Agony in Albany - The Roman Catholic Faithful

Roman Catholic Faithful, Inc. / AMDG May 2004 Albany newslettertrusted that they can no longer trust a bishop, no matterwho that bishop is or what he has stood for hisentire public life....“Brady and Likoudis are hucksters who danglebefore their audiences the false certainties of the1950s, when out of sight literally meant out of mind,when gay meant happy and queers occupied a paralleluniverse from which they occasionally escaped, onlyto be chased back in....”HUBBARD’S MEDIA FLACKSHubbard’s biggest p.r. coup was getting theAlbany Associated Press reporter Michael Gormley,who writes often and very sympathetically on “gayissues” for both AP and the gay press, to write a favorablepiece proclaiming Hubbard’s tenacity andportraying Hubbard’s critics as those who want to“turn the clock back” on Vatican II.On the evening (or late afternoon) of March5, the first of two Gormley reports on Hubbard appearedon the AP wire. The lead sentence in the first,headlined “Albany Bishop Back Battling in theStreets,” declared: “In 1967, street priest HowardHubbard fought to create northeastern New York'sfirst heroin rehab clinic. Again and again, he clashedwith one of Gov. Nelson Rockefeller's top drug policyadvisers, outraged at the claim there was a heroinproblem in Rocky's capital.“Hubbard won and Hope House was founded.“‘This was their No. 1 unmet need,’ Hubbardsaid of the inner city residents he served. ‘So if I wasto be faithful to what I was supposed to be doingthere, I had a responsibility to help out.’“Today, as bishop of Albany's Catholic Diocese,Hubbard is taking a new fight to the street,struggling to save his reputation and protect hisChurch over claims he had homosexual relationshipsand protected other gay priests. As others ensnared inthe nationwide clergy sex abuse scandal have quit orquietly faded from view, Hubbard has stuck his chinout.“‘He was a tough guy,’ said Jerry Connelly, 64,of Albany, a friend and one-time street basketballnemesis of Hubbard who has known the bishop for 40years. ‘You can't just be a little lamb...I think youfight for what you believe’.....”The second Gormley piece, which appearedon March 6 in, perhaps, 200 newspapers across theUnited States and in the United Kingdom, includingthe (U.K.) Guardian and such major U.S. papers asthe Boston Globe, the Providence Journal-Bulletin,Long Island Newsday, Washington Times, AtlantaJournal-Constitution, Miami Herald, San Jose MercuryNews, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the KansasCity Star, opened:“Albany Bishop Howard Hubbard has nevershied away from a fight, and now the spiritual leaderof 400,000 Roman Catholics in upstate New York iswaging an unusually public campaign against sexualmisconduct allegations to save his career....“Hubbard vigorously denies the charges andinsists he has kept his vow of celibacy. He has evenpersuaded the diocese council to hire a former federalprosecutor to do an independent investigation.at him.“And he insists the charges aren't just aimed“‘It is not just an attack upon myself. It is anagenda about the direction the Church is moving,’Hubbard said. Some conservatives want to ‘go backto the Church of before the second Vatican Council’and see him as a liberal target.”Both of Gormley’s reports painted Hubbardas a martyr for Vatican II.“I'm not going to allow myself to be usedthat way,” Hubbard told Gormley.The first Gormley report included a fullerexplanation from Hubbard on his determination toclear his name:“It is not just an attack upon myself. It is anagenda about the direction the Church is moving andpeople want to turn back the clock and renounce thestrides we made in ecumenism and religious libertyand liturgical reform and go back to the Church ofbefore the second Vatican Council. And if they cantake down a leader like myself, no matter what meansare used, then that's their goal. I'm not going to allowmyself to be used that way...I'm not going to hide.”The first report to go over the wires includedthis essential information:“At 65 years old, Hubbard is trim and fit, duein part to a full schedule seven days a week and eveningjogs on his treadmill while reading or watching‘Law & Order’ on TV. He usually avoids the trappingsof his high office, donning the black cleric shirtand pants of a parish priest and driving himselfthrough an unpublished schedule of events and tocelebrate Mass throughout the sprawling, 14-county13