Whispers in the Loggia
Whispers in the Loggia is the blog that broke the news about an anonymous letter circulating among priests in the New York archdiocese calling for a vote of no confidence in Edward M. Egan, the archbishop. “During the last six years, the Cardinal’s relations with the Priests of New York have been defined by dishonesty, deception, disinterest and disregard,” read the 950 word letter, written by a group calling itself A Committee of Concerned Clergy for the Archdiocese of New York. The letter stated that a vote of no confidence would encourage Pope Benedict XVI to accept Cardinal Egan’s resignation in April 2007 when he turns 75. “The search for a new archbishop should begin sooner rather than later,” the letter stated.
Rocco Palmo, the Philadelphia resident who started the blog in 2004, said a priest who received the letter called him last Wednesday and read him the text. He confirmed the wording and posted it to his blog. Mr. Palmo, who is also the U.S. correspondent for The Tablet, a Catholic weekly in London, said he has spoken with about 40 priests about the letter. “While nobody is taking credit for this, there’s been little to no critique of the substance of it,” Mr. Palmo said. “It’s their way of kind of quietly standing by each other.”
I visited the blog to read the letter. What distracted me when I got there was an October 18th item discussing the proposed text of the U.S. bishops’ long-awaited guidelines on ministry to “persons with a homosexual inclination”. The draft document, although depressing, appears to draw a more nunanced line on the issue.
I quote from the blog–“Praising those ‘ardently striving’ by means of chastity ‘not to fall into the lifestyle and values of a gay subculture,’ the document, to be considered at next month’s USCCB meeting in Baltimore, stringently affirms the church’s traditional teaching on the inadmissibility of same-sex acts while ‘eschew(ing)temptations toward extremist positions’ in catechesis and devoting its more sweeping emphases to a positive and welcoming approach to gay Catholics in the area of pastoral practice, including a conditional green-light for the baptism of children adopted by gay couples.”
http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com
