Goodbye, Good Men 
              How Liberals Brought Corruption Into The Catholic Church 
                                         by Michael S. Rose 

The attack on Christianity by the left for the past thirty years has not been just their efforts to scrub any reference to God from public events, or to prohibit Christmas creches on public land at Christmastime, nor spending tax dollars for art in public museums that is contemptuous of the religious beliefs held by many Americans, and not even just their media sneering that Christians are lowlife-inbreds.  

While America began to contend with this on-going public assault, a truly monstrous, secretive attack was launched into the heart of  the Roman Catholic Church -- the seminaries, where priests-to-be develop their vocation and are trained in preparation for service to God. The media witchhunt of  'political correctness' scaring the leadership into submission, and disbelief on the part of the laity that the church's hierarchy would allow its destruction, were the rocks that hid the growing corruption. What was hidden is now being exposed to the light of day, but too late for many good men who were turned away from the seminaries (creating priest shortages); too late for the many, many young men and boys, children of Catholic families in the pews, who were sexually exploited by immoral homosexuals who had been welcomed into the seminaries, ordained and promoted into positions of leadership. 

In "Goodbye, Good Men"  Michael Rose says that men who entered the priesthood before the 1970s, and the newest priests today generally accept celibacy as crucial to their service and are devoted to the orthodox teachings, sacraments and traditions of the church. But that in-between generation, now ensconced in the church's leadership (except for some few who courageously resisted the corruption) are determined to "change the structure and mission of the Catholic Church"; their goal is a secularized and desacralized institution led perhaps by priestesses, or perhaps by a priestless, organized laity giving the sacraments. 

"In the face of this 'determined effort,'" in the words of Archbishop Curtiss, "on the part of these entrenched dissenters to discourage orthodox vocations, the U.S. hierarchy has for the most part shown a singular lack of resolution, preferring to tolerate manifest injustices rather than wrest back control of the process of priestly formation from those who have used their power over it to the Church's detriment." 

A heterosexual, religiously orthodox man applying to the seminaries is "often labeled as a troublemaker or a reactionary zealot, 'rigid' and unfit for the priesthood."  Once dismissed from a seminary he is typically blackballed from others."  Should  an applicant persist, he is often sent to a politically correct psychologist who will diagnose him as not mentally balanced 
if he confirms his acceptance of celibacy and his rejection of women in the priesthood. Or, he might be dubbed a "homophobe" (the worst political offense) if he insists that the church's position on homosexuality is correct. That position is simply that homosexuals are not rejected, but that homosexuals are expected to be celibate and chaste. 

A stumbling-block to orthodox men in the seminaries is a pervasive "'gay subculture', comprised of both students and faculty"; some of the seminaries have gleefully earned such nicknames as "Notre Flame (for the Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans)" and "Theological Closet (for Theological College at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.)."  "St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore has earned the nickname the 'Pink Palace.'"  Heterosexual, orthodox men who do make it into the seminaries often find themselves under seige by the homosexuals and having to fend off sexual advances, even rape. When they complain to the seminary leadership they are often told to be tolerant, to understand the others' need to "get in touch with their true sexuality".  Those resisting often have to meet and study secretly, providing each other support -- a sort of true believers' underground. An underground of morality within the church! 

Some of the priests who spoke to Michael Rose of the corruption did so only if they were not identified by name, fearing retaliation by the homosexuals and feminists in authority even today. Some agreed to be identified. Others who never gained acceptance into a seminary, or who gave up their vocation with their faith nearly destroyed by the corruption within the seminary, still felt shame over their 'failure', and many were still trying to cope with family members who felt shamed....not understanding, and sometimes not believing what they were told. One man who was literally driven from the seminary by homosexuals says: "I never told my parents nor later my wife that this was the 'real' reason for my leaving," he said. "They 
would have been scandalized." 

Those who stayed, and made it through to ordination dispite harrassment report that: "Seminarians who accept the Church's teachings on sexual morality have not only been dismissed from a seminary as 'troublemakers,' they have also been threatened by classmates and faculty, especially in religious houses, that if they did not submit to homosexuality -- to espouse and defend homosexual acts, if not take part in them -- their priestly careers would be in jeopardy."  Indeed, older gay seminarians whose sexual advances were rejected by younger men (who were expelled because of their 'homophobia') went on to be ordained, and are working today in American parishes. 

In seminaries around the country, including Mt. Angel Seminary in Oregon, seminarians attend sex education classes where the church's traditional teachings of celibacy and marriage are mocked, and  textbook photographs depicting every conceivable human sexual activity, including bestiality, are required study.  Rose quotes one priest who said that "A lot of seminarians were just struck dumb by this book"...."They didn't know what to say. You 
expect to see this stuff out in the world, but in the seminary it's shocking." 

Why this insistence on coarsening the sensibilites of the young, particularly those who are expected to become leaders in the church, perhaps in the wider community?  Why are predatory homosexuals who assault children and the young merely moved around the country, in effect, providing them with fresh victims, never warning parents, never reporting these crimes to legal authorities? Why is there even now such difficulty for the church hierarchy (and perhaps the laity) to cleanse the church leadership of those who utterly  reject its teachings, sacraments and traditions?  The material presented by Michael Rose in this book is very nearly overwhelming and untterably sad. 

Some among the public, non-Catholics, have said that the revelations of predatory homosexual priests sexually assaulting the young, and the demand for the ordination of women (good men driven from the priesthood has caused a dearth of priests), are problems only for the Catholic Church. Those who say this are wrong. This assault by the liberals on the Catholic Church is an assault on every one of us. Those abused young boys and men  were, and are, vulnerable members of our communities, their families are our neighbors.  To believe that only the Catholic Church has been targeted  would be naive in the extreme. Protestant churches would be wise to  reconsider the degree to which they also have acquiesced to political  correctness, and to do so honestly and vigorously. Even those who are not religious at all will have no use for an ideology, one in decline around the world, whose only goal is the destruction and corruption of all that we treasure. 

                                                      -- Peggy Whitcomb 

(OMED: The following item is not part of Whitcomb's review.  It was found on the Mt. Angel site, and serves to show how close to home this all is.)
 

Review text © 2002 Peggy Whitcomb   Most of the graphics are links to their source.