LYING ABOUT PRIESTS
September 9, 2011
Catholic League president Bill Donohue notes recent lies about priests:
It has been said that Fr. Mychal Judge, the first of the First Responders to die on 9/11, was gay. Not everyone agrees. No matter, even those who allege that Judge was gay say he kept his sexual orientation private, disclosing it to only a few friends. Fr. Brian Jordan, for instance, said of his fellow Franciscan in 2002 that "I knew him for 25 years and I didn't know that he was gay until after he died." (The Catholic fantasy demands that 'good' gay priests never tell their truth in order to be considered 'good' straight priests.)
It really shouldn't matter whether Judge was gay or straight, but unfortunately some in gay circles, as well as in liberal quarters generally, are turning this issue into a national spectacle. Worse, some are lying. In the August 19 edition of a dissident Catholic newspaper, the National Catholic Reporter, it says, "Judge was a Catholic priest who publicly acknowledged that he was a celibate gay man." After reading this, I asked Jeff Field, our communications director, to e-mail Tom Fox, editor of the newspaper, asking him for the evidence that Judge publicly declared that he was gay. That was yesterday, and Fox has not replied. It is a lie. (Here's a big whopper of a lie from Battlin' Bill for whom Fr Mychal's orientation is a huge issue.)
SNAP Wisconsin, the Wisconsin branch of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, posted an article on September 7 about a Philadelphia priest who has never been convicted of anything, but will go on trial next year for allegedly covering up a crime. The title of the article reads, "The Crimes of Monsignor William J. Lynn." Field contacted the SNAP chapter yesterday asking them to correct the record. "You know very well that Monsignor Lynn has only been accused and hasn't been convicted of any crimes," Field said. There has been no response. (The Catholic fantasy allows for accusing women of the 'crime of abortion', which in this country is not a crime, but the same generous use of the word can not be extended to priests who are known to have moved predators around resulting in more children being abused. That is an actual crime, which God willing, the alleged criminal Lynn will find out.)
Lying is bad enough, but when it is done for political purposes, it is obscene. That priests are the primary victims these days is indisputable. (Except when your side is doing it, then it is righteous and holy.)
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For some reason, I just can't let this kind of garbage go unchallenged. And it is garbage. Fr. Mychal Judge did publicly acknowledge he was a gay priest, he just didn't do it to the faction of the Church Bill Donohue represents. Had Fr Mychal done so, especially when Cardinal O'Connor ran the show in New York, he would have ended his career as a priest. How truly emblematic this is about the true status of gay priests, in order to serve Truth you must not tell it about yourself. You must silently and secretly foster a false image to protect your priesthood from the Bill Donohues and the Cardinal O'Connors and Benedict XVIs of the Catholic world. I don't have a clue how anyone can possibly think this kind of 'false positive' enhances one's spirituality and connection with Truth. Fr Judge certainly didn't think so.
There is a widely quoted observation from Fr Judge about love:
"Is there so much love in the world that we can afford to discriminate against any kind of love?"The event of 9/11 itself stands as the stark answer to this question, and yet Donohue would have us believe the answer is yes, there is enough love in this world that Mychal Judge's kind of love is anathema. In Donohue's version of Catholicism, gay love means always having to say you're sorry, and if you don't get that, God will give you an eternity of reason to be sorry. Fr Judge came to see the self defeating fallacy of this particular Catholic delusion. If God is Love, then God is Love. If we can't see and feel that, then the problem is not with God, it's with us.
Fr Mychal Judge is a saint, and he is most definitely a gay saint. If this is an 'agenda' it was part of God's agenda for Mychal. Prophetic lives always challenge the status quo. Mychal's was one such life. Msgr Lynn on the other hand, will also turn out to be prophetic, and the prophetic message of Lynn's life will not go down well in Donohue's Catholic world either. The era of hierarchical non accountability is over. The carefully constructed clerical myth, based on the twin towers of heterosexual celibacy and ontological superiority are crashing just as surely as the Twin Towers did on 9/11. Fr Mychal's life stands as a prophetic witness for both events. Long live Saint Mychal Judge.
