Mad Meg
Accusing Cardinal Tobin of having an affair with an Italian actor.
George Neumayr has discovered who Tobin’s “baby” is. It is the Italian actor Francesco Castiglione, who – get this – is LIVING IN TOBIN’S RECTORY...
Neumayr is the guy Bishop Morlino said to beware of. No need to wonder why, with this salacious gossip. Barnhardt's writing is vulgar and contemptuous, and indecen, she begins the article: 'The filthy faggot Cardinal of Newark, New Jersey.'
The very idea of Tobin having an affair with the Italian actor is laughable. This is exactly the same level of calumny passing as investigative journalism on which Vigano probably based many of his own conclusions.
Aside from the disturbing scandal-ridden, so-called journalism, what I find troubling is that many people follow Neumayr online, and to my surprise, some very solid people link to him, friend him on FB, and share his stories. I don't really know who he is and never read him unless someone sends me a link. Barnhardt shows up on one news aggregate and so I'll sometimes click to read her outlandish commentary. Again, I'm surprised she has people - even priests - who read and actually support her. Former online 'friends' continue to do so as well and actually believe what she writes.
I won't link to these people of course, I'm just noting that much of the scandal is fed by this type of crack-pottery online. As Ouellet wrote to Vigano, "I cannot understand how could you have allowed yourself to be convinced of this monstrous and unsubstantiated accusation."
Beware Neumayr and Barnhardt.
Ed. Note: I neglected to note Castiglione is reportedly a house guest at Tobin's residence while he studies at Seton Hall. Interpreting that to mean he is having an affair/sex with Tobin is a monstrous, unsubstantiated accusation. It's wicked and slanderous gossip. This is why bishop's and diocesan spokesmen refuse to talk to so-called journalists like Neumayr or Voris.
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ReplyDeleteReally? Looks to me like he writes for a very good Catholic publication called Crisis Magazine. https://onepeterfive.com/interview-george-neumayr-author-political-pope/
ReplyDeleteNice interview about George mentioned in above comment as well.
ReplyDeletewho's Barnhardt?
ReplyDeleteYour favorite.
DeleteProve that the accusations are unsubstantiated. Since you are so convinced, it should be easy to prove...we're waiting...
ReplyDeleteThe burden of proof is on the accusers. They have no proof.
DeleteGearge had this response:
ReplyDeleteGeorge Neumayr
2 hrs ·
Here we have a power-sniffing, servile, sloppy blogger decrying...sloppy journalism. Notice that he doesn't quote Tobin's spokesman, who essentially confirmed my story about the Italian soap actor living at Tobin's rectory by refusing to answer any questions on the subject: "I will not entertain the question."
Just because he is a house guest at Tobin's doesn't make him his lover or 'boy-toy'.
You honestly thought Barnhardt had any credibility before this? She is one of the foulest, most vile "Catholic" bloggers on on the internet.
ReplyDeleteGosh no! But these people link to her and quote her and treat her as if she is credible! Even Fr. Z allowed a link to her, as well as picking up on her crazy analysis of the 'stang' thing. I can't believe these people are following this insanity.
DeleteWhen false accusations are made against Judge Kavanaugh, it's an outrage and a travesty.
ReplyDeleteWhen false accusations are made against a bishop or Pope, it's good clean fun.
Don't ever change, you schismatic, Americanist, right-liberal frauds pretending to be Catholic.
"To mislead, if possible, even the elect." (Matthew 24)
Deletecensorship....nice. It was just an opposing viewpoint. Who's behind your blog? The Gallan Six
ReplyDeleteLOL!
DeleteI'm funded by Soros.
Terry,
DeleteI will gladly donate to your blog! ÷)
Haha! Thanks Yaya!
DeleteBecause grown men always have sleepovers? Any opinion regarding Cupich, Wuerl, Martin, Rosica, McCarrick along with so many more? Does one actually need photographic proof or the blue dress to come to correct assertions? I shouldn't really use the blue dress analogy as there is a high likelihood one might actually find a blue dress in one of these men's.....there I go again- one of these people's closet. Along with a fashionable pair of pumps. What about McCarrick? Or does one actually need the trial results that he will most likely die before it concludes? And what does Voris say that's beyond Catholic? Is it "tone" perhaps?
ReplyDeleteI would say the tone is minimally "charitable "
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, Terry, but your attitude to events seems like a determination to whitewash everything in the favor of the Catholic hierarchy.
ReplyDeleteForgive me for making such an accusation in my very first comment ever here. I do not comment on websites simply to be contrary. I just discovered your website while searching for information on St. Sebastian's Angels. That brought me to your post of 6 March 2018.
