The tag line of this particular blog is from a 60's song by Buffalo Springfield called "For What It's Worth".
There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear...It's time to stop, hey, what's that sound, everybody look what's going down.
I had planned to write a series of posts that took a look at some of the stories I have been following from the perspective of asking the question, is there something happening here? Something that may not be clearly apparent at first? Is it time to stop and examine what's been going down, to maybe take a good hard look at ourselves?
One of the stories I had planned to devote a couple of posts to was the story of Father Rosica and David Domet. There is a lot to cover concerning that story, and what I have observed in the reactions to it, that just couldn't be properly covered in just one blog. I found, however, that it might be necessary to first tell the story. For some reason, when this story broke, I found myself wanting to look into things myself rather than taking the reports at face value and following in the direction the initial reports were trying to lead me. My concerns with this story are not due to any support of Father Rosica. Rather, I write this story to bring a balance and integrity that may have been lacking in the narrative due to a somewhat sensational, reactionary response of Catholic media and the blogosphere.
Father Thomas Rosica is a Canadian Catholic priest. He is the CEO of Canada's Salt + Light Television network. He is also the English language assistant to the Holy See Press Office. David Domet is a blogger from Canada who writes the blog Vox Cantoris. Mr Domet has written several blog posts that were critical of some of Father Rosica's statements and actions. Recently, Father Rosica issued a cease and desist letter, through his lawyers, against Mr. Domet. The letter stated that Domet made false and defamatory statements against Fr. Rosica and expressed the possibility of future litigation. Michael Voris and CMTV broke the story. Certain circles of the internet lit up with protest, support for David Domet and condemnation for Father Rosica, implicating the Vatican as well. That's the nutshell version.
Most of the background for the long version I got from reading Mr. Domet's blog, Vox Cantoris. It seems the original focus of his blog was to advocate the traditional liturgy and traditional liturgical music. He basically sticks to posts relating to that premise for the first few years of his blog. His posts averaged anywhere between one a month to several. He writes about the liturgy. He writes about being sympathetic to the situation of the SSPX. He writes about Summorum Pontificum. He expresses respect and affection for Pope Benedict XVI. On occasion he writes a post that is critical of an individual and the tone of those post could be described as derisive. His rate of posting saw a dramatic increase from around the Synod until the present with 41 posts in October, 51 in November, 27 in December, 37 in Jan and 35 in February. Many of them critical of the Synod, Pope Francis, certain members of the Synod, as well of Father Rosica.
Mr. Domet states in his blog that he has had personal experience with Father Rosica going back 20 years. He posts his first criticism of Father Rosica in April 2010. There has been no other individual that Mr. Domet has criticized as many times as he has criticized either Father Rosica or Salt + Light. Many people have wondered why Father Rosica did not write to Mr. Domet to say "David, don't do me like that." Well, it seems that he may have, at least in the past. Mr. Domet makes more than one reference to receiving emails from Father Roscia that he describes as nasty and unbecoming of a priest. He also makes reference to twitter exchanges. Communications may have broken down at some point, however. Mr. Domet indicates that he was blocked from Father Rosica's twitter.
So why all the detail here? Because there has been much speculation concerning the nature of the action Father Rosica took against David Domet. Speculation associating that action with a stealth attempt by the Vatican to silence bloggers. A "shot across the bow" is how I have seen it described. What I see going on is that there was tension between these two men going back for years and that tension accelerated and intensified over the time of the Synod. Any other implication does not seem to be justified by these details and may indeed be an exaggeration of the facts. It seems that this action was taken not because Mr, Domet dared to express his opinion or that he dared to express an opinion that was critical of the hierarchy. This action was taken because of the WAY that Mr. Domet expressed his opinion concerning Fr. Rosica. In other words, you can have an opinion, you can even have an opinion contrary to some in the Church. You can even express that opinion in any tone that you would like. What we can't do is express that opinion in a way that defames someone. I do not see what happened as an attempt to deny freedom of speech, but rather a question of whether or not that freedom had been misused. Fr. Rosica obviously thought that a line had been crossed in that regard. That is why he took the action that he did
The supporters of Mr. Domet insist that he merely used Fr. Rosica's own words and public statements to expose Fr. Rosica's error. This is true. He did repeat Fr. Rosica's exact words in the my-comments-in-red-fashion that is so frequently used on the internet. What wasn't reported was the mocking way that he spoke of Fr. Rosica; that he openly told people to cancel their Salt + Light subscriptions; when blocked from Fr. Rosica's twitter account, Mr. Domet expressed that there was more than one way to access a twitter account with today's technology. This implies an intention to continue twitter confrontations despite Fr. Rosica's desire to discontinue them. None of this necessarily justifies a lawsuit but it indicates that the postings went beyond mere reasoned correction and contributed to the escalation between them.
