Is the Boston Archdiocese Letting Heretics Invade Its Seminary?
The outgoing rector of Saint John’s Seminary in Boston, Rev. John A. Farren, O.P., recently sent a stinging letter of rebuke to a pair of Church officials regarding the sale of properties adjoining the seminary to Boston College and Weston Jesuit Seminary. Farren argues that the doctrinal integrity of the seminary is at risk given the close proximity of these two Jesuit-run institutions – both infamously heretical in their theological orientation – to the seminary. Indeed, Boston College will now be in charge of the seminary’s library (I can only imagine how stupid the new titles acquired by the library will become).
Reverend Richard M. Erikson, who was at one time a professor at Saint John’s and is no doubt a dim-bulb proponent of Rahnerian clap-trap theology, could not disagree more vehemently with Farren:
“We are preparing men for ministry in the 21st century in an extraordinarily diverse diocese of 144 communities, 2 million Catholics, and many urban centers, and if our seminarians don’t face these challenges and issues as seminarians, they will the day they’re ordained. I’m not afraid that having a very diverse and wide experience at seminary is somehow going to corrupt our seminarians.”
Father Farren, on the other hand, rightly points out that Weston’s staff is populated by several openly gay and lesbian individuals and that several of its seminary theologians are under suspicion for heresy by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Of course, the glorification of sodomy and otherwise open heresy are not legitimate expressions of diversity in the Mystical Body of Christ. So, what on earth do the seminary students at Saint John’s have to gain from rubbing shoulders in their formative period with pseudo-Catholics and intellectual hacks who think that Elizabeth Johnson’s infantile perorations are the height of theological profundity and sophistication? Yes, there is no doubt that these young men will have to deal with that kind of idiocy and lunacy in the parish setting. But, the contemporary seminarian already knows about all that bunk anyway. The seminary should be a time of spiritual and intellectual purification, not a period of further spiritual and theological confusion. What do you think these young seminarians got growing up, anyway? A living Catholic culture? You’d have to be a knave to think so.
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Given that the Archdiocese of Boston has had a female employee who thought herself ‘ordained’ and a lay advisor who writes glowing op-eds on why same-sex marriage is a good thing, I would say they have lots of personnel problems all over the the place…
http://aquietcatholic.blogspot.com/search/label/Archdiocese_of_Boston
Comment by Lynne — June 18, 2007 @ 9:25 am
Seminarians have been kept secluded from the real world for all of our recent history…and look at the results. Hundreds, if not thousands of sexual perpetrators, and tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of victims. Perhaps if seminarians study with people who are in the world, they will realize that it is REAL people who are damaged by sexual abuse.
Comment by Mary — June 18, 2007 @ 9:32 am
Mary -
I am not sure how you define the “real world” but every place in the world is “real.” Your argument is a non-sequitur for many reasons: for example the John Jay Report shows that the rise of sexual abuse occurs shortly after seminaries became inundated with these faulty ideas from the so-called “real world.” As the seminaries began to be reformed in the 1980s, shortly afterward we saw a very quick drop off in new reports of sexual abuse.
Your argument seems to be that abuse occurs because of ignorance (i.e. that real people are hurt). Rather, abuse occurs because of sin. Studying with non-seminarians will not help this. Seminaries need to return to forming holy and rightly educated priests. However, the issue is not studying with people who are in the world but learning from people who have a confused idea about the world. This was a contributing factor to the sexual abuse problem.
Comment by David — June 18, 2007 @ 9:49 am
Previously, in 2004, some of the seminary’s land and buildings were sold to Boston College. The Apostolic Visitation team recommended that “in order to ensure the integrity of the seminary…no more property should be sold”.
Comment by Lynne — June 18, 2007 @ 11:59 am
Hi David,
Yes, of course, every place in the world is real, but I think you can understand what I mean. Seminarians, trained entirely amongst themselves, don’t get the opportunity to learn about and from people who choose another way of life, and those that the seminarians, if and when they become priests, will eventually serve. I think this can limit empathy and a true understanding of problems that occur due to issues of power, such as sexual abuse.
I am really grateful that the John Jay Report was done and made public, however, there is a disagreement amongst those who have evaluated this report as to the reasons for the higher numbers of abusers and abuse victims in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. (My particular gripe is that seminaries didn’t begin their liberal reforms until the mid to late 60’s and much abuse was reported beginning in the early 6o’s. So that had nothing to do with the liberalization of the seminaries. I think that many of those abused in the 1920’s- 1950’s simply haven’t reported…either because it’s a generational thing or they are too sick or dead. And about the 80’s forward…I think most experts believe that it is wishful thinking to think that the numbers in the 80’s and 90’s will be any lower than previous generations. They are lower now becuase it can take 20 years or more for people to have the courage to come forward. You have to remember that for many of the victims, when they did first tell, they were not believed or told that it was their fault. So to have the courage to forward again, often times, takes much time.
Many people attribute the sexual abuse crisis to a sort of clericalism….an elevation of the clerical class to superior than the laity. This will certainly improve if the future priests are educated amongst the other university students, working toward their own professional careers. It will help the laity begin to see the seminarians as just people called to serve God in a way different from their own calling, but not a superior way of serving.
Comment by Mary — June 18, 2007 @ 12:20 pm
Mary, have you read “Goodbye Good Men” by Michael Rose? This excerpt is especially germane to what is happening at St John’s Seminary. It just got cleaned up and it’s being dragged back down again…
“The trouble starts in the seminary, and gross sexual immorality and the protective network formed around that immorality is only one of the major issues that needs to be forthrightly addressed by the shepherds of the Catholic Church, as Goodbye, Good Men reveals. The fact is that many qualified candidates for the priesthood have been turned away for political reasons over the past three decades. Systematic, ideological discrimination has been practiced against seminarians who uphold Catholic teaching on sexuality and other issues; dissenters from Catholic teaching—including teaching on homosexuality—have been rewarded.
