer because he's such a wonderful little boy being picked on by all those nasty old bullies.

those of you who delight in holding him to your soft, grandmotherly breasts while you warm him with your sympathy ....

I have soft grandmotherly breasts that would warm you any time you choose you lay your head down.

let's not forget those soft grandfatherly breasts ... warm with sympathy and (finally) free of the fear of intimate compassion...

TIME ... the wonderful mircale of its forward (e)motion ...

The Rev. Dr. E. McCoy

"So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!" (2Cor 5)

I don't know what your problem is, wwob. i think you would be extremely surprised if you could see how I appear in RL, but that pleasure shall be denied you. Suffice it to say that most people I meet, when we discuss age, are very amazed to hear I am a Grandma. However, I am very delighted with that fact, and I love my Grandchildren! I have found your comments hurtful, not only to me, but also to others. They do not reflect the "compassion" I believe Christ taught. When the "compassionate person" seems to come out, is when you talk about your dog Bud.

I don't understand why you are seemingly so angry with Bill, unless you resent the appreciation many of us have for his fine writing and thinking (most of which is not about his job losses, but is about other things.)

You are, and have been a wonderful writer on many subjects, particularly the liturgy. I have often wished I had Col's ability to be a "playful fighter" like you say Bud is. She and Frannie are amazing at turning rancor into fun and humor!

But you and I seem to have been raised to make our "fights" dead serious, like many Irish faimiles do. or the "jokes" have a sharp edge to them. (Are you Irish? With that "OB", I have suspected so.) Perhaps we should both work on that. I am trying, but it isn't easy.
Peace, Star

I am a total outsider, nevertheless, I take offense when I see ad hominem attacks and nasty verbal derogation. Institutions are not infrequently righteous to the point of being callous and inconsiderate when it has issues with individuals. They do behave unChristlike. Authoritarians do damage also to their institutions when they act too granitically.

Thanks, Sylvester. You're very right about the capability of institutions to act "granitically." That's a very astute description.

For me, the experience I've described was like a huge steamroller (perhaps a granite one?) rolling over me, when I had no idea why it was flattening me and didn't even truly see the steamroller coming.

People collectively have a capacity for cruelty that we often lack as individuals. It is easier to take refuge in the institution and collude with or actively participate in its cruelty precisely because we an submerge our own individual personalities within the collective. For religious communities, this can be done through the vow of obedience, or through rhetoric about how trampling on the rights (and humanity) of one person is warranted because of the common good.

Could say much more about this, but am being called to a meeting as I type!

William D. Lindsey

Sorry, wwob. You're wrong again. You stated, "Finally, I have never used the word 'queer' in reference to you, anyone, or anything."

The citation I have produced proves you flatly wrong.

Perhaps it's YOUR credibility (I won't say integrity--since I don't know you--though you've repeatedly questioned mine) that now must be questioned?

And at the risk of repeating myself, I have to say how sorry I am you have such a poor opinion of grandmothers. I wouldn't be the person I am without the courage, compassion, and conviction my grandmothers displayed as I grew up--something I note in the dedication of one of my books.

I hope you have the opportunity to meet some elderly women who can redeem your negative image of them. And perhaps also some gay men whom you can begin to see and know through some lens other than that denigrating lens of otherness you seem to apply all too easily.

William D. Lindsey

Wow. You need to go back and read the Katrina thread. It wasn't weeks and it wasn't in the summer. It was two or three days in September. Abott is a general term for a supervisor for any monastic male order. I kinda think that the Benedictine monastery in question will never repond on the NCR cafe if they didn't feel the need to respond in a termination act. An employer in a right to work state doesn't have to respond at any time to anyone for any termination. They can just terminate. Such is my state, such was William's state.

As an interesting validation to this, I was terminated without cause from the non profit I worked for, basically for the work I did as a union advocate in wage negotiations. The union knew I was terminated for this, and so did the company. I was given the resignation choice versus the firing choice. In a right to work state you choose the resignation option, and no, I had no recourse. I also knew the moment I chose to put myself in an advocacy position I would be saying sayonara. In my case I had the financial resources to freely make this choice and the certain knowledge I would be 'asked to leave'. William didn't have my options or my knowledge and that's the point you aren't getting.

