The Jaguar-driving priest has denied doing anything improper and predicted the church committee will clear him and let him return as vicar of a small summer parish.
He insists wild spending on visits to clubs like Pink Elephant were connected to fund-raising efforts and his for-profit company – a pharmacy for hemophiliacs.
“I’m sure it’ll be okay,” [Gregory] Malia told the Daily News after an article about his extravagant jaunts led his shocked church bosses to take action.
“I’m sure it will be OK.” Ok? It will?
Can we assume a big big spender who has shown a passion for exhibitionism and excess indulges in no other hanky panky than just throwing money around carelessly? Anybody here believe that? Is there a tent big enough to contain a priest like this and a peculiar prophet of some 2000 years ago who sent his disciplines out with no money and only the clothes on their backs? Not even a credit card already? Larry
This makes a good case for bishops and clergy knowing each other well enough, and caring enough about each other, to avoid occasions for scandal. I fault both priest and bishop – and irresponsible scandal-mongering newspaper reporters – in this case.
Umm… Larry? “Is there a tent big enough to contain a priest like this and a peculiar prophet of some 2000 years ago who sent his disciplines out with no money and only the clothes on their backs?” Do YOU live even REMOTELY like what you just pointed to? Do any of us? By ANY standard of the first couple of centuries of Christian history ALL of us are essentially hedonistic libertines.
I still don’t see what fantasy this poor guy is supposed to live up to. Is he supposed to be a Cistercian monk? A Minim friar (my favorite order)? Did he take a vow of poverty? Did he make some kind of vow to live a certain petit-bourgeois lifestyle just like most Episcopalians? Remember.. Is he supposed to act all fake-pious like most of the hypocrites his religion is full of? He sounds like a good-old-fashioned 18th c English priest or prelate to me.
You criticism is absurd, seniorpriest. First, I’m not a priest, and priests, though you may not know it, are commonly held to a different standard. But Christ nevertheless stands before us as a model, not of a passion for starvation, asceticism and acute poverty, but as a model of self restraint and self discipline, an aspect of character that priests – and all the rest of us – are supposed to be develop. This is one of Christianity’s most straightforward messages and one which is and has been taught for a long time. (See the entry below from the NYT on this VERY subject.) And of all the things this sorry substitute for a priest is not, he is not a model of self restraint. I repeat, in fact, he is a model for exhibitionism, narcisssism and self indulgence. And where these characteristics abound, how often do we see other defects of character that are bred in the company of the above excesses? The answer is patent. Why are you defending this man when there can be no defense for any man, and for a priest…? If this were a well-heeled nobody, we would merely label him a commonplace libertine and leave him to the flowery path downward.
Defend him? Be my guest. But this tells us as much about you as it does about him. Larry
[i] Two comments containing ad hominem comments addressed to commenters have been deleted. Please address issues, not other commenters.
Elf [/i]
By any standard of the first couple of centuries of Christian history all of us today are essentially hedonistic libertines, with our nice cars and interesting wines. As someone remarked re this case, how many clergy take lovely long vacations in the South of France, or spend big in their private clubs? Heck, I know one rich TEC bishop who collected hot air ballons and fire engines. And Bishop Rusack of Los Angeles (of blessed memory) had a walk-in safe with trays of loose jewels (he showed them to me himself) in his mansion on Sunset Boulevard. It seems that we are unclear as to what Fr Malia’s crime is. Is it attending the wrong clubs and spending too much?
I still don’t see what expectations this poor priest is supposed to live up to. Is it uncanonical to spend a bunch of money in only certain places (where the middle classes would tut-tut of course)? Is he supposed to be a Cistercian monk? A Minim friar (my favorite order)? Did he take a vow of poverty? Did he make some kind of vow to live a petit-bourgeois lifestyle just like most Episcopalians? He sounds like a good-old-fashioned 18th c English priest or prelate to me.