Friday, November 17, 2006

Fr. Thomas Saloy, a priest at Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Church in Roosevelt, was arrested

From News12 Long Island

"The FBI arrested a Roosevelt Catholic priest at his home Friday, charging him with possessing more than 1,300 pictures and videos of underage boys.
Thomas Saloy was serving at Queen of the Most Holy Rosary when investigators say they found child pornography on his personal computer. "

Roman Catholic priest
child pornography
teenage boys

Why are these 3 phrases so connected, so many times?? Let's hope this man is locked away for a long time, and defrocked, and not put on priest welfare like so many others.

Just last Sunday we had gone to Mass at Our Lady of Grace in West Babylon. We usually don't go to this parish, but at this Mass, instead of the priest giving the homily, the pastor, Fr. Vin came out and spent a good 10 minutes talking about how people need to give more money to the parish. He said the financial report was in the bulletin and it was not a good picture. He spoke about how people need to get over their hurt, their anger, because it does no good spiritually. He said that there were less people coming to Mass these days, less people giving, and he didn't think there was anyone to blame for this. I muttered "How about child molesting priests" which earned me a wicked stare and shutup look from Mrs. Gen X Revert. I tend to mutter a bit too loud sometimes, but I couldn't believe this man said he couldn't find anyone to blame for the situation in the Church today.

As we were getting in the car my wife asked me what happened in this parish as it sounded like a big deal, and I replied probably some child molesting priest used to be there. I looked it up, and sure enough there were two former priests of this parish on the Bishop Accountability website , Fr. Angelo Ditta and Fr. Andrew Millar. And now, we can add a third priest formerly of Our Lady of Grace - Fr. Thomas Saloy. So, if the pastor still can't find anyone to blame for the empty pews, the anger, the hurt, and the lack of support, perhaps he should look a little harder.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

A parish in Sound Beach got swastikas painted on their doors. This type of vandalism is not uncommon in white trash suburbia unfortunately, but the blogger at Eternity Road has a long post that wonders about a lot more than just this vandalism.

Do go read Fran’s Sunday Ruminations: Prophets, Jesters, And Destroyers
Will The Pope Relax The Condom Ban

Newsday pubished yet another article about the Catholic Church that is just plain stupid. Most of their anti-Catholic loser columnists were let go after the paper was exposed inflating circulation figures, causing millions to be paid out to advertisers that were victims of the fraud, but the paper still can publish crap. Jimmy Breslin is semi-retired, meaning he occasionally will sober up long enough to put pen to paper, mostly to complain about George Bush, something NO other writer does. Ed Lowe is now writing for local papers that have smaller readerships combined than most major blogs. Paul Vitello is writing for the NY Times, working out of Garden City, where he has lunch in the basement of an office building in Garden City looking as haggard as ever. Marie Cocco fell off the face of the earth, while the former editor of Newsday has been convicted of child porn charges. Anyway, the column is just bad, and written by a, wait for it, ..."former religious brother". The actual argument in theology for condom use in marraige or to stop the spread of aids is a serious one, that deserves real writing. This column is just garbage. The opening sentence is straight from the 70's:

"The Catholic Church laid down a tough, absolute law in the 1968 encyclical "Humanae Vitae": no condoms, no abortion, no contraceptives. Never."

The rest of the column is just as silly, stupid, and predictable. At least if they are going to continue to give a forum to people who don't like the Church or her teachings, they should find writers like those in American or Commonweal, who can at least present their arguments intelligently.