Once the pedophile scandal hit, the gays who had been previously hired for their talents were tossed like so much garbage. Catholic colleges who opted for the mandatum went after gay priests and faculty like rabid dogs. A gay priest, an extremely close friend of mine, was chucked from the college my daughter attends after 25 years of spotless service from similar trumped up charges. I am not one of the 'clucking grandmothers' you so disparage. I am a person who saw another wonderful, talented gay Catholic disposed of by corporate climbling interests. Like William, my friend never saw it coming, even though I warned him it was coming because the "Catholic authorities" would cover their asses on the backs of gays. He just wouldn't hear me because he had been in the system for so long and had so many people who believed in what he did and who he was.

We have a sick church. We have a sick hierarchy who thinks nothing of wounding the best of their talented gay priests and theologians to cover up their own mistakes with their pampering of pedophiles. You have accused a number of us of clerical bashing. You know what? I know a lot of priests who are just as wonderful as you describe your own priest/confessor. Not one of these wonderful men stood up when my friend was trashed by our bishop. Many of them were gay. They didn't stand up because they didn't want the spotlight. When my friend died, many of these great priests perpetrated the rumor my friend committed suicide. Punctuated by the fact the bishop didn't attend his funeral. It took the coroners report to end the suicide discussion. I've often wondered how many of his fellow priest bought the suicide ending because of their own complicity in not standing up for my friend, or, because that's how they would have faced his ignominous treatment. Lay off William. Until you can prove to me you have similar experience you are nothing more than a clanging cymbal.

I have formed the opinion that it is wrong to make a judgement about an event about which neither you nor I know anything. I have formed the opinion that it is wrong for you or me to make a judgement based on our personal experience. Neither you nor I know the truth about the particular case. So rant on. Alone.

What you don't get, bow, is that you are the one who's alone here. It's so sad, and you just cannot seem to see it. Bill has many friends and supporters on this site. People would like to support you, as well, but you continually appear to isolate yourself with a belligerent attitude.

Thank you, star. I'm humbled, and I'm honored. I value all the e-friendships very much. I deeply regret any pain you have been made to feel by comments about age. Though I'm probably the same generation as you are--give or take a year or two--I gladly claim you as my honorary grandmother.

I, too, wish I had that gift of humorous repartee that Frannie and Colkoch have. I often bore myself (even myself!) by being--as I once heard a Christmas sermon described in Germany--so earnest and so ungleeful (best I can make of the German phrase I heard).

I'm sorry, wwob, that I seem to set you off. I truly don't know why, and have tried to reply with the best manners I can muster. But I can't apologize for telling my story. I feel I have to do so not only to try to understand something that has a very dark heart and has negatively affected my life, but also so that institutions that behave this way may think twice about doing this to anyone else. Check out this week's NCR editorial for the healing effects on our church of hearing stories of those abused by pastoral leaders.

It surely does strike me as interesting that the institution in question is not logging on to tell that other side of the story you keep talking about....

William D. Lindsey

Bill, They would never do so. Why would they open themselves up to further liability? As long as they keep quiet, the "statute of limitations" is past. But the minute someone opens (his?) mouth, the entire thing opens up again, doesn't it?

They don't have to do so, because they have no legal liability. Bill has repeatedly made this point. It is legal but it is not ethical. C'mon guys don't confuse the issues.

Yes, it's kind of six of one and half a dozen of the others, colkoch and shootingstar. Telling their side of the story would open a can of worms, and they don't know how many of the worms I can identify, if I were called into a public context to tell what I do know. As I have mentioned, I did appeal to the bishop of the diocese (the new bishop, not the one who had been a part of what was done to me), who initially expressed outrage at what was done to me. He sent his vicar to talk to me a number of times, and I did learn pieces of information from him about the abuse crisis and its coverup in that diocese.

But you're right, too, colkoch. The college president told me flatly that he had been advised to do what he did to me on legal grounds, and that he knew perfectly well that what he was doing was not ethical. But he said he intended to do what was legal, regardless of whether it was ethical.

I also realized from what he told me and from what I observed that he was acting under the direction of the abbot, in consultation with the bishop. The abbot was himself a former attorney.

It was that disconnect between legal and ethical that really appalled me. I had never encountered a Catholic institution before that would simply, flatly, lie to my face, lie about me, and tell me it was willing to compromise its ethical standards to do what is legal while unethical.

All this was made much more bitter because the abbot had preached a sermon soon after his investiture about the need for healthcare coverage for all citizens. What they did to me took away my 1) job, 2) reputation, 3) vocation (insofar as they could block my attempt to get new jobs), 4) healthcare coverage, and finally 5) my house. As I have noted, all of this occurred as my partner and I were providing 24-7 coverage for my mother, who was suffering from severe dementia, in our house.

