St. John's 'Cemetery' College
THE [BAD] TIDINGS announces a momentous event in the history of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in the following blurb ...
The St. John's Seminary College Class of 2005 held its final graduation ceremony on May 14 at the Camarillo campus.
Graduates of the class of 2005 include Daniel Gutiérrez, John Andrew Alexander, Uriel Tovar Jr., Edin Barrera, José G. López, Michael Uythien Nguyen and Alexander Gamino, Jr. of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and Rogelio González and Alexander Gamino, Jr. of the Diocese of San Bernardino.
That's it. I suppose "they" think the least said the better so as to draw as little attention as possible to the ongoing disintegration of the Catholic Church in L.A. under Cardinal Roger M. Mahony.
What the blurb leaves out is significant: just 9 graduates from the college seminary of the most populous diocese in the country (7 for L.A. and 2 for San Bernardino).
Note, too, that the article does not indicate that a single one of the graduates will be going on to the Theologate which is adjacent to the soon to be demolished college seminary campus.
In the Mahony years, fewer and fewer graduates of St. John's Seminary College have made it to the Theologate, either because they were not interested in pursuing a vocation to the priesthood or because they were not deemed acceptable as candidates for the priesthood in the Archdiocese.
During Roger Mahony's 20 year reign as archbishop, the largest Archdiocese in the richest nation in the world has closed 2 of its seminaries: Our Lady Queen of Angels (Minor Seminary) and now, St. John's Seminary College. Ironically, Mahony sold the latter to a developer ostensibly to provide an endowment for the education of future priests.
posted by Quintero at 10:38 PM
6 Comments:
Alexander Gamino, Jr. of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and ... Alexander Gamino, Jr. of the Diocese of San Bernardino.
If the fellow in the Roman collar is the rector, it appears that the Diocese of San Bernardino is sharing a seminarian with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
Are you clustering dioceses in southern California now? Are you trending toward more bishops than priests? Hmm ... what would Cardinal Mahoney and Bishop Barnes think of lay leadership of dioceses? Après moi le déluge? (Excuse my French!)
Daniel:
Very observant. I missed that one. Very curious. Are they trying to inflate what little numbers they have?
Looking at the complete picture on the The Tidings site, I see that the priest is in fact the Rev. "Msgr. Helmut Hefner, rector/president of St. John's Seminary."
Are they trying to inflate what little numbers they have?
Oh, speaking from experience, I suppose it is just another instance of "don't care, don't tell" on the part of a diocesan newspaper. It appears that there were only ever eight seminarians and no one bothered to proof the story. I am sure that Mr. Gamino is on the receiving end of quite a few bilocation jokes this week.
Yeah, they are calling him Mr. Pio these days.
I'm betting that money ends up in the litigation fund. Or maybe it's going into a pot so that Cardinal Mahony can hire Mark Geragos, when the time comes.
There was a great mistake and as the person in question, I'm Alex Gamino, I am soon to be ordained in the Diocese of San Bernardino and not LA. By the way, I am one of the two seminarians who continued from that graduating class.
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