What I've read here today brings a number of questions to my mind. I'll address only one specific issue here. I do not ask as a practicing Catholic (I'm not) but as someone concerned with the Church as an important institution in Western culture.
Both that post and this one left me with the impression that you are determined to believe the very best of Francis -- and of everything that comprises the Roman Catholic Church as a social organization -- despite the evidence of recent events.
In that earlier post you stated: "If and when the pope knows about them, I'm quite certain he is doing something about them." (In that post you had no problem assuming Corapi to be guilty as he was accused in an official manner -- that is by the clerical hierarchy itself.) But when some evidence is presented that Francis knew about problems and did nothing you essentially dismiss it. In this very post you are accuse Vigano of coming to faulty conclusions on "calumny passing as investigative journalism." But Vigano has claimed his accusations stem from his OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. You do not know that Vigano is lying about this (and he would have to be lying and not merely mistaken.)
So what gives?
Does you faith as a Catholic require you to always believe the hierarchy until proof positive is given otherwise? Your statement of 9 October, "Now it will be handled officially and explained away - not without apologies of course, acknowledging "there were failures in the selection procedures implemented in his case", but we won't do that again, and so on" suggest otherwise. So color me perplexed.
Thanks David. I get perplexed as well and writing helps me think, this is just sort of diary wherein I simply try to sort things out for myself. I don't regard the Church so much as a social institution, but rather as the Mystical Body of Christ. Filled with imperfect members - sinners - to be sure. I revere the office of the papacy, and recognize the one who sits in the chair of Peter as the Vicar of Christ. Like his predecessor St. Peter, the pope, being human has flaws and can make mistakes. The problem of judging a pope is not my responsibility, and since there is little to no concrete evidence regarding Vigano's claims aside from his testimony, no documentation has been made public, to my knowledge, I can't presume there was malicious cover-up, perhaps it was something considered more prudential? I'm not competent to speculate on what the pope did or did not do, much less on what his thoughts and intentions were. The Roman curia operates much differently than we Americans expect. I respectfully await clarification and correction of these problems, recognizing the Church moves slowly.
DeleteWhen I refer to Vatican statements I usually have in mind Vatican spokesmen or functionaries attempting to explain stuff away in a sort of Church-legalese. It works, but it's not all that critical for my faith. I would prefer straight talk, but they have their protocol.
There's a lot in your comment but everything you bring up is not equal in weight or importance - for instance Corapi. His superiors had the responsibility to investigate. Corapi is a priest subject to his superiors, and answerable to them. It was obvious to me something was way off spiritually with Corapi when he started changing his look and other changes to his appearance. Something was off with him - that was my impression. I don't know about his personal life. His superiors relegated what would happen to him, until he dropped out. I understand he's in business for himself.
Back to the hierarchy - yep - innocent until proven guilty - I'm kind of American that way. McCarrick was steeped in rumors and gossip which I never believed, until now - after letters/documentation and witnesses came forward, and the Holy Father acted to remove his title. I was very much disturbed by the revelations, but I do not regret not participating in the rumors and gossip which circulated before his downfall.
I'm just a single Catholic man, kind of foolish to write so much, but my opinion means very little. Thanks for commenting.
Terry,
DeleteA thoughtful reply -- but, alas, I have some concerns.
Now on to brass tacks:
With regard to the hierarchy you state that you do indeed view them as “innocent until proven guilty - I'm kind of American that way,” and noted that you are glad not to have engaged in gossip about McCarrick. This is all well and good; Gossip is a bad habit, and I applaud your belief in evidence before condemning someone as guilty. However, I asked about your attitude as a faithful Catholic, not as an American. Also – and I’m to blame here – by “always believe the hierarchy until proof positive is given otherwise” what I was trying to query was if you faith requires you to TRUST the hierarchy despite evidence as long as available evidence does not amount to proof positive against it? You admit that you bear no responsibility for judging the pope, and you note the idiosyncratic way the Roman Curia operates. Truthful as these statements are, they really do not answer the question I was trying to ask.
Your stated belief in “innocent until proven guilty” also ties into why I brought up both Father Corapi and Archbishop Vigano: To compare your attitude towards them with your attitude towards the official actions of the hierarchy.
On Corapi you wrote (6 March 2018): “In the past decade or so, there have been dozens of cases of priests living double lives - priests in important positions as well as ordinary parish priests. Gay and straight. Of course, there was also Fr. Corapi, whose case demonstrates it is not always just about sex either.” That’s a fairly direct implication of Corapi being as guilty as those priests who violated the code of priestly celibacy.
On Vigano you wrote: “The very idea of Tobin having an affair with the Italian actor is laughable. This is exactly the same level of calumny passing as investigative journalism on which Vigano probably based many of his own conclusions.” That statement directly implies that Vigano’s accusations are false (or mostly false).