The letter. Otherwise repeatedly referred to as the "threatening letter" in many reports. I imagine David Domet did feel threatened and intimidated when he received that letter. It is certainly disconcerting to receive letters from lawyers telling us that we could be facing some sort of legal action. The letter was, in fact your standard cease and desist letter. Stop what you are doing, remove certain offending posts, publicly apologize or we will take further action. The door is left open for future litigation even if you do comply. We're lawyers. That's how we roll. Father Rosica said in a public statement that he never intended to sue. The supporters of Mr. Domet. of course, refer to the letter and say that it clearly states an intention to sue, so Father Rosica is an obvious liar. Not so fast. The fact that he sent a cease and desist letter indicates a reluctance to sue. People who intend to sue just file suit. People who are reluctant to sue send cease and desist letters hoping that will bring about a resolution without the necessity of a law suit. Just ask David Jenkins, another Canadian blogger who was sued by his Anglican Bishop. Mr. Jenkins has stated that he would have preferred the courtesy of a cease and desist letter. Rather, his bishop, Bishop Michael Bird, brought a suit against him for $400,000 and an injunction to shut down his blog. The case was settled after about a year and at great expense to Mr. Jenkins. Father Rosica did not bring a lawsuit nor any injunctions to shut down Mr. Domet's blog. He sent a cease and desist letter. It is not my intention, however, to minimize the personal impact the letter had on Mr. Domet and his family. It would have been a threat to him. My interest here is more in the public reaction in which the letter was magnified into something more grandiose in an attempt to publicly demonize Father Rosica.
Mr. Domet circulated the letter to certain friends. He says that his first action, as a faithful Catholic, was to take it to the Church. However, he did not take it to his local Bishop who would have been the one with direct jurisdiction over the matter. Nor did he take it to Father Rosica's superiors at the Basilican order. Rather, he wrote to a personal contact he had in the office of the Secretariat of State at the Vatican. Mr. Domet has not revealed exactly who this private contact was. Mr. Domet states in an interview that the response was the contact's "personal advice" and not an official authority. So it would seem that he did not submit the matter to the proper Church authority, but rather wrote to a personal contact for advice. When the contact indicated that he would need Mr. Domet to answer some further questions and suggested that Mr. Domet might consider issuing an apology, Mr. Domet felt interrogated and responded no further to his contact. Mr. Domet indicates that the reason things went as far as they did was due to the lack of immediate intervention from the Vatican, stating "The fact is, intervention could have happened on the first or second day." We will never know, as Mr. Domet discontinued correspondence when he found that further investigation would be necessary and he would not receive an immediate response in his favor.
Very quickly, the letter was forwarded by an anonymous third party to Michael Voris at CMTV. Mr. Voris contacted Mr. Domet and they filmed an interview. Mr. Domet has meet Michael Voris and has previously defended him from criticism on his blog. The day after Mr. Domet received the letter, CMTV broke the story "Vatican Sues Blogger?" The story went public and now became a matter of the court of public opinion. That court seemed to be in favor of David Domet. Blogs were written, opinions were expressed and speculation was rampant. Questions were raised. Was Pope Francis aware of this? How could he not be? Then shame of Pope Francis. And if not aware, poor befuddled Pope Francis who is unaware of the stealth skullduggery going on behind his back at the Vatican. Campaigns were organized to flood the twitter account of Father Rosica and the emails of his superiors. People wanted Father Rosica fired from his post in the press office of the Vatican. Freedom of speech was invoked. A story began to emerge of a powerful Vatican attempting to silence faithful Catholic bloggers from exposing an attempt to overturn doctrine at the upcoming Synod. Father Rosica was described continually as a "Vatican Official", a "Papal Spokesman" and while it is true that he works in a certain capacity at the Vatican, his action against Mr. Domet was never initiated through that position but as a private citizen. Even so he was portrayed as a powerful man, a bully, who unfairly targeted the little guy, an obscure blogger. Yet, at one time Mr. Domet stated on his blog that he received more viewers to his blog a day than Father Rosica and Salt + Light received in a month and previously had felt no intimidation at all, that deterred him from the actions he took against Father Rosica in his blog. He felt no deterrent of intimidation in even disrespectful reference to Pope Francis, as well. Nor did he indicate fear of intimidation when he declared a relentless public pursuit of certain Church officials on his blog.
