{"id":7971,"date":"2004-02-09T07:31:24","date_gmt":"2004-02-09T07:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/02\/bishop_hubbards_friends.html"},"modified":"2004-02-09T07:31:24","modified_gmt":"2004-02-09T07:31:24","slug":"bishop_hubbards_friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/02\/bishop_hubbards_friends.html","title":{"rendered":"Bishop Hubbard’s Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve not yet commented on the Bishop Hubbard situation up in Albany. For those of you unfamiliar with this latest twist in American Catholic Fun, a man came forward and said that his brother had committed suicide years before, leaving behind notes that implicated Bishop Hubbard in a sexual relationship. Then last week, another man came forward indicating that he had been paid for sex by Bishop Hubbard in years past.<\/p>\n

Bishop Hubbard flew back into Albany from some time in Florida, held a press conference denying accusations, was applauded by his priests, and now his people are stepping up in defense<\/a><\/p>\n

Saturday worshippers at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception placed about 50 votive candles around the bishop’s chair. Sunday, parishioners at St. Vincent’s donned purple ribbons.<\/p>\n

Kathy Menard of Albany hopes the wearing of purple ribbons will spread throughout the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany.<\/p>\n

“It is important that the bishop and the world know many, many, many of his community members support him,” Menard said. “He has stood in solidarity many times with people when they were troubled, it’s important we do so now. We feel an injustice has been done.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, good for them. But be careful. Just as it is unwise to prematurely convict someone, it is unwise to prematurely exhonerate them as well, especially in such public, emotional ways. It could backfire, of course, but it also communicates, not just “support,” but a sort of blind loyalty in who you want the person to be rather than the truth. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve not yet commented on the Bishop Hubbard situation up in Albany. For those of you unfamiliar with this latest twist in American Catholic Fun, a man came forward and said that his brother had committed suicide years before, leaving behind notes that implicated Bishop Hubbard in a sexual relationship. Then last week, another man…<\/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-7971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nBishop Hubbard's Friends - 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\/2004\/02\/bishop_hubbards_friends.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bishop Hubbard's Friends - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’ve not yet commented on the Bishop Hubbard situation up in Albany. 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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\/7971","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=7971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}