“Lynching” Revisited

In the past 24 hours, more information has been brought to our attention, concerning the activities of Bishop Robert Lynch of Saint Petersburg, Florida. It appears that reports of his malfeasance are not confined to the occasional bout with foot-in-mouth disease. No, that would have been the good news. Brandon K Thorp of Gawker has the bad news, published one year ago today.

Priests speak, too, about the culture of "sex-driven favoritism" at St. John Vianney College Seminary—a kind of gay Hogwarts with palm trees, located out in the flat suburban wastes of southwest Dade County. Seminaries are traditionally gay places—Papist wits refer to Notre Dame seminary as "Notre Flame," Theological College as "Theological Closet," Mundelein as "Pink Palace," and so on. But St. John Vianney was special. One seminarian who dropped out in disgust in the 1980s recalls a miserable year being bullied by gay faculty, and the rector, Robert Lynch, fawning over his favorite seminarian: an attractive upper-classman named Steven O'Hala. The dropout also recalls Lynch installing a camera in the seminary's weight room to capture images of pumped, sweaty seminarians ... Lynch departed St. John Vianney in the mid-80's. Twenty years later, as the bishop of the St. Petersburg diocese on Florida's west coast, he was accused of sexually harassing Bill Urbanski, the diocese's spokesman and the father of Lynch's godson. Funnily [sic] enough, one of Urbanski's more mild complaints was that Lynch liked to photograph him with his shirt off. The diocese settled out of court for $100,000. [CONTENT ADVISORY: Mature subject matter, with one offensive illustration, and the occasional swipe at Catholicism in general.]

While most of the article deals with the revelations in the neighboring Archdiocese of Miami, it would appear that Lynch had a significant role in the aforementioned account. The article is accompanied by considerable documentation provided by a determined group of the faithful collectively known as “Christifidelis.” Thorp's depiction of clerical misconduct has essentially been confirmed by a Florida attorney, Eric Giunta, who penned a response, also last year, for RenewAmerica.

The bishops of the United States would have us believe they have solved this problem, of unnatural sexual assaults against minors, and its ties to the gay subculture within the clerical ranks, by throwing their priests to the wolves on the flimsiest of accusations, and fingerprinting Grandma so she can continue teaching at Sunday school. The above is just one more example of how determined they are to blame everyone but themselves, for the sickness that has done great harm to Mother Church in recent years.
 

Ten Years After (Fortnight: Day 01)

“A young man from a small town with a very large imagination ...”

Ten years ago today, the weblog known as MAN WITH BLACK HAT began publication.

In the year of Our Lord two thousand and two, there were many new voices among those who practiced the Catholic faith, who discovered an emerging medium known as the “weblog” (or “blog” for short). Many of them were inspired by the outrage, at the news of scandalous behavior on the part of the clergy that was originating in Boston. It was less that we were unaware of such indiscretions before, either there or elsewhere, as much as there being sufficient numbers of Bostonians who were convinced, that their city and its environs was the center of the known universe, to call our attention thereto. As ridiculous as it may seem, their plan (or lack thereof) worked.

But it brought something more.

At a time when the Faith was under attack by those who were using the Scandals to fulfill their own nefarious ends -- we will speak of them later, won't we? -- and at a time when the same Scandals were shaking that Faith on the part those who would otherwise remain steadfast, these new voices emerged with the medium, and became the message.

It was in consideration of the above, that this writer did not know where to begin. So many pressing issues of the day. So many matters for reflection from the past decade. So many church chat pundits competing for attention. So. Little. Time.

Fortunately, the American bishops have come through with an inspiration for us. Beginning today, and through the Fourth of July, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is sponsoring a Fortnight For Freedom, to protest the government mandate that would force religious institutions to violate their sacred principles for the illusion of health care. (No, Virginia, birth control pills and the slaughter of unborn children is not health care, and even if it was, you can pay for it your damn self!)

The point (and we do have one) is that every day leading up to the Fourth, we will offer reflections on the blogospheric experience over the last ten years, the collective musings of faith and culture, of life and love, of fun and games, of a song and dance man who is keeping his day job.

That would be me. Stay tuned ...

UPDATE: Effective today, we are also introducing labels for every post, to facilitate searching by subject matter. You may also notice some tweaking of the page features now and then. Remain calm.