With the support of the internet, Mr. Domet determined that he would fight the good fight to the point of personal martyrdom if necessary. Indicating that to give any concessions would then effectively silence him in regard to speaking out before the upcoming Synod. I do not see, however, that being unable to refer to Father Rosica would then impede discussing issues that arose from the Synod. Issues. statements and behavior can be exposed, examined, discussed and debated without resorting to personal comments about anyone.
Father Rosica then released a statement that he had not been acting in the capacity of a Vatican official, that he had not intended to sue Mr. Domet and that the case was now closed.
Well, it would seem that I have concentrated primarily on David Domet. What about Father Rosica? Father Rosica who has made heterodox and even heretical statements, according to some, is a danger to the faith and must be stopped? Father Rosica who has resorted to court action in the past? It might appear that I support Father Rosica, his actions and his views. Not necessarily. If Father Rosica publicly makes statements that are contrary to Church teaching then those statements should be addressed in a reasonable and balanced way. Those who address them can even confront strongly, firmly and candidly. But that is not what happened here. Domet posted his blogs advocating and demanding honestly and transparency from his subjects. His position is that he was justified in merely shining that light on the words and actions of others. In all fairness that same light of honesty and transparency should shine on his public words and actions as well. He brought the story into the court of public opinion. He and his supporters are the ones who framed this story in the way that it was framed. They are the ones who drove this story in the direction that it went with, in my opinion, no attempt to bring balance, but rather encouraging a frenzy of emotional reactions, speculation and exaggeration. What I do not support is the direction that this story took. I do not support the seemingly deliberate implication of Vatican involvement with no supporting facts to justify it. I do not support the public feeding frenzy that resulted. I do not support the sometimes gleeful public flogging of Father Rosica no matter how wrong people thought his actions were. I do not support when an atmosphere of fear and mistrust is created
I found this direction to be unnecessarily damaging to the unity of the Body of Christ, deliberately damaging to the reputation of the Church and an attempt to cast doubt on the upcoming Synod.
Those who express themselves on the internet have the power to bring truth and clarity. They can bring the light of Jesus Christ and the Gospel. They can promote the teachings of the Church. They also have the power to open a Pandora's box and release a monster that can get out of control. So did something happen here that wasn't clear, that brought confusion rather than clarity? Do we need to stop, listen to the sounds and take a good look at what actually went down? Do we need to take a good hard look at ourselves and the monsters we can create?
That's what I plan to do in a series of upcoming posts.
That would just be my opinion. For what it's worth.
Most of the background for the long version I got from reading Mr. Domet's blog, Vox Cantoris. It seems the original focus of his blog was to advocate the traditional liturgy and traditional liturgical music. He basically sticks to posts relating to that premise for the first few years of his blog. His posts averaged anywhere between one a month to several. He writes about the liturgy. He writes about being sympathetic to the situation of the SSPX. He writes about Summorum Pontificum. He expresses respect and affection for Pope Benedict XVI. On occasion he writes a post that is critical of an individual and the tone of those post could be described as derisive. His rate of posting saw a dramatic increase from around the Synod until the present with 41 posts in October, 51 in November, 27 in December, 37 in Jan and 35 in February. Many of them critical of the Synod, Pope Francis, certain members of the Synod, as well of Father Rosica.
Mr. Domet states in his blog that he has had personal experience with Father Rosica going back 20 years. He posts his first criticism of Father Rosica in April 2010. There has been no other individual that Mr. Domet has criticized as many times as he has criticized either Father Rosica or Salt + Light. Many people have wondered why Father Rosica did not write to Mr. Domet to say "David, don't do me like that." Well, it seems that he may have, at least in the past. Mr. Domet makes more than one reference to receiving emails from Father Roscia that he describes as nasty and unbecoming of a priest. He also makes reference to twitter exchanges. Communications may have broken down at some point, however. Mr. Domet indicates that he was blocked from Father Rosica's twitter.
