David Ancell / Sunday, August 22, 2004 / Comments(0)
I’ve been light on blog entries for a while. I’ve been quite preoccupied. My computer is now almost fully restored. I did some reading this weekend, and I almost wish I hadn’t. By now, you may have already read about the whole fiasco surrounding Deal Hudson. If not, I won’t post a link to that disgusting article in the National Catholic Distorer . . . I mean Reporter. It was far more graphic than it needed to be. If you want to read some takes on this, read Domenico Bettinelli’s posts here, here, and here. Jeff Miller writes here.
It’s hard for me to know what to think, and I doubt that I have all the facts. The NCR has no trouble defending the dissentors; it is well know that they wrote a defense of Archbishop Weakland. However, when someone like Deal Hudson is involved, look what happens. Given that this is an event, not known to be repeated, that happened over ten years ago, I have a hard time understanding how this is not detraction. What purpose could this possibly serve?
Here are my thoughts:
First, we as orthodox Catholics must be careful of two things. We can’t excuse or deny his sin because he is one of “our guys.” This is one of the things that we don’t tolerate from the dissentors. We can’t write this off as false accusation, as outrageous as the description of the conduct is. We also should not be unduly harsh in order to appease the media. We our here to serve Our Lord, not the newspapers, television shows, etc. Remember that we have only one side of the story. Even if we had both sides, the amount of alcohol reportedly consumed is likely to distort the telling of the facts.
Second, there is a difference between a repented past sin and a past or continuing sin that is either being denied, downplayed, or defended. Dr. Hudson has done something to make satisfaction. He lost his position at Fordham and paid a settlement to the victim and has faced his family. He is no longer in the type of position he was in. He isn’t defending his conduct, and we have no evidence that he has repeated the act. If he were still actively engaged in the sin, the NCR would have a point well made.
Third, the fact that this sin happened after his conversion is not necessarily of the consequence that some would have it. I say this as someone who has needed and still needs reconversion. I’m not trying to make light of this and say “Oh, we’re all sinners,” but even for a sin this serious, there is forgiveness. Satisfaction must be made. The sin must be stopped. As of this writing, we have no reason to believe that this hasn’t been done.
Fourth, I think it’s difficult to say how much a person should be held accountable for past sins. There are some things that are so serious that we can never put a person in a position to do them again. There should also be a limit to the number of second chances, purely for reasons of protection of people. In most cases, a person should have to demonstrate a serious desire and ability to change for an appropriate period of time. For example, a young man with a history of sexual sin should not be admitted directly into the seminary. However, some such men may be admitted after having been chaste for a period of time, depending on the situation. I wouldn’t advocate putting Dr. Hudson back as a professor, but letting him do what he is currently doing with Crisis shouldn’t be prevented by his past sin.
Fifth, we must all be careful not to commit sins of rash judgment, detraction, calumny, etc. ourselves. These are grave matter by nature. You know what that means.
Finally, we must pray for both Dr. Hudson and the young lady involved. This we must do regardless of their motives. God has not abandoned with one of them. Neither should we. Prayer must be our recourse anytime something like this happens.
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David Ancell / Monday, August 16, 2004 / Comments(0)
Now that I’ve reinstalled Windows XP, I get to reinstall it again. The hotfixes from Windows Update and some other software wouldn’t install. I think it was the firewall software I was using. So, I’m going to try something else. It’s not a useful firewall if it blocks access to Windows Update.
The worst of this is that, have a 40 GB hard drive and software to fill almost half of it, this takes forever to get done. I really need to get this installed and to install my PHP server again.
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David Ancell / Sunday, August 15, 2004 / Comments(0)
Now that my car has been worked on, my computer has decided not to function properly. My Internet Information Service has quit working, probably due to the dudes who put the adware on my system. I couldn’t even get Windows to reinstall it, so I was only left with one choice. I erased everything on the laptop after backing up what was necessary. Then I reinstalled Windows XP Professional. I made sure that my firewall was reinstalled.
I hope it wasn’t a sin to do this on Sunday. I tried to leave parts of it unattended while I did other things. I knew that waiting until Monday would have been a disaster.
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David Ancell / Saturday, August 14, 2004 / Comments(0)
In our diocesean newspaper, we have received a response to the recent lawsuit filed that I blogged about here. No one is denying that the sexual abuse occurred. However, I can’t help but notice something.
The Commercial Appeal made it sound like they had moved the friar to another area to avoid prosecutiion. The order maintains that the priest was immediately removed from ministry and was later dispensed from his vows (which removed him from the order). This is a far cry from what the media reported happened. At this point, I believe the prior rather than the local paper and will continue to do so until I am presented with evidence that suggests I shouldn’t.
