ARTICLES
November 2002 ARTICLES
Contents © 2002
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
Not to Alarm You or Anything
Michael Rose Defends Himself Against Critics
By F. Michael Forrester
On July 27, at the Long Beach Convention Center, almost 400 people gathered for the half-day, lay-organized conference, entitled, "Tragedy to Triumph: Moving Into a New Springtime in the Catholic Church." Three nationally renowned speakers were scheduled to give talks. The first, and most anticipated of the speakers, was Michael Rose. Author of Ugly as Sin and Renovation Manipulation, he has recently received national acclaim for his new book, Goodbye, Good Men: How Liberals Brought Corruption into The Catholic Church. This book, published shortly before the current scandals drew media attention, documents the systematic rejection of pious, orthodox seminary applicants in many dioceses and the outright encouragement of homosexual and heterodox applicants. Since its release, it was quick to become a national best seller. The two other speakers scheduled to talk were Father Timothy Vaverek, who has published articles in many nationally known periodicals, and H.W. Crocker, III, author of the highly acclaimed book, Robert E. Lee on Leadership, and a new book, Triumph: the Power and Glory of The Catholic Church.
Rose began his talk, entitled, like his book, "Goodbye, Good Men," saying, "I really like the title of this conference -- 'From Tragedy to Triumph.' Apparently, I am the tragedy part." Flying in the face of Cardinal Roger Mahony's pastoral letter, As I Have Done for You, in which Mahony suggested that the priest shortage is an act of the Holy Spirit and proposed greater involvement of the laity as a desirable solution, Rose began his talk questioning the very idea of 'the vocations crisis' itself. "Most of us here recall many of the shrill warnings that we've been bombarded with over the past few decades," said Rose, "'The priest shortage calls for a solution!' 'The vocations crisis calls for a solution!' And what are the solutions that are popularly put forth? Ending the discipline of celibacy -- ordaining women to the Catholic priesthood -- and essentially replacing priests with deacons, nuns, or lay pastoral ministers. But does anyone here really believe that these proposed solutions will end the priest shortage? Will they solve the vocations crisis? How, for instance, does replacing priests with lay pastors solve the priest shortage? These solutions, posited repeatedly by the liberal talking heads, are geared toward learning to live without the traditional Catholic priesthood. It's that simple. But I've got news for everyone here. There is no vocations crisis. That's right. There is no vocations crisis."
In researching his book, Rose first looked to the seminary in his hometown, Cincinnati -- the Athenaeum of Ohio seminary. Rose immediately came across two liberal seminary teachers, one of whom, Sister Barbara Fiand, had been there for 17 years. Rose said he interviewed priests and seminarians who had sat through her classes, and read seven of her published books. A sister of Notre Dame, Fiand, said Rose, betrayed a deep seated animosity toward the Catholic Church and especially toward the male celibate priesthood in particular. According to Rose, she regards the seven sacraments as superfluous, and she refuses to refer to God with masculine pronouns. She is an outspoken proponent of women's ordination, and, according to seminarians there, said Rose, she left the impression that she wanted no man ordained to the Catholic priesthood -- even those who agreed with her program of dissent.
"By the way," Rose added, "Barbara Fiand is invited to speak here at Cardinal Mahony's Religious Ed. conference each year -- not to alarm you or anything."
Rose soon discovered that the professors weren't the only problem at the Athenaeum. In fact, while Rose was researching for his book, the rector of the seminary left the priesthood in order to marry a divorced woman. "And unless anyone thinks this is an anomaly," said Rose, "a few years earlier another rector of the same seminary left the priesthood also to marry." Rose questioned how it was, then, that these types of officials, responsible for promoting and fostering vocations to the priesthood, could possibly be supportive of priestly vocations? "I soon came to learn that what I found at Cincinnati seminary was not at all out of the ordinary."
In interviewing seminarians, former seminarians and priests about their experience in seminaries across the nation, Rose began to see a pattern at work. The men he interviewed all had described more or less the same obstacles that had been placed in the way of authentic priestly vocations -- leading to the orthodox seminarian's dismissal or his voluntary departure. Rose defined what he meant by the term 'orthodox' -- meaning, only "men who were loyal to the teachings of the Church, looked to the pope as their spiritual leader, prayed the rosary, and embraced the male celibate priesthood."