So why all the detail here? Because there has been much speculation concerning the nature of the action Father Rosica took against David Domet. Speculation associating that action with a stealth attempt by the Vatican to silence bloggers. A "shot across the bow" is how I have seen it described. What I see going on is that there was tension between these two men going back for years and that tension accelerated and intensified over the time of the Synod. Any other implication does not seem to be justified by these details and may indeed be an exaggeration of the facts. It seems that this action was taken not because Mr, Domet dared to express his opinion or that he dared to express an opinion that was critical of the hierarchy. This action was taken because of the WAY that Mr. Domet expressed his opinion concerning Fr. Rosica. In other words, you can have an opinion, you can even have an opinion contrary to some in the Church. You can even express that opinion in any tone that you would like. What we can't do is express that opinion in a way that defames someone. I do not see what happened as an attempt to deny freedom of speech, but rather a question of whether or not that freedom had been misused. Fr. Rosica obviously thought that a line had been crossed in that regard. That is why he took the action that he did
The supporters of Mr. Domet insist that he merely used Fr. Rosica's own words and public statements to expose Fr. Rosica's error. This is true. He did repeat Fr. Rosica's exact words in the my-comments-in-red-fashion that is so frequently used on the internet. What wasn't reported was the mocking way that he spoke of Fr. Rosica; that he openly told people to cancel their Salt + Light subscriptions; when blocked from Fr. Rosica's twitter account, Mr. Domet expressed that there was more than one way to access a twitter account with today's technology. This implies an intention to continue twitter confrontations despite Fr. Rosica's desire to discontinue them. None of this necessarily justifies a lawsuit but it indicates that the postings went beyond mere reasoned correction and contributed to the escalation between them.
The letter. Otherwise repeatedly referred to as the "threatening letter" in many reports. I imagine David Domet did feel threatened and intimidated when he received that letter. It is certainly disconcerting to receive letters from lawyers telling us that we could be facing some sort of legal action. The letter was, in fact your standard cease and desist letter. Stop what you are doing, remove certain offending posts, publicly apologize or we will take further action. The door is left open for future litigation even if you do comply. We're lawyers. That's how we roll. Father Rosica said in a public statement that he never intended to sue. The supporters of Mr. Domet. of course, refer to the letter and say that it clearly states an intention to sue, so Father Rosica is an obvious liar. Not so fast. The fact that he sent a cease and desist letter indicates a reluctance to sue. People who intend to sue just file suit. People who are reluctant to sue send cease and desist letters hoping that will bring about a resolution without the necessity of a law suit. Just ask David Jenkins, another Canadian blogger who was sued by his Anglican Bishop. Mr. Jenkins has stated that he would have preferred the courtesy of a cease and desist letter. Rather, his bishop, Bishop Michael Bird, brought a suit against him for $400,000 and an injunction to shut down his blog. The case was settled after about a year and at great expense to Mr. Jenkins. Father Rosica did not bring a lawsuit nor any injunctions to shut down Mr. Domet's blog. He sent a cease and desist letter. It is not my intention, however, to minimize the personal impact the letter had on Mr. Domet and his family. It would have been a threat to him. My interest here is more in the public reaction in which the letter was magnified into something more grandiose in an attempt to publicly demonize Father Rosica.
Mr. Domet circulated the letter to certain friends. He says that his first action, as a faithful Catholic, was to take it to the Church. However, he did not take it to his local Bishop who would have been the one with direct jurisdiction over the matter. Nor did he take it to Father Rosica's superiors at the Basilican order. Rather, he wrote to a personal contact he had in the office of the Secretariat of State at the Vatican. Mr. Domet has not revealed exactly who this private contact was. Mr. Domet states in an interview that the response was the contact's "personal advice" and not an official authority. So it would seem that he did not submit the matter to the proper Church authority, but rather wrote to a personal contact for advice. When the contact indicated that he would need Mr. Domet to answer some further questions and suggested that Mr. Domet might consider issuing an apology, Mr. Domet felt interrogated and responded no further to his contact. Mr. Domet indicates that the reason things went as far as they did was due to the lack of immediate intervention from the Vatican, stating "The fact is, intervention could have happened on the first or second day." We will never know, as Mr. Domet discontinued correspondence when he found that further investigation would be necessary and he would not receive an immediate response in his favor.
