After seeing this story out of Buffalo, New York in yesterday’s news, it seems to me that I need to get my novel and screenplay about seminary life (Saint Judas) written at the first opportunity. As it turns out, life is sometimes more outlandish than fiction.
What I learned from my seminary experience was basically this:
1) it was an institution riddled with people who didn’t know who they were
2) since they didn’t know who they were, they were insecure and shifty; in a word: they lacked integrity
3) these people would say one thing and do another, thus fostering a climate of distrust
4) at that point, Satan could schedule a long vacation… he had other people to carry out his charism of sowing division
In shorthand: identity issues led to integrity issues, and integrity issues led to trust issues. It’s as old as Genesis 3.
Below is a playlist of songs that represent different moments in the screenplay I’m assembling.
An update on the seminary in Buffalo, New York: In late 2019, Bishop Malone resigned as bishop of Buffalo. The news was presented as a voluntary early retirement. Then, on February 4, 2020, the diocese announced that the seminary would be closing, after months of intense scrutiny by a local investigative reporter, Charlie Specht, whose brother had attended that seminary.
Here is the news release from the diocese about the closure: https://www.cks.edu/news/article/current/2020/02/04/100037/christ-the-king-seminary-to-cease-operations-in-current-form
On the same day, Charlie Specht received a death threat in his voicemail from an anonymous caller. The FBI investigated and identified the caller as an adjunct faculty member at the seminary:
https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/fbi-arrests-man-accused-of-making-death-threat-to-investigative-reporter-charlie-specht
So apparently telling the truth about what happens inside a seminary can stir up more than a little hostility.
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