There’s been some good questions I asked, and some comments that I think require me to clarify so, I’m gonna do a few posts now about how, why and what I perceive is the benefits of anonymous confession.

https://twitter.com/joeinblack/status/1722683661831536905

How?
We built a new church. I set it up so that I am in a separate room with the window between us that I cannot see through but that you can hear through.
I am significantly hearing impaired, so the screen is thin enough where I can hear but it’s also impossible for me to tell who is there.
Our other confessional has anonymity as a default, but you can open the window and see each other if the penitent chooses to do so.
Why?
A couple reasons:
First is safety.
My first day at this assignment in 2018 a couple parents sent me a letter asking what I would do to ensure them that their children were safe from me.
It was an utterly heartbreaking letter of course, but also terrifying.
If I’m in a community that thinks this way, then I need to make sure to avoid any position where my purity/goodness can be reasonably questioned.
Second, as much as is appropriate, it removes me from the equation.
It removes the need for greetings & addresses the possibility of making it about which Priest is hearing their confession. This is about Jesus and the penitent. I am a hollow reed.

He was found tied to a tree, along with another dog.
The other dog had died of starvation and he was close to it. He had been shot with numerous pellets, his tail was broken and a lot of his teeth were missing.
He was hours from death.
The Greater Hillsdale Human Society were having none of it. Slowly, gently, they rebuilt and strengthened his broken body.
I knew none of this.
All I knew is that Lonnie and I were going to GHHS to donate my dogs beds, food and toys.
As we were walking up to the door, a former student sent me a message. She told me she was praying for me and God told her that He was going to give me a remarkable gift that day.
I walked in just as they were walking a dog out. His head was down and he was slow walking when suddenly, he lifted his head, saw me and ran at me so hard and fast that the leash came out of the volunteers hand. I sat on the floor and he jumped on me, licking me and pushing me to the ground.
I just couldn't quit laughing.
They showed me videos of him from that day and many before: a broken hearted dog who didn't even lift his head, who shied away from human contact and who no one really picked as a result.
He picked me and I picked him. I named him Marius after a Roman General I was reading about at the time.
We went to the vet together and the amazing Dr. Taylor in Hudson, MI told me the same thing they did: let's just make sure we give him a great last few years of his life. I promised him and I promised Marius that his last few years would rock.
That was 8 years ago.

Monsignor Easton took me for a walk one day when I was in seminary.
I was so angry at the church and sick of all the dirty games that I just decided to pack my stuff and give up.
He showed up at my door and took me for a walk.
He listened to my sad story and he hurt with me. Then, he told me about his experience of being betrayed by the church.
It was an awful, awful story.
He had only been a priest two years when his bishop threw him under the bus in the worst way possible.
We cried together, frustrated at the wickedness of it all.
Then, he stopped

There are many people here who make no effort to engage in a fruitful manner.
They are not seeking mutual growth, they are seeking submission to their ideology.
You can tell by their approach.
Has what they’ve done ever worked?
No & they know it. It’s easier to call you a racist, a heretic, a right winger or a socialist; that way you are simultaneously a victim and a hero.
A victim because you are never understood,
a hero because you are one of the rare ones who gets it.
It’s pride & insecurity.

Nope.
And they’ll continue to worship & support priests who tell them what they want to hear & hate priests who don’t.
The worst part?
We can’t see it. We are so arrogant that we think only “the other side” does what we quite literally do.

https://twitter.com/jdflynn/status/1457247339333124110

Altman said some of the most obnoxious, racist & wicked things from the pulpit, but he caught the visceral rage of many, articulated it well & then sprinkled some Gospel on it.
He has a huge following & will retire wealthy.
The Church is in trouble, not because of Bishops or

As faithful Catholics, we have a right to so much better than this.
Scandal after scandal, horror after horror.
For those who perpetrated these crimes, judgement will be eternal & devastating.
To take the most beautiful thing out God offers us & turn it into a means to attain some measure of power, which they then use to violate the bodies & souls of the most vulnerable…my heart can’t take it anymore.
No one with the power to change the system will read this, because they don’t have to.
They are accountable to no human & therein lies the problem.

Today, I want to tell you this:
I don’t know what is hurting you.
I don’t know how long you have been carrying that hurt.
What I do now is that some years ago, I assumed I would never be whole again and I was wrong.
The process of healing continues, but I know each day I feel the wounds fade. The process was slow & gentle, because our God is patient & I am so breakable.
He sent and sends me good people who love me & proved they were worthy of my trust.
He helped me forgive, showing me how to put down the burden of anger & sorrow and

I have to say, I i’m growing and understanding of why many in the gay community refuse to believe Catholics love them.
I posted an article about a priest who died bringing people love & comfort at their moment of death and some just couldn’t celebrate that, bless it, love it or even just ignore it.
Nope.
They had to use that sacred moment to point out that he may have been attracted to men and that, as a result, he shouldn’t be honored.
Whatever is in a person that compels them to be so obsessed with whom other people may be attracted to

My brother priests,
If you are anything like me, your heart has been in a perpetual state of heartbreak for years now.
The crimes of our brothers, the non-criminal & public failures, the relentless condemnations from the crazy left & crazy right… it’s all so very, very much. We kneel by the dying & hold their hand as they say goodbye.
We comfort their families, absorb their pain & move on.
We sit with those in darkness & try to gently guide them into the light.
We wrestle to hear Gods voice amid the shouting of ideological partisans.