Very quickly, the letter was forwarded by an anonymous third party to Michael Voris at CMTV. Mr. Voris contacted Mr. Domet and they filmed an interview. Mr. Domet has meet Michael Voris and has previously defended him from criticism on his blog. The day after Mr. Domet received the letter, CMTV broke the story "Vatican Sues Blogger?" The story went public and now became a matter of the court of public opinion. That court seemed to be in favor of David Domet. Blogs were written, opinions were expressed and speculation was rampant. Questions were raised. Was Pope Francis aware of this? How could he not be? Then shame of Pope Francis. And if not aware, poor befuddled Pope Francis who is unaware of the stealth skullduggery going on behind his back at the Vatican. Campaigns were organized to flood the twitter account of Father Rosica and the emails of his superiors. People wanted Father Rosica fired from his post in the press office of the Vatican. Freedom of speech was invoked. A story began to emerge of a powerful Vatican attempting to silence faithful Catholic bloggers from exposing an attempt to overturn doctrine at the upcoming Synod. Father Rosica was described continually as a "Vatican Official", a "Papal Spokesman" and while it is true that he works in a certain capacity at the Vatican, his action against Mr. Domet was never initiated through that position but as a private citizen. Even so he was portrayed as a powerful man, a bully, who unfairly targeted the little guy, an obscure blogger. Yet, at one time Mr. Domet stated on his blog that he received more viewers to his blog a day than Father Rosica and Salt + Light received in a month and previously had felt no intimidation at all, that deterred him from the actions he took against Father Rosica in his blog. He felt no deterrent of intimidation in even disrespectful reference to Pope Francis, as well. Nor did he indicate fear of intimidation when he declared a relentless public pursuit of certain Church officials on his blog.
With the support of the internet, Mr. Domet determined that he would fight the good fight to the point of personal martyrdom if necessary. Indicating that to give any concessions would then effectively silence him in regard to speaking out before the upcoming Synod. I do not see, however, that being unable to refer to Father Rosica would then impede discussing issues that arose from the Synod. Issues. statements and behavior can be exposed, examined, discussed and debated without resorting to personal comments about anyone.
Father Rosica then released a statement that he had not been acting in the capacity of a Vatican official, that he had not intended to sue Mr. Domet and that the case was now closed.
Well, it would seem that I have concentrated primarily on David Domet. What about Father Rosica? Father Rosica who has made heterodox and even heretical statements, according to some, is a danger to the faith and must be stopped? Father Rosica who has resorted to court action in the past? It might appear that I support Father Rosica, his actions and his views. Not necessarily. If Father Rosica publicly makes statements that are contrary to Church teaching then those statements should be addressed in a reasonable and balanced way. Those who address them can even confront strongly, firmly and candidly. But that is not what happened here. Domet posted his blogs advocating and demanding honestly and transparency from his subjects. His position is that he was justified in merely shining that light on the words and actions of others. In all fairness that same light of honesty and transparency should shine on his public words and actions as well. He brought the story into the court of public opinion. He and his supporters are the ones who framed this story in the way that it was framed. They are the ones who drove this story in the direction that it went with, in my opinion, no attempt to bring balance, but rather encouraging a frenzy of emotional reactions, speculation and exaggeration. What I do not support is the direction that this story took. I do not support the seemingly deliberate implication of Vatican involvement with no supporting facts to justify it. I do not support the public feeding frenzy that resulted. I do not support the sometimes gleeful public flogging of Father Rosica no matter how wrong people thought his actions were. I do not support when an atmosphere of fear and mistrust is created
There's battle lines being drawn. Nobody's right if everybody's wrong...Paranoia strikes deep, into your lives it will creep. It starts when your always afraid, step out of line the men come and take you away
I found this direction to be unnecessarily damaging to the unity of the Body of Christ, deliberately damaging to the reputation of the Church and an attempt to cast doubt on the upcoming Synod.
Those who express themselves on the internet have the power to bring truth and clarity. They can bring the light of Jesus Christ and the Gospel. They can promote the teachings of the Church. They also have the power to open a Pandora's box and release a monster that can get out of control. So did something happen here that wasn't clear, that brought confusion rather than clarity? Do we need to stop, listen to the sounds and take a good look at what actually went down? Do we need to take a good hard look at ourselves and the monsters we can create?
That's what I plan to do in a series of upcoming posts.
That would just be my opinion. For what it's worth.
“Words which do not
give the light of Christ increase the darkness” Bl Mother Teresa