When priests or religious receive such unjust treatment from the church, at least they have a safety net to rely on. Layfolks treated this way do not have such a safety net. How can I ever listen to the church again talk about the rights of workers or about its support of healthcare for all without hearing with jaded ears? It is my faith that is wounded.

So you're quite right, wwob: I'm a crybaby.

I believe these are matters worth crying about. And I believe men shouldn't feel ashamed to cry in some situations. I learned that lesson from my grandmothers, who were magnificent human beings with deep souls and deep hearts, from whom I learned some of the most important lessons that have helped me stay my course in life.

William D. Lindsey

Thank you for making my point. He'd rather sit here and be a cry baby than take the positive step of taking them to court.

123bow, please grab Bud. The thing you aren't getting from my post and williams is that he can't grab a lawyer and do anything in a 'Right to Work State. It's one of those weird language things where you would think right to work means what is says. It doesn't. It means you have a right to work in a union shop if you don't belong to the union, even though you are covered by union contracts. It also means you can be fired without cause. Trade offs are trade offs are trade offs.

My experience has been that there are lawyers who will sue anyone for any reason if they see a dollar in it. I can think of a couple of country lawyers around here who can come up with multiple reasons to sue and a myriad ways to get around a right to work law. To quote another post here "it's called rationalization. Another word for excuse."

Wwob, is Kansas a right-to-work state? If it is, fine. If not, then don't talk until you've tried it. because of my tremor, I lost 2 jobs in Colorado within a year or two. I had what is called "a perceived disability", in other words, I could do the work fine, but the "perception" made people think there was "something wrong with me" that did not impinge on my job responsibilities. Nonetheless (and me being my sole support) I lost 2 jobs in a row as the tremor worsened. Believe me, I sought legal help, to no avail; "right-to-work State", I was told.

The tremor was finally corrected, to a great degree, with medication, but that took several years, (adjustments, side-effects, etc.). By then it was too late, and I was into retirement age. (I believe in Lenexa,KS, you have the Essential Tremor Foundation, the national organization for this condition.)

Don't knock it 'til you've tried it, and endured it. So Bill, Col and I, it seems, have all been through this "right-to-work" thing, but you have not? It has nothing to do with rationalization, unless it was the rationalizations of several lawyers in 3 different States, it appears. And lawyers do charge--last I heard they were up to $300 an hour? Some will do contingency, but not too many, especially for employment law in a "right-to-work state". Walk the walk before you talk the talk.

Somehow I get the feeling that you have walked your own red road. I am not saying that you haven't. And you handle your own difficulties your own way; we all do. But just because you go the "tough-guy" route, that doesn't mean we all have to do the same. I had enough of that routine growing up in the Corps, and believe me, I can (and have) toughed it out with the very best of them.

Yes.

Thanks for the information, wwob. Having grown up in the household of a lawyer (my father was one), I know the ins and outs of what attorneys are willing to do rather well.

Don't know if your statement re: rationalization is directed at me or has to do with what you say about laywers.

Are you defending the behavior of Catholic institutions in right-to-work states that fire individuals and provide no reason for so doing? You may prescind from my case in answering. I'm asking about a matter of principle, not a response to my story.

William D. Lindsey

You're exactly right, colkoch. The state in question is a right to work state, and that means employers can fire you at will.

Catholic teaching about how employers relate to employees says that it's always unethical to reduce a worker to the status of an object. John Paul II was eloquent about this. Which seems to me to imply that, when you fire someone whom you've given good evaluations and whose job performance is outstanding, you need to produce a reason for firing her. Not doing so turns the human being into a thing.

But giving a reason when someone's work has been good and evaluations outstanding is not so easy. It's simply easier to go with the right to terminate, even when behaving that way undercuts the Catholic ethics you proclaim in church.

And it's even easier when the state is also one with no legal protection for gay folks and lots of homophobia (sort of goes hand in hand with the right to work thing, don't you know). Then, you can count on seeding rumors about the sexual orientation of the person you've fired, and no one will ask questions about what you've done....

Catholic institutions shouldn't behave this way. And we should all shed tears when they do so, methinks.

William D. Lindsey

Thank you, colkoch. This is far more eloquent than anything I can ever say. You are absolutely on target with your analysis.

