From the “Is there a gay conspiracy in the priesthood?” file, we have the following tale of the two priests from the Portland, Maine, diocese who were found out to be members of the gay pr0n web site St. Sebastian’s Angels. In this episode, we learn that Father Normand Richard gave a lawyer-and-bishop-approved apology to his parishioners for being involved. But his excuse was that he got out before the groups really “deteriorated.” Really? From an email on the web site’s discussion list:
From: N Richard .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
To: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Sent: Monday, September 27, 1999 6:48 PM
Subject: Re: [saintsebastian] confessionAs I begin reading the emails on Confession and the need to confess after one has been intimate with a man—big deal right? This reminds me of an incident years ago. I had gone to confession to a neighboring priest. Of course, I felt comfortable confessing to him because he had made a pass at me. While in confession he asked me who was that guy because he would like to have sex with him. I thought this was interesting at the time. I never gave him the name. Norm
As Diogenes points out, he doesn’t even comment on the fact that another priest was using the confessional to pimp for new dates. Doesn’t even faze him.
In others of the emails in the files archived by Roman Catholic Faithful (PDF download), which are even more explicit and disgusting, we see the extent to which this sort of things is understood. And Bishop Michael Cote, then auxiliary of Portland, now ordinary of Norwich, Conn., lived with these guys and made excuses for them! How could he not know?
There is a network of actively gay priests in the priesthood, using it as their personal social club and completely disregarding the Church’s moral teachings. As Fr. John Harris, one of the Maine priests subsequently removed from ministry, puts it in one of the emails: “If the laity had any idea…ves. To friends and family, I am “Mac guy” and “Catholic theology guy.” My brother Bernie is “car repair guy.” My brother-in-law Pete is “art guy.” And so on. What would we do without knowledgeable friends and family? I feel bad for people who don’t have such experts in their social circles.
On the same note, I have great sympathy for people who work in technical support. I realize how difficult it is to try to understand what someone is saying who has no knowledge of what they’re trying to tell you about. “It’s green and it’s flashing on my screen. What is it?” Oy, I can’t even picture what it might be.
Oh, and I’m often asked how I got so knowledgeable about Macs. It’s simple: I read. I subscribe to several Mac magazines, I’ve read several Mac troubleshooting books, I subscribe to and skim, not read, several Mac-related email discussion lists, and read Mac-related web sites. Time consuming? Yeah, but it’s saved my bacon a lot over the years. And it’s even got me jobs that paid me for that knowledge.
Just some thoughts for a rainy Friday morning.
For mailings lists, start with the best one: TidBITS. Actually TidBITS is an email newsletter and TidBITS-Talk is a mailing list to discuss articles in the newsletter. It is one of the oldest online publications of any sort and for good reason. [url=http://www.tidbits.com]http://www.tidbits.com[/url]
Another set of mailing lists iare the Macintosh Guy email lists for Mac OS X. They are subdivided into specialties like Unix for OS X, Newbies, and the more general “User”. These are question and answer, troubleshooting lists and by learning from what other people are doing, you can gain some insight yourself. http://www.themacintoshguy.com/lists/X.html
A couple of other excellent web sites are [url=http://www.macintouch.com]http://www.macintouch.com[/url] for news, information, and troubleshooting; [url=http://www.macosxhints.com]http://www.macosxhints.com[/url] for unbelievable tips for shortcuts or hidden features or just new ways of doing things; [url=http://www.macfixit.com]http://www.macfixit.com[/url] for straight problem solving; and [url=http://www.macminute.com]http://www.macminute.com[/url] for news and information. Also [url=http://www.versiontracker.com]http://www.versiontracker.com[/url] to keep up to date with the latest software, esp. shareware.
For magazines, there aren’t a whole lot, but I subscribe to MacWorld and MacAddict. They always have informative articles. The key is at least to skim articles you might not normally read because you never know when some nugget of info will become handy.
Books are always changing—new ones are coming out, old ones become less relevant—but keep an eye on books from David Pogue and Adam Engst. Also any book from the “Missing Manual” series. Also, the new “Take Control” series of e-books from [url=http://www.tidbits.com]http://www.tidbits.com[/url] .
If you want to get into the Unix guts of OS X, then I recommend “Mac OS X Unleashed” by L. Ray and W. Ray. A big book with lots of info.
I hope some of that helps.