Seminary Practicum

Novus Ordo Seminary 101: "Boys will be Boys"  

The Vatican's own "Abu Ghraib!"

Things have gone from bad to worse within the clerical conclaves in Europe...  After an unnamed 33-year-old Polish-born "whistle blower" priest took wild photos with his compact digital camera, a scandal erupted that is now being called "The Vatican's own Abu Ghraib!" 

In an effort to effect and/or portend some much needed damage control, TODAY -- eight days later, the Pope has appointed Bishop Klaus Küng of Feldkirch as his "special inspector" (traditionally known as an apostolic visitor) for the Austrian Diocese of Sankt Poelten and its seminary.  This follows the emergency meeting of RC hierarchy in Austria held on July 12. 
 
Austria's Roman Catholic Church is launching an investigation into charges of kiddie porn and wild sexual orgies among priests and seminarians at a modernist RC New Rite seminary located in Saint Poelten just 80 km. (50 miles) west of Vienna, Austria. 

Much to his credibility and credit, Bishop Egon Kapellari, the episcopal head of Austria's Catholic Bishops' Conference, said "We do not want to hide from this problem... When an affair of this nature is revealed to the public, a bishop cannot minimize it. On the contrary, he should take immediate measures."

Authorities there had recently uncovered a huge cache of pornography at the Novus Ordo facility. Among those implicated are the rector, vice rector and several seminarians.  Church officials later discovered more lewd material on a computer at the seminary. About 40,000 photographs and an undisclosed number of films, including child pornography and beastiality, were downloaded on computers there.  The child porn came mostly from web sites based in Poland, the magazine said.
 
Several images purportedly showing young priests sucking face and slipping their tongues, etc.  to their "boy toys" --  and their instructors kissing and fondling each other while also engaging in orgies and sex games with seminarists -- were published last week in Austria's news magazine PROFIL.    Bishop Kurt Krenn, 68, said a picture showing Mr. Rothe French-kissing a young seminarian had "absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality", and was merely the kind of "idiocy" boys will often get up to.  

Or as some here might say here in America: "Boys will be boys" -- just "sowing their wild oats..."  But come on, guys, not on consecrated grounds.    ....So yet another bishop rationalizes and makes excuses.  And with such reckless stupidity, just like his clerics.  Too bad they forgot that, "Discretion is the better part of valor -- in the which better part I have saved my life." -- (Falstaff  in "King Henry the Fourth", Pt. One, by William Shakespeare.)  ALL of you have FLUNKED!  Now out the back door with the lot of you REJECTS.
 
Gay subculture in modernist seminary life is not very new and it is well known to be dominant in most.  Profil quoted one unnamed seminarian who claims that two fellow students considered themselves a "same-sex couple" and received the "Sacrament" of "Holy Matrimony" in a not-so-secret "wedding" there.  No wonder we have "catholic" priests who are so screwed up!  Not even I would go that far -- and I've been partnered with the same man for almost 25 years, and for a decade before that with my soul mate who died.  Sacrilege is not a blessing.  Rather, it provokes a curse - much like spitting into the wind.
 
    They also posted nude and suggestive pictures of themselves* to each other all the while talking about the duplicity of Rome in these matters on an Internet chat site called "Sebastian's Angels." (Warning: This cached mirror site features an ignorant homophobe who is critical of these RC clergy who speak openly of living a gay lifestyle and their bitter animosity towards their Vatican Conciliar Church.)  

* This is a common occurrence among some of our own ultrajectine tradition bishops & clergy who under the cover of dark, or behind a mask, exploit their own gender for selfish purposes, but would never raise a finger to defend anyone of their own orientation.  

(The Church in traditionally Catholic Austria was rocked by another sex scandal in 1995 when it was alleged that Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, the then head of the Catholic Church in that country, had sexually abused seminarians. The Vatican replaced him months later and he retired to a monastery. On a visit to Austria in 1998, Pope John Paul II snubbed his old-time buddy, Cardinal Groer, who died at the monastery near Sankt Poelten last year at the age of 83.)
 
 The seminary’s director, the Rev Ulrich Kuechl, and his deputy, Wolfgang Rothe, have already resigned without admitting guilt or showing any remorse. Father Werner Schmid, the seminary's new director, told the Catholic agency KATHPRESS that officials must start from zero, redefining "the behavior that cannot take place in a seminary."  Now the Ordinary of the Diocese of St. Poelten, Bishop Kurt Krenn, a fanatical ultra-conservative, is under fire by Austrian Faithful who are demanding his deposition from their Dominican Cardinal Christoph Schonborn.  Senior hierarchs are at the point of petitioning the Vatican to remove + Krenn.  I say, go for it!  Demand his head on a plate!  
 
    However stupid and steamy, I have no problem with the few photos I've seen of these clothed men kissing and fondling each other after a supposed "Christmas party" -- as long as instructors didn't abuse their positions of authority to get sexual favors from their younger charges. Even the parties involved described them as "open to interpretation." and compared the actions in the photos to the way soccer players handle one another after a particularly good play. Perhaps. 

