The Lavender Mafia strikes again

The Lavender Mafia strikes again

The Lavender Mafia strikes out at one who spoke up. A Priest in Palm Beach, Florida, is being removed from his parish, essentially silenced, because ha dared repeat the Church’s teachings that homosexual acts are sinful. Now, the diocese doesn’t say that. What the vicar general said was this:

When Pasquini pressed Notabartolo about what was going on, Notabartolo explained that Pasquini’s homilies were poor, he didn’t show enough devotion to Mass, he was not equipped to be a priest and would never be a pastor in the diocese.

This about a priest who had already served in two parish assignments and had no complaints made against him before. But what did happen was that he sent a letter to the editor of the local newspaper saying that homosexuality is a sin and that the Episcopal Church was wrong to elect a gay bishop—by the way, about the same thing the Pope himself has said. For this, Father Pasquini was transferred to a hospital chaplaincy, which everyone acknowledges is a punishment assignment. (Just as Fr. Fessio).

You have to ask yourself, however, when was the last time a priest was silenced for actually contradicting the Chuch’s teachings, that is Divine Truth, from the pulpit? Can’t ever recall it happening. Yet, Fr. Pasquini wasn’t even accused of that.

Remember that Palm Beach was the diocese where two successive bishops were removed after admitting to sexual activity with teenage boys, the last one being Bishop Anthony O’Connell. Even worse, 100 priests out of the 141 in the diocese didn’t think that should disqualify him as bishop.

On March 10 [2002], local newspapers reported that 100 priests of the diocese had signed a petition urging Bishop O’Connell to retract his resignation. There are only 141 priests connected with the diocese. The greatest scandal of all—greater than serial pedophilia, greater than the shuffling of pedophiles, greater than the bishop979355.asp%3F0cv%3DKA01">Newsweek gleefully jumps on the “bash Rush” bandwagon over his coming clean on his addiction. The article insists on calling it hypocrisy as if that should be the definitive last word on what happened to him. And look at the not-so-subtle ways they snipe at him: they talka about his on-air “rants”; “Limbaugh clung to the ideology of self-reliance to the last;” they give free rein to the lowest of “political commentators,” that failed comic Al Franken as if he is an expert on Rush.

The reporter, Evan Thomas, says, “The fall of a moralist is always a great American spectacle.” He adds, “Nothing entertains (or instructs in the essentials of human nature) like hypocrisy on a grand scale.” But the those who are most entertained are the press. They are the ones who whip up the storms of words and images at the fall of a “great one,” and they can’t even help themselves when it’s one of their own, like Bill Clinton. Nothing gets a reporters heart-pumping faster than a story in which he can pull down someone more successful or famous than he, like a school nerd who runs to the principal with the goods on the jock. You can almost hear Thomas’ smirk on the page, even as he intentionally misreports Rush’s joking comments as deceptive acting for reaction from his audience.

What’s sadder than Rush’s addiction is the way the hyenas have surrounded the wounded lion, all trying to take a bite out of him while he’s down. It’s sickening.

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