Yes, the decision by the Boy Scouts to open its doors to gay boys but not to gay men is an awkward compromise, but social progress often proceeds by awkward compromise. The fact is that it is now officially possible to be both openly gay and, in Scouting lingo, “morally…straight.” And that’s what’s got conservative religious leaders’ knickers in a twist.
Even as Newark molester-priest Michael Fugee was being arrested and arraigned on charges of criminally violating a court order barring him from ministering to minors, his superiors in the archdiocese were once again changing their story.
Newark Archbishop John J. Myers got back from his trip to Poland this week and, according to his spokesman, will shortly make his first public statement on the latest revelations about Michael Fugee, the molester-priest who, in contravention of a court order, was permitted to minister to minors at two New Jersey parishes.
Phil Lawler, the redoubtable conservative Catholic commentator, has come to the conclusion that Pope Francis is a simple pastor.
Today is Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks — one of the three big holidays, hagim, when Jews journeyed to Jerusalem to make a sacrifice at the Temple. It was in the first instance an agricultural festival, marked out by biblical injunction as 50 days from the barley harvest at Passover to the wheat harvest.
It is not surprising that Cardinal Sean O’Malley should decide to skip this year’s commencement at Boston College, at which the archbishop of Boston customarily gives the benediction.
Among the institutions of higher learning that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie would like to provide with state funding are the Princeton Theological Seminary, a school dedicated to training Presbyterian clergy, and the Beth Medrash Govoha, one of the largest haredi (ultra-Orthodox) yeshivas in the world.
After going to the mat to defend Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn, who was convicted of failing to report a suspected abusive priest, Catholic League president Bill Donohue has now taken up cudgels on behalf of Newark Archbishop John J. Myers, who is under scrutiny for violating a court order restricting a priest’s access to minors.
A week after John J. Myers was installed as archbishop of Newark in October of 2001, a priest of the archdiocese named Michael Fugee was indicted for groping a 14-year-old boy the previous year.
The Episcopal church known appropriately in all senses as Trinity Wall Street turns out to be worth a cool couple of billion dollars, according to its accounting of its assets in response to a lawsuit.
