Monday, February 23, 2015

Fr. Timothy Scott Tweets His Way to a Sabbatical

What's going on with the Catholic media relations in Canada? Or does the problem reside with the Canadian branch of the Congregation of St. Basil? First, Fr. Rosica, C.S.B., Chief Executive of Salt and Light Television and assistant to the Holy See Press Office, scores an own goal by threatening Catholic blogger Vox Cantoris with a lawsuit for defamation, and now this:

Fr. Timothy Scott, C.S.B., Executive Director of the Canadian Religious Conference and spokesman for the Basilian Fathers, tweets an obscene acronym directed at His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke. The nasty bit (no, I'm not going to explain what the acronym means; Google will tell you all you need to know):


To his credit, Fr. Scott, after experiencing terrific backlash from faithful Catholics, apologized, also via twitter, with the following text:
I apologize unreservedly for my rudeness. Thank you to all who have chastened me. Time for penance and a twitter timeout.
I'm not going to castigate the man for using foul language. Nor am I going to give him a verbal thrashing for giving juvenile, passive-aggressive vent to his obvious frustration towards that good and saintly Prince of the Church, Cardinal Burke. He's apologized - hopefully he's confessed and received absolution - and he's taking a time out for some well-deserved penance. Good for him.

I do, however, question the sagaciousness of keeping this man employed as spokesman of the Basilian Fathers. I mean, is this guy really the best they could find? Granted, that sounds like a rhetorical question, but given Fr. Rosica's latest display of media-savvy brilliance, I'm thinking the question deserves an honest answer.

***

UPDATEFr. Timothy Scott Removed as Basilian Spokesperson

3 comments:

  1. HI:

    Seeing as there are only 212 of them as of 2013, I think it could be hard to find a replacement.

    http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dqcsb.html

    Pax Christi,

    S.A.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I contacted the Basilian Fathers via their website and expressed my displeasure at Fr. Scott's tweet, particularly in light of his role as media spokesman for the organization. I received a reply today from Fr. David Katulski which read, "Thank you for your concern about the misconduct of Fr. Scott. I assure you that he is no longer spokesperson for the Basilian Fathers. Sincerely in Christ, Fr. David Katulski, CSB"

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dear Gordon,

    Thank you very much for this important update!

    God bless

    -RC

    ReplyDelete

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