The Herald spins for Cuenin too

The Herald spins for Cuenin too

Yesterday’s Boston Herald also had an inaccurate and slanted article about the resignation of Fr. Walter Cuenin. Just like the Globe, the Herald fails to consider that this is just Cuenin’s side of the story or to ask the obvious question: If this is what Cuenin is willing to admit to, what is he failing to disclose?

Once again we are treated to the delightful argument that it’s not a violation of the rules if (a) a body that has no right to give the money decides to give him the money and (b) the archdiocese didn’t notice the problem in previous audits. Incompetence of the auditor does not get the wrongdoer off the hook. Someone in a previous thread tried to argue that Cuenin’s case is more like Enron than Tyco since it was the Arthur Anderson accountants who missed the problem and who paid the price with their existence. Okay, but does that excuse the Enron executives? Is it really in Cuenin’s and the finance council’s best interests to compare them to Enron execs?

Another inaccuracy in the story is “the parish had paid priests a stipend before Cuenin even arrived in 1993.” Yes, all priests get paid by their parishes. It’s not the existence of a stipend, but the excessive amount that is at issue.

Several other priests who called for Law’s resignation, including the Rev. Robert Bowers of St. Catherine of Sienna in Charlestown and the Rev. Ronald Coyne of St. Albert the Great in Weymouth, have since resigned to try to spare their parishes from being closed by O’Malley.

How would resigning save their parishes? The parishes weren’t slated for closure because those pastors were there. After all, the archbishop has the power to transfer them for good cause (and believe me, there’s plenty of cause). Bowers resigned to take an open-ended leave of absence from the priesthood in a snit over his parish being selected for closing. Coyne resigned from the pastorship of his parish because the parish ceased to exist, canonically. He’s still a priest in good standing (bizarrely enough) and serves on the archdiocese’s “emergency response team” from which priests are called to fill in for parish priests who are on vacation or sick or what not.

Many others in the nearly standing-room-only congregation lashed out at O’Malley for pressuring another beloved, outspoken priest to resign in what they called a growing pattern of intimidation to quell dissent.

Can anyone point out to me any “pattern of intimidation” growing or not? I’m not seeing one. Apart from Cuenin’s resignation name one heterodox priest who has been forced out of office, even on a pretext.

That’s okay, I’ll wait while you search up the list of the poor, oppressed liberals in Boston.

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