Could someone please send this article to Archbishop Sean O’Malley of Boston? In the Richmond, Virginia, diocese, Bishop Francis DiLorenzo has stripped the faculties of a notoriously heterodox priest in his diocese. Fr. Thomas O’Quinlan is retired already, but has continued to exercise public ministry. Not anymore after a crude performance at Christmas.
The Rev. Thomas J. Quinlan Jr. famously loves to jar congregations with bluntly worded homilies, but he went too far when he mentioned the Virgin Mary’s birth canal during a Christmas Eve service – a Catholic bishop has banned him from performing any priestly function in public.
“Your shock content was crude, offensive and disturbing,” particularly to families, youth and visitors, Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo of the Richmond Diocese told Quinlan in a Jan. 17 letter. The bishop cited a sermon that Quinlan, known as “TQ,” gave at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Virginia Beach.
I can think of a few priests in Boston who need to have their privilege of exercising public ministry suspended until they renounce their heterodox beliefs. Hmm.
[Thanks to Bill Cork for the link.]Morale in Boston
And while we’re talking about it, while some gossips claim that morale among priests in Boston is completely shot because of the repressive atmosphere, they need to broaden the scope of who they listen beyond the minority voices in the Boston Priests Forum, which primarily represents old-school liberals. Among many priests of my acquaintance, they are particularly upbeat at what they see as positives in their own parishes.
It’s no surprise that following the Scandal and the resignation of Cardinal Law and the closing of parishes, everyone—not just priests—is a bit emotionally and spiritually exhausted, but when they see even a hint at a push for orthodoxy they get very excited.
Technorati Tags: bishops, Boston, Catholic, dissent, heterodoxy, priesthood
“but when they see a new even a hint at a push for orthodoxy they get very excited.”
In the Archdiocese of Boston?! Excellent!
This is the priest who rode a Harley up the church aisle for Palm Sunday, right?
What took so long?
What hints are you thinking of, Dom?
There are a few changes that may help things move in a more clearly orthodox direction, although none of them was undertaken for that express reason:
– the shake-up at St. John Seminary: the new rector, the faculty cuts
– closing the AIM lay formation program, run by a VOTF activist
– Fr. Cuenin’s and Fr. Bowers’ departures from pastorates
Is there anything else?
Oh: by the way, we can probably thank Msgr. Russell Smith, Bp. DiLorenzo’s diocesan theologian, for advising the bishop on this case.
As you probably recall, the bishop created that new position in order to promote the quality of doctrinal teaching and pastoral practices; in particular, Msgr. Smith reviews speakers from outside the diocese invited to appear at events held on Church property.
“There are a few changes that may help things move in a more clearly orthodox direction, although none of them was undertaken for that express reason:
– the shake-up at St. John Seminary: the new rector, the faculty cuts “
Well, that WAS taken for that reason but not necessarily by Boston. Rumor has it Rome pushed for it.
But of course the Archdiocese of Boston, instead of defrocking Cuenin, sends him to Brandeis University to poison the wells there. I can hear him now adding to the smears against Popo Pius XII.
Well, Cardinal Kasper has long maintained that the Jews need not convert, so maybe Father Cuenin will sufficiently repulse the Jewish kids from Brandeis.