In April 2002, the US cardinals traveled to the Vatican at height of the Scandal breaking, and returned with a statement that said, among things, that there should be an immediate and thorough apostolic visitation of US seminaries, ostensibly to determine why so many perverts had been able to pass through their doors and get ordained. We’re still waiting for that visitation.
Meanwhile, the furor over homosexual activity and child porn at an Austrian seminary has been going on for less than a month and already the Vatican has dispatched a special apostolic visitator. So why the difference? Maybe it’s the photos of seminarians and priests grabbing each other and French kissing, but we haven’t had the same visual evidence coming out of US seminaries. Maybe it’s that the Austrian bishops demanded it, while the US bishops have been slow to ask for their seminaries to be put under the microscope.
Whatever the case, I think it’s high time the Pope appoint an apostolic visitator to examine US seminaries, preferably not an American bishop.
If I were an orthodox seminarian, I would get a digital camera and do my best to document as much of this crap going on at my seminary as I could, then leak the photos to Roman Catholic Faithful, or someone else likely to publicize them. Photos are what helped this story break so big in Austria.
Whatever the case, I think itad ones will be taking pics of each other, which will get found and sent to the CDF.
Let er rip.