{"id":6694,"date":"2006-07-27T10:44:56","date_gmt":"2006-07-27T10:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/07\/fr-altier-fires-back.html"},"modified":"2006-07-27T10:44:56","modified_gmt":"2006-07-27T10:44:56","slug":"fr-altier-fires-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/07\/fr-altier-fires-back.html","title":{"rendered":"Fr. Altier fires back"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is interesting: Fr. Robert Altier, the subject of much discussion in the blogosphere, has written a letter to the Minneapolis-St. Paul diocesan spokesman, <\/a>in response to the spokesman’s statements about his own situation. It’s intereting because Fr. Altier has, to this point, not spoken about his conflicts with the Archdiocese except in the most positive terms. Straw? Camel’s back? <\/p>\n

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In your letter you state that I have "indeed frequently and inappropriately (if not disobediently) criticized the Archbishop and Archdiocesan leaders (and not simply on the VIRTUS child protection\/education program)." While it is true that I have not always agreed with certain decisions that have been made, I have never, to my recollection, made public statements that are critical of the Archbishop and I have never been disobedient to anything he has ever asked. A clear distinction needs to be made here. We have a right and, at times, an obligation to make judgments on actions, including decisions. To criticize such actions or decisions does not constitute criticism of the person per se. I have made a promise of respect and obedience to the Archbishop and I have maintained this promise. To disagree with a decision is neither an act of disrespect for the person of the Archbishop nor is it an act of disobedience. These charges made in your letter are not only fabrications of your own, but they constitute slander and calumny which are both serious sins. I am requesting that you either produce some evidence to back up your remarks or "strive to correct the record" by recanting these statements in the same medium or media in which they were made.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is interesting: Fr. Robert Altier, the subject of much discussion in the blogosphere, has written a letter to the Minneapolis-St. Paul diocesan spokesman, in response to the spokesman’s statements about his own situation. It’s intereting because Fr. Altier has, to this point, not spoken about his conflicts with the Archdiocese except in the most…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nFr. Altier fires back - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/07\/fr-altier-fires-back.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fr. Altier fires back - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is interesting: Fr. Robert Altier, the subject of much discussion in the blogosphere, has written a letter to the Minneapolis-St. Paul diocesan spokesman, in response to the spokesman’s statements about his own situation. It’s intereting because Fr. 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Robert Altier, the subject of much discussion in the blogosphere, has written a letter to the Minneapolis-St. Paul diocesan spokesman, in response to the spokesman’s statements about his own situation. It’s intereting because Fr. Altier has, to this point, not spoken about his conflicts with the Archdiocese except in the most…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/07\/fr-altier-fires-back.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-07-27T10:44:56+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/07\/fr-altier-fires-back.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/07\/fr-altier-fires-back.html","name":"Fr. 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Altier fires back"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}