Letter From A Mad Man

What to say about this. This is a type written letter that was mailed to my home. Perhaps I should have had it tested for Anthrax.

It is from an Octogenarian of the Mad Men generation, which helps explain the current mess. Read it and weep.

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Dear Mr. Archbold:
This is surely presumptuous of me, to write you at home. But I couldn’t find any mailing address for the Creative Minority Report website. Nearing 84, I write hundreds of letters regarding my causes and passions. Every morning I browse the NC Reporter and the NC Register to find the latest news and issues. I have read many of the monographs of you columnists and opinion bloggers. You must be aware that there are other points of view to those of you doctrinaire zealots.
Your latest article, Truth about this Crisis, seemed to be at once a call to theological arms and a recital of the new direction that the “Church” might be taking. I also listen to the EWTN radio when I am out on errands for my disabled wife. For me, it is entertaining to watch the ongoing theology battles going on, from the Curia to the parish priest. Francis 1 has certainly added more uncertainty to the mix, with the generally-doctrinaire US Hierarchy now not knowing which way the wind is blowing.

I was born to a Midwest farm culture, Notre Dame/Stanford education, Korean War vet, tested atom bombs, flew USAF, worked 37 years in high tech, political junkie. I had an uber Catholic mother and a zealot brother priest, both long dead. I’m 100% hetero, married to the same woman 58 years, 3 happily married kids, and have seen a LOT of the human condition. I have lived here in the San Francisco Bay Area for 58 years and have watched our homosexual community endure vicious hatred and bible-based bigotry and even imprisonment for decades with dignity and patience.

Although my present cause is to support our homosexual brothers and sisters, I am particularly critical of the Hierarchy in their proclaiming their “Moral Authority,” when in fact the last 60 years of the massive child abuse scandal and criminal conspiracy showed no moral integrity AT ALL. When I was a brand new electrical engineer out of Notre Dame, in 1952, I moved to Albuquerque to work on atom bombs. In our parish, we were aware of a retreat house in the mountains for “Wayward Priests.” We just kind of assumed that these were perhaps alcoholics, or some with girlfriends. WRONG, they were pedophile priests. From their opening in 1949, to being sued out of business in the 1990s, the Jemez Springs facility had treated 1200+ priests for sexual issues. And not successfully.

The organization, BishopAccountability.org, has compiled a massive archive of tens of thousands of documents which relate to the decades of child abuse, covered up by the Roman hierarchy, and abetted by the Nuncio and the Vatican itself. The HORRENDOUS numbers are just stupefying, the John Jay Law College 2004 investigative report found 4392 accused priest pedophiles. It notes that over 12,000 child abuse victims were compiled. (Fr. Andrew Greeley estimates 100,000 child victims.) Some Catholic apologists argue that the pedophile number represents less than 4% of U.S. priests, but what that fails to reveal is that 111 out of 189, (58+%) of American bishops covered up pedophiles, showed utter disdain for little victims, and oftentimes intimidated families. (Dallas Morning News story, June 20, 2002) Child abuse is a CRIME, coverup is criminal conspiracy.
The flawed theologies range from Humanae Vitae to homosexuals to treatment of women religious. I write to cheerlead the nuns of the LCWR as well as beloved Catholic teachers who have just been fired for marrying their same sex partner of 10-20-30 years. It just stuns me to see such UN-CHRIST-LIKE actions in the bishops. My personal reaction to Humanae Vitae came about when we had 3 children in 4.5 years after getting married. My wife had a nervous breakdown, in the hospital for 2 months, and I had to hire a 24/7 woman to run the house for a year. Ijust got a vasectomy and went on with life.

You must know that God INTENDED to create homosexual people, He also INTENDED toward them ALL of the human rights of heterosexuals like myself. The Catholic Hierarchy is the LAST authority I would accept in moral matters of gay rights. Fortunately our young demographic has got it right. They can’t accept the bigotry and hubris of old, celibate white men telling gays and women how to run their lives. .

Secondly, the neither the bishops nor the American People get to vote on human rights. You should remember your civics lessons, when om Founding Fathers created our democratic republic, with the vote of the majority, they were aware of the flaws in human nature. That’s why they established the judiciary, to protect the rights of minorities. How did the “vote” on slavery go? Or in some states, the vote on mixed race marriage?

By and large, the Hierarchy’s flawed theology on homosexuals is made really complicated by the fact that there are S0 MANY gay priests. If you Google, “how many gay priests are there,” you get estimates from 15% to 58%. No one knows of course, and the Church surely doesn‘t WANT to know, but one Vatican unnamed official when presented with those percentages, said that could be about right.

With so many gay priests, many live a life of quiet desperation. It certainly didn’t help to have Eminence Ratzinger write several decades ago that homosexuals are “Intrinsically Disordered.” As Father Gary Meier of St. Louis, who is gay, revealed in his recent book, “Hidden Voices, “he was terribly discouraged that homosexuals were so disrespected by his own Hierarchy. And further, in his pastoral work, he would watch gay teenagers, broken in spirit by the religious bigotry directed at them, when their personalities were just growing and were too weak to fight back. He noted that many committed suicide because of gay bullying.

I find that the hierarchical hubris is just sad. Pope Francis has called for his ministers to have “the smell of the sheep.” Well, we know that there are no smells of sheep in the catacombs of the Curia, nor in the $1 million dollar mansions of some of the Monarchical hierarchy. It is the thousands of Nuns of the LCWR who have sacrificed their entire lives, down in the schools, teaching a gazillion kids for a pittance, staffing hospitals, leading social work among the poor, who have the true smell of the sheep. And, what do they get from on high? Disrespect from Eminence Muller, Prefect of the Inquisition.

Well, Mr. Archbold, you didn’t ask for all of this rant. But it does represent a dilferent sort of value system from the one that you are spending your life selling.