You say, "Once the pedophile scandal hit, the gays who had been previously hired for their talents were tossed like so much garbage. Catholic colleges who opted for the mandatum went after gay priests and faculty like rabid dogs. A gay priest, an extremely close friend of mine, was chucked from the college my daughter attends after 25 years of spotless service from similar trumped up charges. I am not one of the 'clucking grandmothers' you so disparage. I am a person who saw another wonderful, talented gay Catholic disposed of by corporate climbling interests. Like William, my friend never saw it coming, even though I warned him it was coming because the "Catholic authorities" would cover their asses on the backs of gays. He just wouldn't hear me because he had been in the system for so long and had so many people who believed in what he did and who he was."

This is precisely the dynamic that was at work in my story, and why I tell it--because the church as a whole needs to face this sick dynamic. It should appall the faithful when Catholic institutions go after any group of people "like rabid dogs," and toss human beings away "like so much garbage."

It was very clear to me that the purge mounted in "my" institution (as I have noted, I was one of several suspected gay-lesbian faculty and staff who were summarily dismissed all at once) was linked to the pedophile scandal, which had not yet fully broken open.

But I had heard enough whispering in clerical circles to know what was afoot, and I knew that in the diocese where this happened to me, payoffs were being made to silence victims of abuse, though the bishop denied this until the media found evidence that proved him to be lying. I knew about the payoffs because I heard the diocesan vicar talking to a member of "my" religious community about them.

When I was fired, I wrote the bishop and abbot letters telling them that such unjust behavior cried out to God for a hearing, and that there would come a day when the ugly secrets feeding their behavior--as you so well put it, "cover[ing] their asses on the backs of gays"--would one day be made known.

When I wrote that letter, little did I know that the cases in Boston would catch "my" institution red-handed in a cover-up. To replace me, they hired a priest who came to them from Boston. They desperately wanted a priest as head of the theology department, since they had found that I, as the first lay theologian, was beyond institutional bullying and manipulation, where a cleric is not.

Unfortunately, what came out in the Boston files was that the priest they hired came to them from Cardinal Law with a record, and that they knew of his record when they hired him. He had grabbed a seminarian at the seminary where he was rector, telling the seminarian to call him daddy, and kissing him on the lips.

When the Boston cases broke this story in "my" diocese, the abbot and bishop at first denied that they knew anything of this at the time the priest was hired to replace me. I knew both were lying. I wrote the abbot a letter asking that he not dishonor himself further by lying.

Almost immediately, Cardinal Law produced the letters and references to phone calls he had made to the bishop and abbot, proving that they were lying. He had even warned them not to hire this priest, because of his history.

What makes all of this richly ironic is that one of the ways they sought to justify my firing was to seed rumors slandering me as a probable pedophile!

These ugly stories have been replicated over and over for some time now, in the pedophile crisis. Gays are an easy diversionary target. I would ask good Catholics like wwob, how can the church be healed of this sickness if we don't tell the stories?

William D. Lindsey

"Almost immediately, Cardinal Law produced the letters and references to phone calls he had made to the bishop and abbot, proving that they were lying. He had even warned them not to hire this priest, because of his history."

Coming from Cardinal Law, this is quite interesting.

You're right, colkoch! It was a brilliant twist in the plot of this story, and I have to say, I did feel a bit of poetic justice in just how my institution had gotten exposed--rather, how the abbot had exposed himself by lying to the press and then having to retract when Law himself produced papers fingering the abbot.

Why I did this, I don't know, but I had written the abbot after I moved from the place, telling him he had hitched his wagon to an evil star in allying himself with Cardinal Law. The letter says that the abbot should remember that stars can rise and stars can fall. I noted that the abbot seemed to me to be violating his own principles to seek preferment by climbing the church ladder through his alliances with such powermongers. I asked him to think about what would be left of his principles--which I admired--if he forfeited them all to climb the ladder.

I say I don't know why I wrote that letter, because I truly didn't have evidence of his link to Cardinal Law. But I somehow felt it in my bones. (I've sometimes thought the letters I wrote the abbot and the bishop would make an interesting book--if nothing else, chronicling a very dark period in American Catholicism in the late 20th century.)

When the story broke through the Boston cases--showing that they booted me out to get a priest in my place, using rumors that I was a pedophile while knowing they were lying, and then hiring a priest with a history of assaulting seminarians in my place!--and when Law himself put the finger on them as they tried to imply he had sent the priest to poor little them without their knowledge, well. Well, I have to say, I did do a bit of laughing.

I hope the laughing wasn't schadenfreude. It was laughter mixed with tears, that pastoral officials in our church can behave this way.