Rose then went on to list, and give examples of, what he had discerned to be the seven main obstacles placed in the path of authentic priestly vocations. "Now I want to be clear here," said Rose. "Certainly there are many legitimate reasons for a seminarian to be expelled or leave on his own. But I'm not talking here about a procedure designed to winnow out false vocations. I'm talking specifically about a system designed to frustrate genuine vocations because the candidates are perceived by those in control of vocations as threats to their agendas. I'm talking here about the agendas of radical feminism, new age spirituality, liberated sexuality, and the so called 'gay agenda.'" Of the seven obstacles that Rose listed, three came as only slight shocks to his listeners: "open or subtle dissent among the teaching faculty and formation advisors at the seminary"; "persecution of orthodox seminarians;" and "open contempt for proper liturgy and traditional devotions." However, when Rose listed the other obstacles, gasps of disbelief passed through the audience as a wave.
The first of these obstacles was: "a political litmus test." Too often, said Rose, "some of the questions are used not to determine the suitability of the candidate, but how politically correct he is, or 'open minded' he is. If the applicant lets on that he accepts Church teaching, especially with regard to authority and/or sexual morality, he risks being dismissed as rigid, or dysfunctional or intolerant." This is especially true in regard to the question of women's ordination.
Psychological evaluation is another obstacle. Often, Rose claimed, it is administered to the candidate by psychologists who don't accept the doctrines and disciplines of the Catholic Church, especially the teachings on sexual morality. "Invariably," claimed Rose, "many issues of sexual morality will come up during these psychological evaluations, as well they should. But too often when the applicant makes it clear to the psychologist that he is ready to embrace life-long celibacy, he is sized up as (and I'm quoting from actual evaluations here) as 'having a disintegrated personality,' 'immature sexuality' and/or 'a psychological disturbance.'" Rose further said that when an applicant makes it clear that he doesn't accept the gay life style, or homosexual acts, he is described as being "rigid, inflexible, and/or unyielding."
Rose emphasized that psychological evaluation has been so abused over the years that in 1999 the Catholic Medical Association wrote a position paper that was drafted specifically for the U.S. Bishops. According to Rose, the paper stated, in part: "there are numerous reports that mental health professionals who do not support the teachings of the Catholic Church on sexuality have been chosen to evaluate candidates for the priesthood, and reject those candidates who do accept those teachings on grounds that they are 'rigid.' There are also reports that some mental health professionals do not report homosexual attractions and conflicts in candidates for the priesthood to diocesan officials or religious superiors who ultimately make the decisions of who is going to be admitted."
This, Rose argued, affirms that the applicants who reveal themselves to have homosexual attractions, or who present an otherwise perverted sexuality, are given the green light, while candidates who believe in precisely what the Church teachers are dismissed for being "rigid." If this is true, one ends up having a disproportionate amount of gay seminarians, which leads to another obstacle identified by Rose -- the endorsement of the so called "gay agenda" and justification and acceptance of homosexual practices even in the seminary itself.
Rose revealed that many men leave the seminary on account of the disproportionate number of homosexual persons. Indeed, it happens so often, he said, that it has its own term: "Straight Flight." Rose then told the story of a seminarian at St. John's Seminary, "in 1999, not 1979," and revealed how the seminarian had been so threateningly sexually harassed by another seminarian that the harassed seminarian was forced to get a restraining order against his fellow classmate. According to Rose, he did so only after the administration at that seminary would do nothing to protect him. The victim, said the seminarian who took out the restraining order, was then scolded by the seminary administrators for "embarrassing" the seminary.
As a final obstacle, Rose talked about the abuse of psychological counseling in order to bring the orthodox seminarian either into line or to make him feel he is psychologically unbalanced, or to use it as an excuse to expel him from the seminary.
The book, Goodbye, Good Men, has, of course, stirred controversy. Most notably, it has received negative reviews from both the National Catholic Register, with the article entitled, "Goodbye, Good Journalism?" by David Pearson in the July 6 edition, and the review which appeared in the June issue of Culture Wars, by Father Robert Johansen of the diocese of Kalamazoo, Michigan.
The crux of David Pearson's review centered on the book's treatment of a particular priest, Father Marcel Taillon, a close friend of Pearson. Pearson wrote, "as a journalist, I'm irritated by how hastily the escalating bombardment was carried out, with so little regard for the facts. Why did Rose, billed on his book's sleeve as an investigative reporter, fail to interview Father Taillon? Why did he not call on the seminary's rector, Auxiliary Bishop Robert J. McManus.?" I contacted Michael Rose, who forwarded me his response.
