On some serious issues of truth and half-truth...

Dear friends,

Last week I learned through the CathNews discussion board that a priest with the same surname as myself, Fr George V Coyne SJ, the Director of the Vatican Observatory, had been "sacked". (Fr Coyne is no relation to myself as far as I am aware.) I immediately checked the Vatican Observatory website and his name was still prominently listed there as Director.

I immediately posted a response on the CathNews board suggesting Fr Coyne had not been "removed" and that the post was defamatory and requested it be deleted. Unfortunately it was my post that was deleted. My successor as Administrator in that place later wrote to me following a private query I'd sent to him saying that Fr Coyne had in fact been replaced as Director of the Vatican Observatory.

Fr George V Coyne SJ has resigned as Director of the Vatican Observatory for health reasons. He has cancer. [Photo: www.aaas.org/news/ releases/2006/0330 coyne.shtml]

Unfortunately I had missed the news announcement when it had first appeared some days before. In further checking of various news sources in the following days I have discovered that in fact Fr Coyne has not been "removed". He has cancer and has resigned because of his health and the uncertainty entailed by his ill-health that he can maintain the leadership commitment he's provided to this important work of the Church over many decades. Since 1978 in fact.

What is deeply disturbing though is that these suggestions that Fr Coyne has been "sacked" or "removed" by Pope Benedict because of Fr Coyne's responses to Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn over the issue of evolution seem to be a ficticious concoction of sections of Catholic media agencies within the Catholic community. I suggest as such they are seriously defamatory. It is a favourite tactic of the defamer — and is basically the tactic used by the individual who so devastatingly defamed my person — that they deal in half truths. Half truths are always dangerous because the counter side of a half a truth is invariably a lie.

The "half-truth" is Fr George V Coyne has indeed resigned and been replaced as Director of the Vatican Observatory by Argentinian born Jesuit Fr Jose Funes, 43. According to the ANSA.it news report, which appears to be the most balanced I have read on this matter, "The Vatican has denied a report in the London-based Daily Mail that the ailing prelate was 'removed'because he had 'irritated' the pope." The lie in the present half truth being pedalled by certain conservative Catholic news agencies is that Fr Coyne was "removed" from his position by His Holiness, Pope Benedict, or by the Vatican.

If, as seems likely, some conservative Catholic press agencies around the world have been the ones primarily responsible for this slur against the name of Fr George Coyne we are dealing with a serious issue here. An abject apology ought be forthcoming from each of them — the ones who first started the half-truth and those who have endeavoured to perpetrate it without checking the true facts.

On a not un-related subject, I am aware that a priest has been using the CathNews discussion forum in an attempt to denigrate myself and the Catholica Australia endeavour. His name is Fr John M George. He wrote concerning myself on the CathNews discussion board recently "I would have settled this whole coyney circus in 15mins in my prestroke days with my ustashi contacts!".

Yesterday he was claiming that Cliff Baxter's satirical character, Fr Farzenheim, is some representation of himself. That is not the truth. Fr Farzenheim is a satirical but ficticious character that Mr Baxter has created who represents a certain set of values and attitudes that are not very pleasant in the some sectors of the ordained community. Fr Farzenheim is not meant to represent any particular individual. I am sure Mr Baxter would admit that on one or two occasions he has borrowed phrases that Fr George has used and which Mr Baxter is seeking to satirise. One of them has been the term "Jonestown" which Fr George coined to describe the Catholica Australia endeavour. Fr George claims too much credit to himself though if he believes Fr Farzenheim is some parody of his own attitudes alone though.

I do believe very sincerely that the brother priests of Fr George ought to do the man a favour and tell him to belt up. His behaviours on the CathNews dsicussion board are deeply damaging to the Church. I would argue it is communication styles such as those used by Fr George which are the root cause of what so many people want to escape from in the Catholic Church today. His sort of communication style does appeal to a tiny minority in the world just as the tactics of terrorists appeal to a tiny minority. By his own admission on that forum Fr George has indicated his faculties were once removed by his seniors. It is understandable why they might have been removed given the damage that he is now doing to the institution with his computer and internet connection. When will his priest brothers have the courage to either quietly tell Fr George to pull his head in, or when will the leadership wake up to the fact that having a person parading himself proudly as a priest and writing "I would have settled this whole coyney circus in 15mins in my prestroke days with my ustashi contacts!" is not in the best interests of our institution? That is unabashedly the language of terrorism! No priest should use that language, even in private.

Note: Also worth reading on the matter of Fr George V Coyne's resignation is the Catholic News Service (CNS) report. CNS is an agency of the US Catholic Bishops' Conference and it does not descend to even mentioning the half-truths that have attempted to be perpetrated on other alleged Catholic News Agency sites.

Brian Coyne
Editor & Publisher
Catholica

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