These folks have really driven a wedge between me and the institution. Though I have told them that and asked for a simple apology to pave the way for me to return to communion, they remain silent. Their silence speaks volumes to me about their fundamental intent not to be good shepherds, but to continue protecting the clerical power structures and their place in those structures at all cost--and the many laity who suffer in the process be damned!

William D. Lindsey

Thank you for sharing your opinion with me, wwob. Unfortunately, your "further opinion that the...[religious community in question] more than likely did give you their reasons for letting you go" is not based in fact, and is wrong. You are, of course, entitled to your opinions. I prefer to base mine in fact....

I am not a monk, so the rule of Benedict doesn't apply to me in a juridical sense. Employees of Benedictine institutions are not monks, either, in many cases, and the rule doesn't apply to those non-monastic employees juridically.

Nonetheless, I'd like to think that Benedictine institutions would try to apply the rule insofar as it applies, in the institutions they sponsor. You say I have conveniently forgotten the part of the rule that says that the abbot must remove anyone or anything that upsets the tranquility of the house.

In my case, the citation from the rule that the abbot used to justify expelling me, in a public gathering after he had refused to meet with me to discuss the reason for my termination, was a citation that speaks of cutting off diseased limbs. Perhaps you've conveniently forgotten that this citation occurs in the context of a long discussion of how the community is to deal with an errant brother in a process of fraternal correction and counsel before cutting off the diseased limb?

You have, indeed, used the word "queer" on this board. I will search for the citation and remind you of it. I posted several replies asking you to clarify your use of the term. You never did so.

As an aside, I believe I may have a better opinion of grandmothers than you do. Both of mine were amazing, marvelous women. I can't find it in myself to speak disparagingly of "the sympathetic clucking of grandmothers."

William D. Lindsey

Indeed you did identify the community as Benedictine suggesting it was in Oklahoma or Kansas in a several month long rant last summer. At which time I suggested you seek the assistance of an attorney and a shrink to get the matter settled so you could get on with more important things and, as I recall, you took offense at that advice. Suggesting to me you don't want the matter laid to rest.

Wwob, you evidently didn't read what I wrote in my 9:16 A.M. posting, or if so, you didn't listen to what I said. What I wrote was as follows:

"(By the way, in this thread, have I ever spoken of the specific community where I experienced what you call martyrdom? Have I identified that community explicitly as a Benedictine community? Why are you doing that now, I wonder?)"

My sentence reads, "By the way, IN THIS THREAD, have I ever spoken of that specific community...?"

You respond by referring to ANOTHER THREAD which you choose to characterize as "a several month long rant."

It is YOU who have introduced the term Benedictine into the discussion ON THIS THREAD. I have not done so.

You are incorrect, by the way, about the location of the community with which I had my negative experience. It is YOU who are in Kansas and have ties to Benedictines there, according to your postings on various threads--not I.

Once again, I thank you for suggesting that the community with whom I dealt tell its side of the story--something they did not have the mere decency to do when they booted me from their college, and have not had the decency to do in the years since, though I have told them repeatedly that their behavior has had seriously destructive effects for me in my relationship to the institutional church.

I welcome your invitation to this community to tell its side of the story. I also once again extend to you an invitation of my own to share any privileged information to which you may have access through your own Benedictine ties.

While I am extending invitations to you to speak out, I'd like to renew my appeal to you to answer a question I asked you on another thread in the past, which you never answered: that is what you meant in using the term "queers" in what seemed to be a derogatory sense. If you did not mean that term in a derogatory sense, could you please explain your use of it, since it is widely regarded as a term that is now considered as offensive as the n- word when applied to African Americans?

William D. Lindsey

In re James N. Studer, OSB, see posting at "Gone Tomorrow"

Sylvester,
I looked for such a posting (on the "Gone Tomorrow" thread), but I didn't see it--would you be so kind as to enlighten these blind old eyes?

And Bow,
By the way, I do happen to be the recipient of Bill's info, (from an off-list post) and your "states" are way off, way off...and remember those Benedictines have "Chapters". They all struggle mightily, from what I have read, just to get along with one another in their own little monasteries from time to time. It's kind of an "inside joke" that the biggest challenge to their "spiritual formation" is to learn to "live together in peace and harmony". (Sounds like the cafe, actually, doesn't it?!)

PS How's the weather over there? Hope your young adolescent dog is doing OK in all that wicked cold and snow...

