Hiding the Dorothies

Bits and pieces have started to leak out about the impending Apostolic Visitation of seminaries. According to some who have seen the program, it's witchhunt time....

Along the lines of that, an eager-beaver who wants to believe the speculation is buzzing that That Fabe (he's the one in Lincoln, where the altar rail doubles as an electric fence) has been picked to "chair" the visitations.

Um, not so fast, sweetheart.... Or however Babelfish translates that.

Differing visitation teams, comprised of three bishops each along with assisting priests and recorders of notes, will visit each seminary. It's long been known that over 100 bishops will be involved. So while That Fabe may chair a board or two or three, or be one of the bishop-team members on visitations, the whole enchilada will not be his enterprise to oversee. That'd be like putting the elephant in charge of the peanuts.

A significant role will likely be given to the head of the USCCB's committee on priestly formation, Bishop John Nienstedt of New Ulm, who was spotted earlier today clapping and waving a candle onstage at Marienfeld. The 58 year-old Nienstedt, a moral theologian by training who wrote his doctoral thesis on the dangers of in-vitro fertilization, served for six years as rector of Detroit's Sacred Heart Seminary prior to his appointment as auxiliary to Maida in 1994.

The visiting boards will work from a universal list of things the Congregation for Catholic Education wants examined -- and I'm told the knives are out for homosexually-oriented sems and any potential whiff of a gay subculture.

Should make for an interesting fall....

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