If the NCReporter defends you – you might just be a heretic

Diogenes responds to those defending the parish worker fired by Bishop Morlino. The parish worker whose thesis called for women priest.

1. Kolpack’s contention that she was not allowed to defend herself is refuted by her claim that Morlino was prepared to let her keep her job if she professed Catholic doctrine. That’s to say, if she was falsely accused of heterodoxy, she could have cleared things up to everybody’s satisfaction by a profession of faith.

2. Kolpack’s “accusers” are likely to be CCD students who came home from her classes with ideas distressing to their parents. Does she really think those eleven or twelve-year-olds should be brought in to confront her?

3. Morlino is obliquely criticized for using Kolpack’s Master’s thesis as a gauge of her convictions. But Kolpack denied the accusations of heterodoxy. Well, child-abusing priests characteristically deny the accusations of abuse. So should a bishop throw up his hands, call it a stalemate, and go home? No, he looks further for impartial testimony. In this case, Morlino was able to refer to an objective and undeniable record of Kolpack’s opinions: her own writing.

4. Morlino has a doctorate in moral theology from Rome’s Gregorian University. While he might well have asked Kolpack to recant her thesis, he would not have asked her to “denounce” it (which is subliterate) or to “refute” it (which is absurd).

5. Kolpack claims that a recantation would put at risk “her reputation as a scholar and academician.” What reputation? A Google search draws a total blank. The fact that she calls herself an academician rather than an academic (which is what she meant) proves that she is neither. There’s nothing wrong with that, but as a motive for her refusal to renounce heresy it’s far-fetched to the point of disingenuousness.