But if they actually did view child porn and/or commit pedophilia and bestiality (as alleged) then horse whip the lot of them before locking them up for several decades -- at least.  They would become accessories to the exploitation and rape of those kids.  Better yet, burn the damned place down with all those possessed swine in it!
 
The Austrian Socialist party spokesman, Hannes Jarolim, has urged Austria’s Interior Ministry to launch a criminal investigation into the charges.   (Wonders never cease. I never thought I'd be cheering a commie.)  Already, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, a devout Catholic, has demanded a swift. explanation. "The question is, does The Church have a duty to live in an exemplary fashion according to certain principles? And the answer is a clear and simple 'yes'," he said. "Those involved know exactly what they have to do."
 
Sorry, guys, but this sex scandal does not compare to what we went through as kids in my OLHC parochial school (see my excerpt three posts below).  The sheer numbers do not equate and at least this time you were all consenting adults who kept it "in the club" among yourselves.  Hopefully kids were not hurt at your expense.  But did you at least take your Roman collars off?  And did any of you bother to remember that consenting adults also need God's consent?      

In objective fairness, I am wont to mention that we traditionalists have also had our own share of recent seminary sex scandals:  1.) Fr. Carlos Urritigoity, the founder and Superior General of the Scranton, Pa. based Society of St. John was suspended for sexual molestation of male students.  And 2.) the No. American superior of The Institute of Christ the King, Fr. Timothy Svea, was sentenced to 18-months in jail for tying a 16-year-old boy to his bedpost, etc.  Also, 3.) Fr. Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Rome-based Legionaries of Christ, has been accused by at least eight former seminarians of gross sexual abuse.  
 
And I could write a book of my own, but I won't.  At least not just yet.

Mountain Man in His Natural Element 

Pope John Paul II takes annual R&R

The Holy Father has just ended his vacation in the Alpine Alps and headed south to his pontifical summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, near Rome. His Holiness had just spent 12 days of rest in the village of Les Combes in Valle d'Aosta, which lies at the foot of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in western Europe.

His farewell remarks were also addressed to the local security forces, whom he described as "guardian angels." The Pope expressed his thanks for the "efficiency and discretion" with which they looked after him during his stay in Valle d'Aosta, a service that is "not easy."

Pope John Paul II left Les Combes last Saturday for the Aosta airport, where he was bidden farewell by Bishop Giuseppe Anfossi. The Pope arrived in the Ciampino airport and went directly to Castel Gandolfo where he will carry out his ordinary activities for the rest of the summer. For the faithful of the suburbicarian Diocese of Albano, which includes Castel Gandolfo, it is a "great joy" to welcome the Holy Father and a "great privilege which enables us to live these summer months with ecclesial intensity," said the Bishop, +Agostino Vallini.

+ John Paul II will spend his summer here, working, resting, praying, reading, etc. When he finds rare "free time", and when he is not ambling around the gardens there in prayer, the Pope writes poems -- "bold, rich poetry that speaks of human love as if he were a minstrel and of the love of God as a mystic," said his spokesman Joaquín Navarro-Valls.

This same time last year, after his trips to Canada, Guatemala and Mexico, and after that to Poland, the Pope had some days of R&R at Castel Gandolfo. He then reopened a "closed chapter" -- as he had called it -- of his life: poetry. In it he used images, impressions, and reflections that he had accumulated over his lifetime. The book on his pastoral and human experience as a bishop -- "Roman Triptych" -- resulted in many different languages.
 
(His work contains three new poems, the first written and published during + John Paul II's Pontificate. He draws scriptural inspiration from the Book of Genesis as the framework for his "Roman Triptych." Throughout the trio of poems, he reflects on God as the beginning and end of human life and all creation. He also ponders the beginning and end of his own time as Pope.)

The Holy Father's previous autobiographical book, "Gift and Mystery" (1996), was written on the occasion of the golden anniversary of his ordination to the Sacred Priesthood. Two months ago he released “Get Up, Let’s Go” which entreats his elevation to the episcopate in 1958 up to his election as the Successor of Peter in 1978. This work is a continuation of his previous autobiographical book, “Gift and Mystery,” which he wrote about his life as a priest.

That time last year, the Roman Pontiff remarked, "Summer vacations, which begin for many, precisely, in these days, if they are not 'burnt' in dissipation and simple diversion, can become a propitious occasion to give new breath to the interior life," he said. Let's wait and see what this year's vacation produces for His Holiness and us. May you also enjoys yours in happiness, safety and good health.

Although he's still pushing ahead despite Parkinson's disease and hip and knee ailments, I hope and pray that he gets to enjoy another outing in the Gran Sasso (Italian for "Big Rock"), a mountainous region of the Abruzzi which rise to 9560 feet and are situated some 62 miles from Rome. He always loved it on these local mountains where he found renewed inspiration.  Wish I could join him there. That is the natural element of this avid outdoorsman who was hiking and canoing with his young flock in the Tetra Mountains near Zakopane, Poland when received a telegram that he was named a Bishop.