I don’t know what’s going on here but the allegations must have been pretty bad. You’ve gotta’ give points to the archbishop for taking action in a public way.
Dublin’s archbishop has said he will stop sending trainee priests to the Republic of Ireland’s main Catholic college after allegations emerged of a gay culture at the seminary.
St Patrick’s College in Maynooth is not the right place for men to study to become priests, Diarmuid Martin said.
He is “unhappy about an atmosphere that was growing” in the seminary.
He added that he would prefer to send priests from his Dublin diocese to Italy to study at Rome’s Irish College.
Allegations have been made on anonymously, on blogs and in letters, of sexual activity, the use of the gay dating app Grindr and other misconduct at the County Kildare college.
Claims were also made that authorities at the seminary were dismissing anyone who tried to make an allegation.
I remember like twenty years ago I was at a Catholic college and sometimes when I had to study seriously I’d go across the street to study at the seminary. I can recall being pretty uncomfortable at times with the amount of male giggling, personal space fouls, and touching from a bunch of men there. But to be fair, I’ve heard from others that things are a lot better there now. A lot better.
I suspect that what’s going to happen here is the archbishop is going to get some pressure to reverse course on being public about his thoughts. But if you ask me, I’d rather the Church discuss this stuff publicly. I don’t want any specific person outed or anything like that. But silence on scandal has not served the Church well. Let’s have the discussion out there. And let’s pray that the allegations about this seminary are unfounded. If not, let’s pray it gets cleaned up.
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