Hat tip to former Green Mountain Daily comrade Apache Trout for putting a bow on the tenure of outgoing Bishop Christopher Coyne of the Catholic Church’s once-powerful Burlington Diocese. Coyne is a true loyalist who did his level best (within the bounds of his ideological worldview) to stabilize the Diocese and perhaps even restore some of its former glory.
Indeed, Vermont was nowhere near the stinkiest set of stables Coyne was tasked with mucking out. He came to Burlington from the Archdiocese of Boston, where he occupied the thankless role of spokesperson during the dismal days of that precinct’s child sex abuse scandal.
The raw statistics show that Coyne was not only unable to reverse the Church’s fortunes, he wasn’t even able to slow the downward momentum. Worse than the membership numbers cited above are the vanishing priesthood (from 276 ordained priests in 1975 to a mere 36 today) and the number of active parishes (from 130 in 2001 to 68 today).
This, for a diocese that used to be a real political power in Vermont and was reduced to making feeble noises of protest during last year’s overwhelmingly successful Proposition 5 campaign.
But then, as Apache Trout noted, the diocese has no one but itself to blame for the dissipation of its moral and social authority.
Not that this is anything new for the outfit that brought you the Inquisition, the Crusades, various and sundry vicious anti-heretic and anti-Semitic campaigns, the sublimation of the Gospel to the pursuit of earthly power, and a long, sordid, and largely undiscovered history of sex crimes.
And of course locally, the Diocese had its own sex scandals punctuated by more recent revelations about the evils of the St Joseph Orphanage.
Against all of that, Coyne’s Diocese-touted status as “an internationally cited leader in the Faith’s ‘digital revolution’” was no help at all. Nor was his regional Emmy nomination for a 2002 series that aired on Catholic TV or his never-heard-of-’em Telly and People’s Telly Awards for the 2014 internet series “Everything You Wanted to Know About Catholic Liturgy.” I thought for sure that’d be the soundtrack for Hot Priest Summer.
Despite those faint whiffs of 21st Century cultural relevance, Coyne was too much an insider, a not terribly imaginative figure for a time that required something new and different. But then the Catholic Church has never been much for “new and different,” so what did we expect? A Coyne. And another Coyne will replace him — if we’re lucky. If not, we’ll get some relic of the pre-scandal days who’ll come in pounding the table and demanding the unconditional obedience of his flock and of elected politicians alike.
Coyne will now head for Hartford, Connecticut, where I’m sure he will have little to no impact on the Church’s fortunes there. Deck chairs, Titanic.
The Vermont Political Observer. 
The Church flipped a Coyne.
“Coyne is a true loyalist who did his level best (within the bounds of his ideological worldview) to stabilize the Diocese and perhaps even restore some of its former glory.
He came to Burlington from the Archdiocese of Boston, where he occupied the thankless role of spokesperson during the dismal days of that precinct’s child sex abuse scandal.”
Walters, are you apologizing for Coyne and justifying his unconscionable actions that led the continued traumatization of the Burlington Diocese victims of physical, and sexual and emotional child abuse and toxic fear?
No wonder the survivors of St. Joseph’s have been jerked around by the state and citizens of Vermont for the last 35 years since publicly coming forward.
Child abuse requires silence to continue, and so it will continue in Vermont.
That which was perpetrated in Burlington by the Catholic Church is now being perpetrated in Westminster, Vermont by the state of Vermont and its culpable citizens who themselves were the abusers and willfully silent and enabling witnesses over decades.
According to court records, there remains a lawsuit filed against Kurn Hattin Homes for Children in Windham County Superior Court by a single survivor of Kurn Hattin, and the first to come forward publicly, who was not willing to participate in the school’s so-called “independent investigation” that has now proven to have been a “Whitewash” (as allegedly stated by an attorney representing the largest group of victims) and led to only more silence and secrecy over child abuse in Vermont and the oldest privately funded residential school in New England.
Kurn Hattin has recently settled with approximately 60 (10 percent will not receive reparation – only re-traumatization – as they are not covered by contemporary insurance policies) of the survivors engaged in a direct settlement negotiation with the residential school. The settlement reveals (as stated by one of the victims represented by attorneys in the out-of-court settlement negotiation) that Kurn Hattin will admit no wrongdoing in exchange for financial reparations for the survivors of abuse.
So once again, Kurn Hattin wins and maintains their 130-year silence and culture of secrecy. Apparently, their so-called independent investigation, for which Kurn Hattin retained two Burlington Vermont law firms, (not including their VT defense attorney and their NY PR law firm) may also not be made public despite their claim to do so after stating their intent to “determine the truth.” Why does the so-called “Truth” require so many millions of private donations intended for the care of marginalized children to be spent on defense attorneys?
Those victims of the perpetrators of abuse, those survivors are said to be required to sign nondisclosure agreements in order to receive their financial reparations. There is a name for that: the Weinstein Effect. NDA’s perpetrate silence and fear surrounding disclosure of abuse, and so the cycle of abuse and complicit and culpable silence only continues in.
Truth and transparency once again fall to the wayside in Vermont — along with its most vulnerable children. Kurn Hattin continues to receive financial awards and accolades from local nonprofits, businesses, enabling Vermont media shills, and has recently been given an unconscionable free pass by the Vermont Agency of Education from Vermont DCF documented instances of child abuse after its administration pleaded poverty to the state in order to avoid a decision on their certification as an approved residential school in Vermont.
What they did not reveal to the state is that the privately negotiated financial settlements are being paid for by contemporary insurances companies from over the decades during which the many child victims were allegedly brutalized at the school and not by Kurn Hattin itself.