philadelphia weekly article link here
(from May 31, 2006, 2 years ago. Scroll down to "The Tierney I saw was a bully")

So far as I can tell, Tierney was the PR man for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. There are other connections I cannot at this time mention, but I thought you'd enjoy the parallel here:

When I knew Tierney, I was trying to write about what the archdiocese did with its money, and the cold and callous way his eminence treated his fellow Catholics while he eliminated 20 or so churches and schools in the poorest sections of town. Whether the churches should've been closed is a debate about money and resources; what can't be debated is the un-Christian way the Catholics in these parishes were treated by the cardinal, and his paid mouthpiece, Brian Tierney.

I was a witness. Many of these churches were built and maintained by contributions from the poor people in the neighborhoods. But when the churches went down, everything from the bricks to the crucifixes remained the property of the archdiocese.

These were places where people were baptized, married and buried, and the Catholics who supported them for decades had no rights and no say when they were shut down. If the parishes had to be closed, the cardinal could've comforted the afflicted by holding the last mass, and leading the procession over to the new church. But his response was to refuse to meet with any of these people, including nuns and Catholic school kids who picketed his cathedral.

At the Inquirer I was trying to cover the turmoil and demonstrations the cardinal had incited. It was Bevilacqua's fellow Catholics who gave me secret documents that showed that during a time when the church was going through an alleged financial crisis, and money was so tight that they had to close poor churches and schools, the cardinal secretly spent $5 million to renovate and redecorate archdiocese offices, his mansion and seaside villa.

And where was Brian Tierney during all this?

He was doing what he does best, working to suppress the truth [about the sex abuse scandal] by attacking me in several meetings with my editors. I was under orders from my bosses not to say anything, for fear of further antagonizing him. At one of these meetings Tierney and two associates took turns verbally beating me up in front of my cowardly editors, while they just sat there.

Any of this sound familiar, folks? Bishop Galante can say that he had "speak up sessions" with us, came to our churches and "heard our concerns," etc., but we all know (not only in our hearts but from confidential sources, mind you) that the church "mergers" (closings, really) were a done deal. The bishop has an agenda. He wants to:

1. Get rid of priests BY THE DOZEN who he dislikes because they are orthodox, devout, or don't go in for various liberal agenda points. He is forcibly retiring them, attempting to get them to resign, or attempting to force them to seek "psychological" help to deprogram them from their bizarre Catholic ways. This has already happened and continues. And yet, Fr. Maggart of Assumption Parish is supposedly getting married and is only "on leave." Why? So he can still collect a paycheck? (The information about priests being forced out is widely known, plus we have proof.)
   
2. After dismissing all these priests and creating an environment hostile to attraction of priestly vocations, he then claims there's a vocations crisis, that we won't have enough priests, and need to close down churches. Most notably, churches targeted for closure are ones that are smaller, older, and are more characteristically Catholic in architecture, culture, etc. Now we're virtually stripped of our religion and culture and history as we know it, not to mention some of our best priests. Now we're ready for Phase 3.
3. Establish Protestant-style megachurches lacking traditional sacramentals (see this link and this one) in favor of abstract and modern-looking museum pieces lacking warmth or any real connection to our Catholic faith. Allow so much lay involvement that priests become an afterthought. The sacraments as we know them become inaccessible.
   
4. In the midst of all this, the bishop changes seminaries because he has theological differences with St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philly. Now he's sending many seminarians of the diocese to St.Mary's, which is commonly referred to as "The Pink Palace," in Baltimore.

Now the devil can run rampant. Our churches are alien to us, the priests are teaching things "unfamiliar," and the sacraments increasingly inaccessible and "different." No, this is not some weird dream scenario. This is what's happening now. The sacraments, sacramentals, and holy priests are what help keep us close to God and are our bulwark against the forces of evil in the world. Pray hard.