There is no proof positive that Corapi did anything wrong – the proceedings against him were halted without a conclusion because he resigned from the priesthood. The circumstances don’t look particularly good regarding his innocence, I must admit. But there certainly has been no proving anything against him. Likewise, we don’t know how much of Vigano’s statement is spot-on and how much is just plain wrong because Francis has refused to answer and the evidence is locked up in the Vatican’s hands. (You have yourself admitted this: “there is little to no concrete evidence regarding Vigano's claims aside from his testimony, no documentation has been made public, to my knowledge.”) Now frankly these circumstances don’t look good for Pope Francis. Still, we have no proof positive for or against Vigano’s accusations.
I brought up the cases of Corapi and Vigano because your attitude to the hierarchy and its official actions is so much more charitable than it is to either of these men. The relative unimportance of Corapi’s case to the overall Church was beside the point. Your response doesn’t address this concern.
I can understand how “Vatican spokesmen or functionaries attempting to explain stuff away in a sort of Church-legalese” does not directly impact your faith. I was curious about how your view of how a faithful Catholic should behave (as in not participating in gossip) impacts your appraisal of the overall hierarchy as opposed to individual clergymen.
I should say just a little something more. Please excuse the lengthy quote -- I believe it to be necessary to get my point across.
DeleteI began my previous comment with a concern that your attitude tends to “whitewash” potential problems within the hierarchy. My concern is prompted by the very serious concerns of people like Michael Brendan Dougherty who recently wrote:
“The fact is that Pope Francis has conducted his papacy in a way that made Viganò’s claims immediately credible. Francis appointed a bishop in Chile, Juan Barros Madrid, over the loud protests of laity there who accused him of covering up child abuse. Francis scolded these people as calumniators, but eventually the scandal overwhelmed him — and he was forced to send in investigators, who uncovered a Chilean church mired in corruption. In Italy, after interventions by two influential allies of his theological agenda, Francis restored to ministry an infamous priest, Mauro Inzoli, who had molested children in the confessional and who had been defrocked by the relevant Vatican authorities. As civil trials in Italy revealed to the public the depth of Inzoli’s depravity, Francis removed him from ministry again.
“The truth is that Jorge Bergoglio had another mandate. It is candidly discussed by journalist Austen Ivereigh in his book The Great Reformer. Ivereigh, who has become the Anglo¬phone world’s papal hagiographer, details how a group of progressive European churchmen that had been meeting for decades at St. Gallen in Switzerland to discuss their views on the Church had come to see Bergoglio as their candidate. Among these were the archbishop of Brussels, as well as the Belgian cardinal Godfried Danneels and the German cardinal Walter Kasper. What they wanted was a pope who would open up all the theological debates that had been closed by John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Communion for the divorced and remarried. A revision of Church teaching on homosexual relations and relationships.
“Kasper was a theological progressive who believed that the Church was no longer able to reach modern man in a pluralistic society. He was also given to sometimes grand pronouncements, writing that ‘dogma never settles a theological issue once and for all.’ Danneels was Belgium’s leading bishop from 1979 to 2010; as it did in Ireland and Quebec, secularization seemed to come almost overnight in Belgium, and Danneels has occasionally been a cheerleader for these changes. He wrote a private letter to his prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, praising the government’s decision to allow same-sex unions. It was a position he would reiterate emphatically years later, telling two newspapers that the Church ‘has never opposed the fact that there should exist a sort of ‘’marriage’’ between homosexuals, but one therefore speaks of a ‘’sort of’’ marriage. But it is not true marriage, that between a man and a woman, therefore you have to put another word in the dictionary. But that it is lawful, that the law can legitimately provide for it, that’s something about which the Church has nothing to say.’ In a major public scandal, Danneels was revealed to have pressured the victim of sex abuse by a Catholic bishop, the victim’s uncle, to remain silent. He was enduring a quiet and disgraced retirement, but after pushing for the election of Bergoglio, he appeared on the loggia next to the new pope. He was also invited by Francis to contribute to the Synod on the Family.
“That is why it is easy to credit the allegations against Francis. He’s done it all before.”
(Dougherty's full statment at https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2018/10/29/case-against-pope-francis-catholic-church/ )
I don’t believe people like Dougherty (and they are numerous) are acting out of a belief in their ability to know a pope’s intentions, nor out of any desire to be responsible for judging a pope’s actions. They are simply looking at Francis' actions. (And usually as believing Christians and committed Catholics -- which is far beyond my own social/cultural concerns.)
I haven't read this blog in more than a year, so it is very sad to see how far your knee-jerk defense of the heretic "Pope" has led you in denying all the filth and corruption that is Bergoglio's New Religion.
ReplyDelete