There still remain two unanswered questions:
1. Why was there no criminal prosecution? There may be a good answer to this. The friar was probably not a U.S. Citizen, and he was sent back to his home country.
2. The response from the prior mentions his being dispensed from his vows. Was he also laicized? They aren’t the same thing, and the topic was omitted from the prior’s response. This could be either an accidental omission or something that was assumed in the letter, but I think we need to establish that the man is not in any ministry.
We’ll see what unfolds
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David Ancell / Saturday, August 14, 2004 / Comments(0)
My car is needing new brakes and new tires. I’m here at the dealership now waiting. My car will be here for a while. I’m blogging on my laptop from the dealership. The thing I hate about this is that I don’t know how much I really need what they say I need. I use the dealership because my car is still under warranty, and at least they take responsibility if they mess up.
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David Ancell / Friday, August 13, 2004 / Comments(0)
I haven’t been here since the weekend, but I assure you I’m alive. I’ve been rather tired, but I made it through the week. I have such an exciting weekend planned. I get to go take my car for service. It just can’t break down now, I’ve just finished paying for it.
I have started working with St. Vincent de Paul Society. The first call I really worked on turned out to be a scam. I’m not really sure yet where to find help for most of these people. It doesn’t help that my time is more limited than most. Several of the people who carry out the work are retired; I’m not.
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David Ancell / Sunday, August 08, 2004 / Comments(0)
Well, I just opened my Sunday paper to find yet another story on the aforementioned scandal. Do they have any shame? Would they be willing to ruin a man’s special day for the sake of a story that they already ran? They cornered the former pastor and the bishop. They didn’t say much that one wouldn’t expect, or at least it wasn’t reported. Most of the laity refused to comment. The one who did didn’t say much that was reported. It appears that the former pastor wasn’t named in the suit, but the bishop and the priest’s order were. This priest was a religious from Bolivia, and he was sent back there.
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David Ancell / Sunday, August 08, 2004 / Comments(0)
Lately, I’ve been listening to some audio CDs on Redemtionis Sacramentum. One audio series that I’ve used is by Fr. Peter Stravinskas. The other is one that I got by donating to the Catholic Resource Center.As I’ve said before, I hope that they enforce this one. What gives me hope is the fact that stronger language is being used in the document that in others. Certain practices are to be “reprobated.” Others are listed as graviora delicta resulting in automatic excommunication reserved to the Holy See (e.g. pouring the precious blood down the sacrarium).
It occured to me after my last post that one might argue that we wouldn’t need these documents if we went back to the Tridintine Mass. It seems there were more problems with the current rite. However, this is probably not true. There were certainly liturgical abuses in the old rite, but they were more difficult to detect because the Liturgy was celebrated in Latin. Fr. Stravinskas recalls as an altar server hearing priests leave out parts of what we now call the Eucharistic Prayer. Many of the complaints leading to this document came from laity. Now that the Mass is celebrated in the vernacular, any lay person can tell whether or not the rite is being celebrated correctly.
To make things more interesting, the document repeatedly assert the right of the faithful to a properly celebrated Mass. I wonder how many times that right has been denied us by those who would “empower” the laity and who complained that the laity had no voice in the affairs of the Church. After all, we know there are those circles in which those faithful to the Magisterium do not count as “laity.”
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David Ancell / Sunday, August 08, 2004 / Comments(0)
This evening, I spent my weekly hour at a local Perpetual Adoration chapel. While I was there, I have exercised my new tendency to open my mouth and say what I should say, but perhaps too abruptly. Being at the Defending the Faith conference really helped to instill in me that I shouldn’t be afraid to speak the truth.
A gentleman came up to me to tell me he had been to Mass this morning at the local church affiliated with the Society of St. Pius X. The first thing that came out of my mouth was that the church wasn’t approved by the diocese. I think I also mentioned schism. He told me that he needed to get something to “enlighten” me. You see, that Novus Ordo that is celebrated was instituted by some Protestant ministers and Jewish rabbis telling the Pope how to run the Church.
Oh well, I’ve heard all of this stuff before in one form or another. I have heard that it was the Masons who ran Vatican II and established the current rite. I’ve heard people say that they dummied-down the Mass to appease Protestants. Where do these people get these ideas? I think I know. Someone makes them up.
I do believe that dissentors on the right are in as much danger as dissentors on the left. They both decided that they want the Church run their way; they just differ in the actual content of that. While the left desacralizes, the right illicitly (and sometimes invalidly, depending on the Sacrament) celebrates. The only difference is that I don’t think that the dissent on the right is dying quite the way dissent on the left is. With all that is going on in the Church now, fuel is added to the fire on the right.
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David Ancell / Sunday, August 08, 2004 / Comments(0)
Get a Kerry is not Catholic bumper sticker here.
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