Rose explained that Father Taillon is only mentioned by name in his book as he is the man quoted, in the diocesan newspaper, defending the decisions of the Providence diocese to advertise for prospective seminarians on the MTV Channel. Rose, in his book, suggests that that is targeting the wrong type of applicant and that the diocese should not be supporting such a channel (some 600 ads were run) with parishioners' dollars. "There is nothing in Goodbye Good Men," wrote Rose, "that accuses Father Taillon of offenses against orthodoxy. Nothing is ever said about the personal integrity of Father Taillon. The only time Taillon is mentioned is as follows: 'The campaign, explained Providence vocations director Father Marcel L. Taillon, 'will bring Christ to the young people of [Rhode Island] by meeting them where they are' and 'Taillon explained that 'the best place to reach potential candidates would be on MTV and the Comedy Channel.'"
In answer to Pearson's charge that Rose failed to interview Taillon, Rose states, "Pearson ... fails to recognize that I didn't need to call anyone at the Providence diocese to 'ask about the ad campaign.' They publicly broadcast their reasons for undertaking the campaign. Again, I quoted Father Taillon from his public comments on the media blitz, and I quoted from an editorial from the diocesan newspaper defending the media blitz from its critics. It is Pearson's article that is hastily carried out with so little regard for the truth, especially since Pearson admits to not having read Goodbye, Good Men. How can I possibly be attacking the man [Taillon] by quoting him defending his diocese?"
Rose, who was flattered to get a review in Culture Wars, said "it's not everyday that a periodical is willing to run a five-page review of one of my books;" however, he wasn't quite so flattered with what he describes as Father Robert Johansen's "misleading and untrue statements and assumptions, not merely about the book, but about my personal character." Father Johansen admits in his article that Rose's thesis is true but he impeaches Rose's journalistic integrity. "Rose," writes Father Johansen, "can be shown not to have checked his facts in some instances" and "Rose's tendency to play fast and loose with the facts, to use dubious sources, and to stick with stories which have shown false undermines his credibility."
"In order to back up these blanket criticisms," writes Rose, "which are intended to destroy my credibility, [Johansen] uses one example -- one quote from one seminarian in my 368-page book. Jason Dull, he says, isn't credible. And he spends two pages dwelling on points that are never even mentioned in the book. In fact, he critiques not the book but an interview with Dull that I published two years ago in St. Catherine Review. In that interview, Dull discussed what he witnessed and what he endured at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit.
"Father Johansen then provides a skewed, secondhand presentation of how I dealt with criticisms of the Dull interview." Rose went on to point out that the two seminarians (from whom Father Johansen received his information), met with him after the article had been written on Jason Dull and were very critical of it, but did not discredit Jason Dull, and, indeed, agreed that some of what Dull said was independently verifiable and, in fact, true.
"Furthermore," wrote Rose, "after my meeting with them, I also spoke with others at Sacred Heart Seminary and outside the seminary about both Jason Dull and some of the happenings and goings-on at Sacred Heart in the mid to late 1990's. Frankly, the further accounts I heard were much more in line with Dull's account of his seminary days than the image presented to me by [those two seminarians]. One student, who is now a seminarian elsewhere, in fact, gave me extremely detailed information that was quite damaging to some of the faculty members there."
I also asked Rose about Father Johansen's comment, "if a book like Goodbye, Good Men had been written ten years ago, it would have been timely, provocative, and maybe even prophetic. But why, at a time when many people acknowledge that things are improving, does Rose choose now to bring out this catalogue of horrors from the past?" Mentioning that it is one of his favorite lines in the review, Rose responded, "untimely? (Need I remind anyone of the relevance of my book to the current scandals?) The fact is, if a book like Goodbye, Good Men had been published ten years ago, it would have been studiously ignored."
Rose was also keen to point out, both at the talk and in response to his critics, that his book was never intended to be an evaluation of the current state of seminaries but rather an historical account of what has happened. "My book," wrote Rose, "was written to demonstrate the systematic, ideological discrimination of orthodox candidates to the priesthood -- how two generations of vocations were turned away from the priesthood."
The two talks that followed Michael Rose's, "Called to Serve, Called to Sacrifice: The True Meaning of Christ's Priesthood," given by Father Vavarek, and the talk by H.W. Crocker III (based on his book Triumph -- The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church) can be purchased, along with Rose's, from the web site, www.lhla.org.