I'm sorry, I misdirected you. It's at the "Crumbling Idol" Thread

Submitted by Sylvester L. Steffen on February 3, 2007 - 9:50am.
It seemed to me that the question I posted at www.acolyte.gather.com, "Worldview Dictates Dogma" was appropriate here:

QUESTION: is it not true that the Shia/Sunni divide in the Middle East comes down to a worldview/orthodoxy divide? That such divide commonly occurs also in other religions, e.g., Judaism and Christianity? The worldview/orthodoxy divide is apparently a conflict of (SWV) cultist divine-election versus emergent (EWV) egalitarian divine-election.

SWV : Static World View
EWV : Evolutionary World View
(This designation was used no later than the early nineteen-nineties by James N. Studer, OSB, Saint John's Abbey, Collegeville, MN)

Exchanges with "Here Today" at "Gone Tomorrow" also pertain to questions here. Indeed, "hypocrisy and humbug" are the transparent wraps of once and would-be kings.

Thanks, Star! I love the way you shine light into so many lives....

William D. Lindsey

I agree with William that the palagian incident is not really relevant. The documents I recall reading on the official 'condemnation' related to the belief attributed to Pelagius, but probably more correctly to his follower, I think, named Honorius, was that man could, by his own efforts overcome the effects of original sin (or something like that). The edict that the efficacy of sacraments was not dependent upon the moral rightiousness of the clergyman was, as I understand earlier and in response to the good man's public notation as to the degredation of the clergy but not part of the 'official' charge.

One could, as far as I am concerned, go along with a 'smaller purer Church' as you note. My personal problem is that the kind of 'smaller purer Church' promoted, it would seem, by Benedict, his predecessor and many of the apparant self-elect, does not seem to be a very pleasant, or charitable, or creation encountering, creation completing or even 'human' place. It seems to take away human dignity as I understand it; it is a retreat into the inner reaches of the fortress to wait for the enemy, evil, to trample on the poor peasants who had to keep things moving outside; it is the mother abandoning her children.
(That latter might be a bit rough but I say it thinking of how comfortable Cardinal Law is in Rome).
If that 'smaller purer Church' was made up of people who genuinely respected one another and decided to trust each other and designed a way to debate and communicate without hatred or having to be right or sending people away because they were different, and agreed that the earth and many others need healing and nurturing and didn't refuse other who wanted to join I would try it. Sounds nice but I bet it would still be rather small, at least at first.

Michael, I appreciate your post and have read it carefully. But I have to disagree about the use of the Pelagian heresy to close off conversation about how some pastoral leaders today have become counter-signs to the gospel.

I think the heart of the conversation is not about the worthiness of bishops whose behavior in the abuse crisis has been a counter-sign to the gospel to celebrate the sacraments. That was what the Pelagian discussion was about, as I recall it.

The discussion is about how the church can be a sacramental sign of God's salvific presence in the world, when the behavior of many of its pastoral leaders belies the most fundamental principles of Eucharistic behavior.

I have just read the January 28, 2003, open letter of Paul Cultrera, a survivor of sexual abuse by priest Joseph Birmingham, to Bishop John McCormack. Cultrera went to McCormack for pastoral assistance. Instead of offering him that, McCormack compounded his priest's abuse by lying to Cultrera and seeking to divert Cultrera from obtaining the full truth about Birmingham's long history of abuse, and how McCormack had protected Birmingham as a serial abuser.

Cultrera's open letter states,

"I hope you will all understand why I do not address John as 'father'. My father is here in the audience, and John McCormack does not deserve to share that title with him. Nor can I refer to John as 'bishop'" because based on my experience with him, I don't believe that he merits that title either."

The letter goes on to explain how Cultrera has arrived at this position vis-a-vis McCormack, though bitter experience. Cultrera states:

"So I need to know how you, John McCormack, could believe that lying to me about what you knew of Birmingham's career-long pedophilia could benefit me, and help me to 'put it all behind me'. You clearly had a chance to assist me in my healing process by letting me know that I was not alone. Instead of choosing to relate to me with christian compassion, you chose to deal with me as an adversary, closing ranks around the archdiocese's desire to avoid scandal and all the attendant liability. Your pseudo-friendly advice to not prosecute the church was self-serving, as was the advice to '"put it behind me'. You had to know that putting something like this behind me would only be made more difficult by virtue of your duplicity. And that the anger I would eventually feel for your lies would burn for years. You were playing the priests' old trump card, attempting to k