Goodbye, Good Men: How Liberals Brought Corruption into the Catholic Church

Expected research, found tabloid journalism

The thesis of this book is that the Catholic priest shortage in the United States is artificial and has been caused primarily by America¿s seminaries. Author Michael Rose claims that ¿Church officials with immediate responsibility for promoting and fostering vocations are turning away qualified candidates.¿ However the content of the book does not support this claim. (The book was originally subtitled ¿How Catholic Seminaries Turned Away Two Generations of Vocations From the Priesthood.¿ A month after its first appearance, it was published by Regnery with the more sensationalist ¿How Liberals Brought Corruption into the Catholic Church.¿) The core of the book (chapters 2-10) presents individual stories related to vocation directors, admission procedures and seminary experiences. By my count, Rose presents accounts from 66 individuals - 21 priests, 24 former or current seminarians, 15 men inquiring into priesthood or applicants to seminaries, 4 professors, 1 doctor, and 1 applicant to the permanent diaconate. Some are as brief as a few sentences, while the case of one priest fills a chapter. Many are second-hand. Two-fifths are anonymous. All are selected to shock and scandalize. But most of the stories do not speak to the claim that American seminaries turn away qualified candidates! The priests, though critical of their seminaries, did in fact become priests. The story of the deacon applicant is irrelevant, as are stories of foreign seminarians with no experience of U.S. seminaries. Of 4 professors, only one served on a seminary faculty. More pertinent are stories of actual applicants and seminarians. Among the inquirers and applicants, 5 decided for themselves not to pursue priesthood, 6 applied but were rejected, and in 4 cases the outcome is not revealed. Among seminarians, one was currently enrolled, 8 withdrew voluntarily, 5 were dismissed, and in 10 cases, there is no indication. So, Rose reports LESS THAN A DOZEN CASES in which a man was rejected during admissions or dismissed from a seminary! This scant evidence simply does not support Rose's claim that vocation directors, admission boards, and seminary faculty and administrators are responsible for a nationwide decrease in the number of seminarians. Looking for research, I found tabloid journalism: Just repeat enough disturbing tales, insinuate misconduct, scandalize the reader, and reliable research will be unnecessary. If you seek substance and insight into challenges facing the church, look elsewhere.

Boring like a textbook

So boring and use of other people's material in an untruthful fable of how homosexuals and pedophiles ruined the Catholic Church. The truth is, there is no correlation between these apples/oranges. The predominently heterosexual priests have done themselves in as have the princes of the Church who allowed raping children to prevail instead of letting normal men have the outlet of sexual union with women.

Finally the truth is exposed.

As a recent Catholic convert, I was very interested in what this book had to say. I found that my own experience with the leaders in the Church mirrors the stories in this book. The stories are almost too horrible to believe but unfortunately it is a story that needs to be told. Read it and weep.

