Lavender revolt in Altoona-Johnstown

By Domenico Bettinelli, Jr. ( articles - email ) | May 16, 2003

A group of anonymous, homosexual priests in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Penn., sent an open letter to their bishop demanding he immediately stop publicly defending the diocese against lawsuits and settle them all out of court. Are they afraid that such defense would be a further harm to victims? Do they think it is only just for the bishop to accept responsibility for his and his predeccesor's actions? Not exactly. They want the bishop to settle all the cases because they want "to protect the reputation and well being of those priests so named and others that may be revealed in the course of any trial." In other words, guilt or innocence be damned, no matter whether anybody has actually been abused, their reputations, their homosexual lifestyle, and their cronies must be protected first. These are priests dedicated to serving God and His people? We can't let any more names of alleged abusers get out!

They also demand that the bishop turn the diocese's lawyers on those who would dare speak out against homosexuality and especially against gay clergy. And they want the bishop to form more priests in their own image.

Whereas our bishop has ordained several men to the priesthood over the last several year [sic] who are unfit to serve the modern, post-conciliar church, we demand our bishop conduct a complete review and overhaul of the priestly recruitment program. [emphasis added]

What kind of overhaul? "Cease and desist sending seminarians to the present rigid seminaries used by our diocese and begin to use more pastoral seminaries for formation." [emphasis added] For one thing, what's with the pseudo-legal language? Why add "desist" when you could just say "cease?" Because it makes it sound more important and pompous. And have you noticed how the whole thing reads like a very good parody of typical liberal, "spirit of Vatican II" tripe? These people and their clones throughout the Church are becoming shrill parodies of themselves. For a good laugh, read the whole thing.