I'm watching this story with interest. From Congregation unite in protest at suspension of parish priest:
Fr. Despard was suspended for writing Priesthood in Crisis, available on Amazon in Kindle format. I bought it yesterday morning and am nearly halfway through. So far I've read about the incident that occurred that prompted him to write the notes that lead to the book, his experiences in the seminary which included a number of heterosexual men either being forced out of priestly training, or leaving because they couldn't take it anymore. It reminded me of what Fr. Z said this year (sorry, can't find the post) that the homosexuals in the seminary in his day made his life hell. Not word for word, exactly, but the meaning was similar.
What I find interesting, is the coincidence of the date of publication of the Kindle book and the outing of Scotland's only Cardinal, Keith O'Brien. It seems a lot happened in a short space of time. Before Pope Benedict resigned, O'Brien was accused by three priests and a former priest of inappropriate relationships with them, then it became public after the resignation. Within days of Pope Francis' election, Fr Despard's book was published to Kindle. It was all on in Scotland, it seemed.
However, even though Keith O'Brien is now is some unknown monastery where he'd been ordered into by Pope Francis, Fr. Despard is still able to be threatened with the loss of his priesthood because of what he has revealed in his book. Meanwhile, the latest on Cardinal O'Brien was that before he was ordered into a monastery, he blocked a planned independent inquiry into historic sex abuse in Scotland. After reading some of Fr. Despard's book, I beginning to understand the power being wielded by those who stand to lose a lot if what is written is to be believed, and I see no reason to disbelieve it given the other reading I have done.
I was alerted to this story by a post written by Edward Peters, on our sidebar: The Scottish Controversy. As an aside, the blog listing , very strangely, disappeared from our sidebar between my reading of this story and my writing of this post. I added it back yesterday, and you will see it listed under Catholic Blogs, with the title In the Light of the Law. I don't know quite what to make of this disappearance, especially since there is no record of it occurring in StatCounter.
Related links: Congregation unite in protest at suspension of parish priest ~ ~ Herald Scotland
With the Pope against homo-heresy ~ LifeSiteNews
Only a handful of parishioners remained yesterday to take mass at St John Ogilvie's Church in High Blantyre with Archdiocese of Motherwell acting Bishop Joseph Toal after Father Matthew Despard was removed from his ministry the night before.
Before they went into church, people signed a petition calling for the reinstatement of Father Despard, suspended for writing a controversial memoir that claimed there is a culture of homosexual bullying in the Catholic Church.
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| Father Matthew Despard suspended for writing a book about homosexual bullying in the Church |
Fr. Despard was suspended for writing Priesthood in Crisis, available on Amazon in Kindle format. I bought it yesterday morning and am nearly halfway through. So far I've read about the incident that occurred that prompted him to write the notes that lead to the book, his experiences in the seminary which included a number of heterosexual men either being forced out of priestly training, or leaving because they couldn't take it anymore. It reminded me of what Fr. Z said this year (sorry, can't find the post) that the homosexuals in the seminary in his day made his life hell. Not word for word, exactly, but the meaning was similar.
What I find interesting, is the coincidence of the date of publication of the Kindle book and the outing of Scotland's only Cardinal, Keith O'Brien. It seems a lot happened in a short space of time. Before Pope Benedict resigned, O'Brien was accused by three priests and a former priest of inappropriate relationships with them, then it became public after the resignation. Within days of Pope Francis' election, Fr Despard's book was published to Kindle. It was all on in Scotland, it seemed.
However, even though Keith O'Brien is now is some unknown monastery where he'd been ordered into by Pope Francis, Fr. Despard is still able to be threatened with the loss of his priesthood because of what he has revealed in his book. Meanwhile, the latest on Cardinal O'Brien was that before he was ordered into a monastery, he blocked a planned independent inquiry into historic sex abuse in Scotland. After reading some of Fr. Despard's book, I beginning to understand the power being wielded by those who stand to lose a lot if what is written is to be believed, and I see no reason to disbelieve it given the other reading I have done.
I was alerted to this story by a post written by Edward Peters, on our sidebar: The Scottish Controversy. As an aside, the blog listing , very strangely, disappeared from our sidebar between my reading of this story and my writing of this post. I added it back yesterday, and you will see it listed under Catholic Blogs, with the title In the Light of the Law. I don't know quite what to make of this disappearance, especially since there is no record of it occurring in StatCounter.
Related links: Congregation unite in protest at suspension of parish priest ~ ~ Herald Scotland
With the Pope against homo-heresy ~ LifeSiteNews
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