A Shocking Exposé Which Should Be Read By Everyone

A spontaneous event, not from within but from without, spawned a major growth spurt for the Catholic Church in the mid-1800s. The Oxford Movement, which started in the Anglican Church, brought thousands of Englishmen back to Catholicism. This trend in the English-speaking world continued well into the 20th Century, bringing in great minds like G. K. Chesterton and (via the conversion of his parents) J. R. R. Tolkien. Though Tolkien¿s personal friend C.S. Lewis never made the formal leap, he adhered to the highest form of high-church Anglicanism, and was as sympathetic to Roman Catholicism as a non-Catholic could be. Indeed, even Lewis' writings, along with those of Tolkien and Chesterton, constitute that great body of Catholic Christian apology. ¶ The same thing was happening across the ocean. Millions of mainstream Protestants in the U. S. (whose churches, to paraphrase Chesterton, were not moving the world, but rather moving with the world) began flocking to the Roman Catholic Church. Archbishop Fulton Sheen, the apostle of the media, brought a 20th Century perspective to the Thomistic notion that faith need not be blind, that faith and reason are not opposed but complementary. It has been said that, had the conversions to Catholicism within the U. S. continued at the same rate as they had between World Wars I and II, Catholicism would have been the majority religion by the year 2000. ¶ Things were not much different abroad, even in the years following World War II. Even the chief rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli, converted to Catholicism and changed his name to ¿Eugenio¿ ¿ after Pope Pius XII ¿ in honor of that pope¿s role in saving hundreds of thousands of Jews from extermination by the Nazis. ¶ So what has happened between then and now? Why the drastic drop in Catholicism¿s appeal, both inside and outside of the Church? Why the drastic drop in vocations? Why such horrors as pedophile priests? Surely the sole answer cannot lie in the Sexual Revolution and the other societal upheavals of the 1960s ¿ as witnessed by the flocking of Americans to evangelical churches and sects such as the Jehovah¿s Witnesses and Mormonism. ¶ So what has happened? Michael Rose provides the answers in ¿Goodbye, Good Men,¿ a shocking exposé on the highjacking of the Church by a motley crew of political and religious liberals whose membership runs the gamut from ¿liberation theologians¿ to overt Marxists to gay rights activists to New Agers and witchcraft-practing radical feminist nuns. ¶ Rose provides an in-depth analysis of the problems within the Catholic Church, most of which are the result of the attempted highjacking by these individuals of the Second Vatican Council (1963-65). As Rose demonstrates, the problems flow not from the Council itself, but from an erroneous free-for-all in which those responsible falsely and deliberately attribute to the council things which it never originated. Rose outlines patterns of deception which can only be seen as deliberate attempts to destroy the Catholic Church from within. He provides example after shocking example, based on extensive interviews with ex-seminarians who were given the boot because they adhered to the orthodox teachings of the Catholic Church, as well as war-weary priests who weathered the storm despite almost insurmountable odds. A pattern emerges of seminaries whose domination by a radical fringe element of nonbelieving insiders is nothing if not reminiscent of the KGB¿s direct control of the Russian Orthodox Church during the years of the Soviet Union. And it is this state of affairs which spawned the current problems within Catholicism. Problems relating to priestly pedophila are not the cause, but the effects of these problems within the Church; indeed, as Rose shows, they may be the tip of the iceberg. ¶ For Catholics, Rose¿s exposé will provide answers to several of those ¿I¿ve-always-wanted-to-know-why¿ questions, such as the origin of and the thought processes behind the

Lies, Denials, and Distortions, again

As a former Catholic, I am amused but not surprised that the church has once again sent out its truth police in an effort to deny and cover up its own responsibility in the current crisis. The truth is that liberals and liberal theologians have absolutely nothing to do with the developing scandal. To assert that the problem with pedophile priests is a recent phenomenon brought about by relaxed sexual attitudes is ludicrous. This problem has existed for centuries. Because of better reporting methods and modern technologies, the problem has simply received more of the coverage it deserves. Mr. Rose asserts that the recent shortage of priests is an artifically induced phenomenon that has occured because 'good men' have been forced out of the system. The real issue is that the entire Catholic clergy system is sick and has been for longer than any of us have been alive. All the best evidence from every reliable source says that there is no correlation whatsoever between homosexuality and pedophilia. The current system denies the expression and goodness of God-given sexuality. Wherever there is repression, there is acting out in inappropriate ways. Yes, there are many sexually dysfunctional people hiding in the church. Sick systems, based on lies and denial, always attract the dysfunctional. The church will never attract a healthy class of clergy until it rids itself of its antiquated and totally non-scripturally based policies of celibacy and male-only priesthood. To all my liberal friends who are still in the Catholic Church, I say 'Thank you for speaking up. Never shut up, and never let them get away with their continuing pattern of lies and deceit.

No More Fuzzy Spirituality

This book is dead on. We are clearly at war, a spiritual war now being fought within the Church itself, more specifically the seminaries. If we are to believe the Church is divine, founded by Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit, how can there be any room for dissent? The suggestion that there should be countering points to Church teaching is either Protestant, heretical or just plain ludicrous. We do not have an option for what we can believe, much as we¿d like. We only have an option of whether or not to follow. The Church is not a democracy! Those who seek to change or corrupt the Church need to be weeded out with the same urgency we defrock pedophile priests! This book is a wake-up call. Big Time. Wake Up!

Rose nails it!

