Tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the Asia Room there will be a conversation between the members and the entire General Council, including the superior general, to discuss developments in the Society and around the Maryknoll world (let the reader take note).
Because the discussion will be in a "Blog-Free" Zone, the precise content will not be divulged here on this website. This allows everyone to express his opinion openly without fear of reading about it on Knollnews or in the NCR. Or the New York Times. Or Ripley's Believe It Or Not.
That being said, the overarching theme that will be used to prime the conversational pump, as it were, is "How We Got Where We Now Are and Where Do We Go From Here?"
Alas, I have a previous commitment and will not be here this evening, so the temptation posed by my twitching fingers to blog will thus be avoided. I spoke to at least four other guys who also said they learned about this too late and will also not be able to attend. I trust that enough interested parties will be present for a frank and candid exchange of gun...er...I mean opinions.
The very fact that our superior and his Council are willing to sit and chat with us is a welcome development, as communication and transparency have been sorely missed nigh these past three years (or since the last Chapter declared that communication and transparency would be the desired goals in the coming years.)
Maryknollers being Maryknollers, I harbor no illusions we will even attain a "We must hang together or we shall most assuredly hang separately" (cf. Ben Franklin) moment.
That being said, let me offer my two cents in absentia. Is it too late to offer Roy a cease fire? To wit: The third canonical warning letter, which in effect dismisses him from Maryknoll, will be held in abeyance in exchange for him issuing a public disclaimer at EVERY future forum that his actions and words on behalf of women's ordination do not in any way reflect the position of the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America. Similarly, can he, in exchange for retaining the M.M. after his name, make an effort in every future interview with reporters and the media to instruct them to leave Maryknoll's name out of the discussion?
I fear this and other suggestions are moot at this point.
Two people have approached me with copies of Roy's legal defense in the upcoming trial. This is not mine to share. I heard from one source that Maryknoll has retained canonical counsel of equal stature as Rev. Thomas Doyle, J.C.D., who is defending Roy, so we are in for a battle royale and are no more able to influence impending events any more than we were able to stop Hurricane Irene from wreaking havoc all along the Eastern seaboard.
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