I am astounded at the reaction to the data gathering that @PillarCatholic did.
A priest used church money to regularly break his vows while heading up the bishops response to priests guilty of criminal sexual misconduct.
Many of us who have endured Virtus have often commented on how the program offers information most people already have and seemingly accomplishes nothing except the ability to mitigate liability.
Virtus was and is an example of how the Church is led by people who don’t understand the core problem that led to the crisis.

I see some are attacking @jdflynn & @canonlawyered for breaking the story of a priest who broke his vows.
As a man who had to work with a priest who did this for years, I am grateful. Vow breaking with a willing partner is not a victimless crime; it damages everyone around them. Sin doesn’t stay locked into one place in the human heart; it grows & consumes, leading to deep, damaging behavior and a trail of spiritual corpses.
I thank God for these two 2 & the work they are doing within the Church. We need good journalism by people who love the Church.

Okay, let’s do this. We need a dog friends thread.
This is Marius with Hans. They were inseparable.
Hans is with the Lord now.
He belonged to my brother Paul. This is Marius and his buddy Boris.
He’s much bigger now but Marius took good care of him when he was a puppy.
He belongs to my niece Livia.

@mikeduncan take note

“The Lord is near, do not be anxious about anything”
This is the reminder and the challenge.
My sins & limitations make me anxious;
I simply don’t know how to do it all.
“The Lord is near, do not be anxious about anything”
I fret. I worry. I worry about my family, the church, our country.
“The Lord is near, do not be anxious about anything”
The devil wants me angry, anxious & afraid.
The marketers of these things fill my life with news of the failings of others, they use Jesus as their excuse, not their cause and

To my Brother priests,
That tweet from @Bishopoftyler honoring the priest disobeying his Bishop & fighting hard for the theology of the Republican Party absolutely broke my heart.
I’ve learned a lot in almost 22 years as a priest, but few things more important than this: You can love and serve the bride of Christ as faithfully and diligently as you want, but she will never love you back.
She will spend all of her energy telling priests in trouble that they are valuable and running you into the ground.
It’s heartbreaking.

Folks, I'd like to take a moment and comment on mask wearing at mass.
I'm in a position as a priest where I hear from a lot of priests and I have to tell you, our madness is damaging our clergy greatly. We have priests who are pushed to the breaking point because of people's personal convictions about masks.
For me personally, every week, I am sent messages chastising me for not forbidding entrance to people for not wearing masks and I get it.
But, to be clear, I'm also getting angry/hurt messages from peopleabout getting kicked out of a Church or

So, Joel Osteen did a Joe Osteen thing and found a way to get more money in the name of Jesus, this time from the federal government.
Now, Twitter is filled with the perpetually enraged calling for Catholic Churches to be taxed.
Let's talk this through, shall we? One of my parishes is among the largest in our diocese, with one of the largest budgets in the diocese.
With that,If we were a business, we still wouldn't qualify for taxes. Why?
Because we don't make money.
We pay our employees, care for the poor and nothing is left afterward.

Death is a significant part of my life; I'm around it everyday. When someone dies, your time with them on earth is done; you cannot have it back.
The wounds death brings on those left behind can be soothed, but never healed.
With that, I offer this: Call or visit your parents. Particularly if they are in a nursing home, make contact with them. Notes on their room window, singing to them from outside, whatever it takes.
If they are home, call them, text them, visit them. Thank them, honor them, love them. Treasure them.

Earlier, I posted a tweet about the pain many of my parishioners have endured mourning their sick or dying family without being able to be present.
I posted it as a response to yet another video of tens of thousands of people gathering in protest. The responses shocked me: lots of retweets & favorites, some death threats, even numerous notifications that people were attempting to access my passwords.
Some people politely disagreed, some people not so much.
Some people exuberantly agreed, others obnoxiously so.

To my little bro @FrGoyo -
One of the toughest parts of being a priest is moving. You give the entirety of yourself to God’s people where you are assigned and then, like Abraham, God calls you to “Go to a land you know not.”
I’ve changed communities 12 times in 20 years and I was devastated almost every time.
I will pray for you and, if I may, offer advice to you and any younger priest going through this transition.

Thank you for this brother. I'd like to share my opinions on what we as priests can do and it centers on the way we lead as priest and the pastorship model we practice.

https://twitter.com/frmattfish/status/1090953168073224192

For 20 years, I have watched the way we Pastor and I've become a veritable collecting point for horror stories of priests with too much power. Simply put, there is no accountability for a priest being a pompous jerk, power oriented or treating his parish as his personal fiefdom.