Michael Rose has hit the nail on the head with this book. I asked some seminarians myself which are at one of the seminaries listed in his book as having problems. Sadly, they said he is correct. The book is not based solely on a few 'malcontents' as one reviewer says. It is about dissent and heterodoxy from the Catholic faith and her morality. To be a Catholic in full communion with the Church one has to believe everything she teaches on the issues of faith and morals this includes non-infallible issues. Mr. Rose points out the blatant disregard of those issues of faith and morals by the seminary powers-that-be. If you really want to know why the priesthood is drying up in America (but flourishing elsewhere) buy this book and see for yourself. Then seek out a seminarian who you might know and ask him if any of these things are happening at his seminary. You will be surprised.

waste of time and money

gave it one star because there is not an option for 'no star'. Before you go out and buy this because Trigilio gives it 5 stars, you should know that he is almost the co-author. Rose quotes him extensively. This is a book filled with the complaints and accusations of people most of whom were either not accepted to seminary or asked to leave. Of course it wasn't their fault!.... they were kicked out because they wanted to say the rosary!!!!!the whole book is made up of mostly anonymous and vicious attacks on what seems to be most of the seminaries in the US.... except the most conservative ones, of course.When the actual stories aren't sensational enough, the author often 'wonders' if this happened what other horrible things MIGHT have! Incredible! According to the author the seminary system is going to hell in a hand basket..... all this after interviewing 125 malcontents! Give me a break! The theology in the book is horrible.... the author has apparently never heard of legitimate theological dissent from non-infallible teaching. Sounds as if he would be happy if seminarians were just given a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and told to memorize. The research is biased and the whole book suffers from a lack of balance. Don't waste you time or money.... wish I hadn't!

The most important book about the Church in years

Goodbye, Good Men is the long-awaited work of a young journalist who writes from the perspective of a Catholic who loves and embraces the Catholic Church and its teachings. After the priest sex scandals started breaking this year I began to really wonder whether the Pope shouldn't consider admitting married men to the priesthood in order to stop this problem. But after reading Rose's book, it is clear that the answer lays not with the discipline of celibacy, but with a seminary subculture that undermines the Church's teaching on sexuality, promotes dissent, fosters a protective network that allows homosexual promiscuity to flourish, and persecutes and roots out faithful men who are a threat to the status quo of moral and religious liberalism in the Catholic seminary system. It is the most important book about the Church in decades, and it should be read by all men and women of good will, not just Catholics. This book gives one the answer to how the heck this moral breakdown happened.

The Shocking Truth at Last

This timely book by a devout Catholic is not another scandal sheet or an attempt to promote an agenda, rather, it is a well researched, painful but necessary post mortem on the corpse of the post Vatican II seminary system in America. Recent scandals have shaken the faithful's confidence in their clergy but this book shows that the real problem is not the extremely small minority of pedophiles but it is the diabolical combination of BAD theology, BAD liturgy and BAD morality. Seminaries where heterodoxy is taught as opposed to orthodox doctrine according to the Magisterium; where liturgical abuse and irreverence are practiced instead of valid, licit and reverent worship; where inappropriate behavior and immoral activity is tolerated instead of virtue and chastity; these places produce an environment of dissent and rebellion. Lex orandi, lex credendi goes the axiom which means that the manner of worship reflects and influences what is taught and believed. Liturgy and Doctrine go hand in hand. Bad liturgy and false doctrine will encourage immoral behavior. Rose shows that many seminaries and dioceses got rid of 'good men' in preference for mediocre sycophants who would become entrenched diocesan bureaucrats or for androgynous misfits who were confused about their gender. Manly piety and orthodoxy were sacrificed while politically correct and theologically inaccurate candidates got sterling evaluations. Sadly, the GOOD MEN who attended and taught at the seminaries I attended (High School, College and Major Sem.) were eclipsed by the dissent and misbehavior of a few. We had several excellent priests, faculty members and students at every institution but the miscreants overshadowed them by being more influential, powerful and determined to promote their own agenda. This book shows that despite the harsh reality, there is hope. In my case, both places were closed and replaced by exemplary staff and more than qualified students. The good men from the old places are still serving as faithful sons of the church while their dissident colleagues are no more, have left the ministry or are on leave of absence. Rose points out that the final hope rests in our spiritual leaders if they combine and coordinate efforts to elminate heterodoxy, to abolish liturgical abuse and experimentation and to prevent any and all immoral activity.

No text was provided for this review.