Goodbye, Good Men exposes this corruption: the deliberate infiltration of Catholic seminaries by what Andrew Greeley has dubbed the “Lavender Mafia,” a clique of homosexual dilettantes, along with an underground of liberal faculty members determined to change the doctrines, disciplines, and mission of the Catholic Church from within. Through the seminaries, liberals have brought a moral meltdown into the Catholic priesthood. If the sex scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church are to end, the individuals responsible for this moral meltdown must be rooted out. Only then will the “dark shadow of suspicion” be removed from “all the other fine priests who perform their ministry with honesty and integrity and often with heroic self-sacrifice.”
Comment by Lynne — June 18, 2007 @ 6:14 pm
We have to keep in mind that the Jay Report covered a specific point in time: 2002. It was produced not to study the problem of clergy sexual activity in its entirety (it didn’t touch consensual adult sex) but only to outline for the bishops potential liability in the legal arena. Many victims who were abused before the early 60’s were dead when Jay reporters came calling. Mary is correct to be skeptical.
The last time I noticed, the staff of CLS wasn’t an ecclesiastical court. You have to prove heresy, my friends. Lacking proof, this post is little better than a puerile attempt at name-calling. Y’all can do better.
Comment by Todd — June 18, 2007 @ 11:42 pm
Mary,
The thing that perplexes me is the suggestion that a few years in seminary in an exclusive environment somehow over-rides the years of growing up in a “real people” family, going to school for 12 years with other “real people”. More likely, which I will touch on later, is that the conditions that make one a sex-abuser were there long before entering seminary.
The other point that sticks out to me is the idea that the laity should see the priesthood as not a superior, but different way of serving. Why in the world would we want to do that? I think I understand your point, but you may want to articulate it a little bit differently. The priesthood absolutely is an elevated and higher calling. Maybe what you meant to say was that priests, themselves, are not superior to anyone else? Clericalism is a real danger, but so is the non-chalance of diminishing the priestly vocation.
Finally, sex abuse is a sickening evil that is rampant throughout all sectors of our society. If you (anyone, not you in particular) investigate the support groups for victims of sexual abuse, you’ll see that all kinds of people from every different background abuse those around them. It’s time we looked into the soul of America - as a whole - and not single out the priesthood and seminaries.
Comment by monica — June 19, 2007 @ 8:18 am
Mary,
I had a life…yes, a “Real Life”…long before I entered seminary. They don’t grow us in pods at the bottom of the ocean and float us up for theological training, ya know.
Fr. Philip, OP
Comment by PNP, OP — June 19, 2007 @ 4:42 pm
Fr. Philip, sometimes it feels like some priests did grow you in pods.
I meant no offense. I honestly wonder what created the fact that so many priests did nothing while children were being abused. Growing up in pods might just answer that question.
I’d love any insight from an insider as to how this could have happened.
Comment by Mary — June 19, 2007 @ 5:18 pm
I forgot to include in my last post…I’m a lifelong Catholic, mother of three, grandmother of two. I just don’t understand how children were so terribly hurt and so many people watched it happen.
Comment by Mary — June 19, 2007 @ 5:20 pm
Mary’s noting of the fact that sexual abuse started earlier than the 60’s is a good point…and many if not most of the abusers were up there in age. I had no insight into the why of this until a very “in the world” non intellectual type guy I knew blurted out something quite fascinating: ” they were homosexual in generations that could not easily come out of the closet to their parents…and they were from families who would always keep asking them why they were not getting married and raising a family…so they went into the priesthood and all those pressures were solved and went away.”
Most of the abuse was not pedaphilia…but seduction of teenagers also and that too fits with this guys insight.
Comment by bill bannon — June 19, 2007 @ 6:48 pm
Mary, the questions you’re asking can’t be answered in a combox. Read Goodbye Good Men by Michael Rose or better still The Rite of Sodomy by Randy Engel.
At an even higher level, you’re asking why there is evil in this world (hint:original sin). Find video/audio recordings by Father Corapi and watch/listen.
Comment by Lynne — June 19, 2007 @ 7:07 pm
Bill, your conclusion that homosexual men entered the priesthood so as not to have to tell their family could certainly be correct. I think it may also be that these guys were trying to deny their homosexuality….so they “escaped” to the priesthood…thinking they’d get away from the temptation. Instead, they often found they were being seduced by their teachers and mentors at the seminary.
But that doesn’t explain abuse of girls or very young boys. And both those things happened a lot. I know many many women who were abused by priests when they were teens and younger. Maybe not in as great a number as abuse of teen age boys….but think about who the priests and seminarians had access to? Boys beginning at the age of about 10.
Comment by Mary — June 19, 2007 @ 9:31 pm
Lynne, I think another good read is People of the Lie by M Scott Peck. The last chapter discusses group evil. I think some of the answers to my questions lie there.
I just think that until we as laity in the church don’t demand a further discussion about these issues, this evil may go underground for a while but raise its ugly head once again. I find it necessary to continue probing the questions until we have truth forums like they had in South Africa….so we can get to the real truths…who knew what when and what they did or didn’t do. Only then will we be able to really set up systems that will help us have confidence that our children are safe in church.
It is all so terribly sad. It truly breaks my heart.
Comment by Mary — June 19, 2007 @ 9:36 pm