16 Comments

Thanks…I will go view the movie!

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Apr 12, 2022Liked by JD Flynn

One reason for secrecy around the.Catholic domain name might have been to keep inappropriate websites, such as pornography or satanists from using it.

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I honestly can't believe you wrote this long article speculating on why Judas betrayed our Lord- when the explanation is abundantly clear in the Gospel of John, Chapter 6. It was all over transubstantiation. Very disappointed, I thought you all were smarter than that.

Sorry, but St. Jerome comes to mind here, "Ignorance of Scripture, is ignorance of Christ".

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It seems a bit much to call what John Oliver is doing blackmail. If he were insisting that Congress pass some other laws unrelated to privacy, it would be, but he is saying, "Make it illegal for me to reveal this data." I do not know how I feel about such privacy laws. I am grateful that The Pillar was able to expose hypocrisy, and I do not want exposing hypocrites to be illegal. On the other hand, Oliver's method certainly is a way of driving the point home to Congress that there is a problem that they should be taking seriously. In the end, "there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed." Even what seemed to be anonymous comments in the early days of the Internet will be able to be linked to their true authors with modern big data technologies. All of this not only reveals hypocrisy but makes us ask serious questions about forgiveness. Should a person with an evil tweet from 10 years ago never be forgiven by society at large? Should there be some penance they could undergo? When everyone is canceled, what comes next?

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JD .. I understood most of the points you made in your article on John Oliver’s initiative to ban the purchase , receipt, and use of data concerning , among other things , hook up apps that reveal the sexual lives of others. But when I came to this statement I was taken aback: “ Whatever you think about the importance of data protection and privacy laws — and I’ve no objection to stronger ones” ..I was confused. Without reciting all of the facts, you were the first ( and perhaps to date the only ) publication to use this method to reveal someone’s ( Monsignor Burrill) sex life. As I understood your justification for doing this was because you deemed it in the “ Public Interest “ for the public to know Burrill was a high ranking sexually active homosexual using Church funds and facilities and the internet to find sex partners and that he and others were setting the Church up for blackmail. Described in that manner, it would be fair to say you were trying to encourage the Church to get the word out to priests not to use the Internet for sex partners and revert to public parks and restrooms which have no digital trail. Do I have that right? As far as the “ public” interest , the only portion of the public that would be interested in knowing about Burill’s clandestine behavior would be the Catholic Faithful. Why would the faithful have an interest in knowing and why might the Church pay blackmail money for the faithful not to know? There are many reasons. The faithful are paying Burrill’s salary which he is misusing. If a top Church official feels unrestrained in having a paid sex life it begs the question of the pervasiveness of that behavior. But more importantly it makes the Church look like a hypocritical institution. Why is it hypocritical? Because it is impaled on its own conundrum. The conundrum , from a broader perspective , is this. It will only admit those men who are ok with being celibate. Who are they ? Statistically, and understandably, they are ( generally) men who do not feel that being in a committed heterosexual relationship and having children is what they are called to do. The percentage of homosexual priests is a multiple of the number of all men who are homosexual. Why wouldn’t it be? The conundrum gets twisted when your employees are disproportionately gay and you ( The Church) consider homosexuality “ disordered “. What does it mean to be “ disordered “. Suffering from a mental illness or condition that disrupts normal physical or mental function. So the criteria for being a priest is skewed towards homosexuals and being a homosexual renders you suffering from a mental illness. And then, if you are disordered it is sinful to for you to express your disordered sexuality. That’s a cauldron for brewing “ scandal”. It is scandalous for a priest being an active gay priest only because the Church has deemed him disordered and said his sexual expression is contrary to nature and sinful. All of this is not scandalous outside the Church . . This is a Church made problem. Having made the problem and then avoid its formulated scandal , it has to hide the facts to avoid the scandal. The Pillar then comes along and takes the wraps off the underbelly which has been hidden. What happens? The Pillar is excoriated. Professors of Journalism say they are “ scummy” . Others say the founders (a) had this story in their back pocket before launching The Pillar and used it to attract attention and subscribers, ( b) that they ruined Burrill’s life and reputation, ( c) that they are unethical and like to promote scandal . And on and on. Others’s say this is what the Church needs . It will force it to admit married men as priests. It will recognize that it is a self perpetuating scandal machine which will continue to lose members. And on and on.

But back to the folks that started all of this now saying: “ Whatever you think of data protection and privacy laws .and I have no objection to stronger ones”. What does this mean? You want laws to ban what you did and penalties for doing it? Is this a cryptic “ mea culpa” for what you did. ? Are you out of the journalistic business of Church Transparency and Accountability which you inspired.

What do you really believe . What are you now saying? How is different than what you thought when you outed Burril?

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