Goodbye, Bad Blood?

Michael Rose, author of the book Goodbye, Good Men, has been intensifying his drumbeat of criticism for publications that cited major flaws in the book. We considered responding in kind, on the Internet, with a detailed answer to his criticisms. But we won't.

It's difficult, though. Rose has turned several people into public opponents of the Register. The very fact that he has written a document purporting to be a “point-by-point” refutation of the Register is enough to convince some people that we're wrong.

For the record, we're not — and we can e-mail you a point-by-point response of our own, if you like. But we've decided that charity is the best response. As Steve Wood told us in an article we published in April, families “can only experience renewal to the extent that they are like the Holy Family.”

As part of the Catholic family, we will be like them: loving and (mostly) silent.

After all, we at the Register were glad when Michael Rose's book came out. We echoed its premise in a news story that cited it. We advertised it.

Then our features editor, Dave Pearson, told us about Father Marcel Taillon, a priest who has had great success with weekly adoration for vocations at the Providence diocesan seminary.

Goodbye, Good Men mentions Father Taillon but not his success with eucharistic adoration. It quotes his comments about MTV ads for vocations, then adds, “Catholics wonder if the diocese is trying to attract ‘unchurched’ men that they can mold easily into their ‘re-envisioned’ image of the priest.” Last, he quotes an anonymous source claiming his orthodoxy got him kicked out of Father Taillon's seminary.

The book would have been much stronger if Rose had faced the Providence Diocese with his concerns. Rose could have quoted Father Taillon's own admission that the MTV ads are a fair question (as we did in our article) and recorded his successes with adoration for vocations (as we did in our article). Rose would have dispelled the impression he has that Father Taillon wants to remake the priesthood. He would have learned the truth about his anonymous seminary candidate.

When we first reported on this, in a column by Pearson, the story's headline and photograph singled out Rose's book in a way we regret. In fact, Rose's book was just one among several attacks on Father Taillon mentioned in the column.

But, since then, we've been accused of all kinds of things. For one, we've been told that we lack the courage to face the problems in the seminaries that Rose has exposed. Readers of Register editorials and news stories know better.

The truth is, Goodbye, Good Men does not speak with the persuasive power of investigative journalism. Real investigative journalism requires that the writer have the courage to face those who are being accused. Goodbye, Good Men is a compilation of accusations. The Church needs these accusations to be heard — but not if some are sort of true, some not true and others very true. The reader wonders, which is which? The very people who need to be persuaded — or exposed — shrug it off.

One more thing needs to be said. As Wood put it in a story we published on Father's Day 2000, “Building our families on the rock of faith” is what is important. Or, as Wood put it in an article we published last June: “You need to equip people.”

That's what Catholics should be spending our time doing, building on the rock of faith and equipping people to stand there, both by exposing the Church's problems and promoting its strengths.

In the last several months, Catholics went through a crucial time that should have been spent working together. Instead, Rose has spent much of that time attacking those who defended the innocent.

Worse, he has turned many people against publications that are working very hard to help the Church. Worse still, he has forced those publications to waste their own valuable time defending themselves against him rather than defending the Church.

He should admit his book's faults and correct them in order to preserve its badly needed truths. Where necessary, he should apologize. Then he should get back to work.

The Church needs Michael Rose.