Rating: 
Summary: Roseneedsto go to confession
Review: This book contains lies. One of the students that claims to have been thrown out of the American college at Louvain due to his orthodoxy simply could not handle the course work. He flunked out, and then came up with this slander to cover his failure. Rose is such a poor scholar that he never checked it out. The publisher refuses to defend the author, and has formally apologizd to the university.
Isn't it odd that academically challenging universities are accused of being liberal (or some other supposed sin) by those who are to stupid to actually attend?
Rating: 
Summary: Must Read
Review: This book will turn your stomach, the way Rose describes how psychological terrorism, militant homosexual intimidation, and brazen heretical teaching have been used to force out orthodox seminarians in many of our US seminaries.
This may sound extreme and implausible, but Rose presents not so much an argument as an agonizing parade of fact--interview after interview, statistic upon statistic. In the end, Rose does tie it together with a theory that seems eminently sensible: that our American priest shortage is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Liberal bishops seek an end to the celibate priesthood. Seminaries under their control are thus staffed with like-minded administrators, teachers and formation faculty who promote agendas of sexual liberation, feminism, sacramental irrelevance, etc. Orthodox candidates leave. This creates a severe shortage of priests, providing a convenient excuse to promote ordination of women and lay ministries--in short a "new" (i.e., Protestant) Catholic Church. Conversely, in conservative American dioceses, where young men of orthodox spirit are welcomed instead of repelled, vocations are on the rise, and priest shortages are less severe or non-existent. Rose contends the root of the problem goes back to the self-indulgent philosophy of the '60's. Self-fulfillment becomes more important than self-sacrifice. Experimentation displaces tradition. Pleasure trumps propriety, and moral relativism replaces moral objectivism and its corollary, rational thought. While these new values crept relatively slowly into American culture at large, they quickly gained power in our seminaries. The cumulative result is a priesthood without a clear identity, either of itself or to lay Catholics and the secular world. While many attribute the horrible sexual scandals of the priesthood to the practice of celibacy, Rose believes the explanation is just the opposite. Such scandal has arisen out of an immoral atmosphere of feel-good ethics and outright disdain for Catholic teaching. Rose believes the problem can be fixed, but first it must be understood.
Rating:
Summary: Are seminaries controlled by a gay-radical clique?
Review: Rose's argument is that prospective priests in the traditionalist mould are routinely screened out by anti-religious psychologists employed by the dioceses, as well as by radical feminist nuns who often serve as diocesan vocation directors. The end result is that the seminaries are filled by gays and theological liberals. The book consists largely of first-person accounts by ex-seminarians and ex-professors who felt they were driven out of seminaries controlled by liberals and gays who regard traditionalists as threats to their way of life.
It is difficult to reconcile Rose's portrait of US Catholicism, in which gays and liberals are taking over, with the books written by Thomas Reese and John Allen, who describe a traditionalist-controlled Church that is rapidly dwindling in size and relevance.
This is, to say the least, a highly provocative book. It is written by a traditionalist Catholic who assumes the reader shares that perspective; for example, Bishop Bruskewitz of Lincoln and Cardinal Ratzinger are held up as heros. Rose argues that if dioceses and their seminaries return to traditional Catholicism, prospective priests of integrity will want to join in large numbers, but the current situation actually serves to screen out such seminarians.
Rating: 
Summary: Goodbye, Good Men
Review: This book has been touted since its appearance in 2002 by a number of my conservative clerical and lay friends who were aware that my own _Switching Churches_ came on the market at the same time. Where my treatment is shorter but broader than Rose's and offers the laity realistic advice and attainable solutions, _Goodbye, Good Men_ concentrates on the rot in our Catholic seminaries. Rose blames the clergy, especially the hierarchy, for the loss of orthodox theology and values and accuses them of deliberately driving away capable, devoted young men from the priesthood in the name of heterodoxy, homosexuality, and a secularized Catholicism marked by obeisances to every conceivable modernism including deceit, self-absorption, and outright immorality. The wreckers of the Church as we used to know Her are hell-bent on re-forming Her along the lines of their secular humanist lines. Prospective orthodox Catholic clergy and conscientious, believing laymen want no part of this approach. The result has been loss of membership at large, the reduction of the number of seminaries on the whole, and the almost total loss of orthodox seminary instruction. For me as a former college professor it was interesting to note that many of the same techniques of destruction of curriculum and decent social behavior as practiced in America's liberal arts institutions obtain in our seminaries. What is saddest of all, however, is that there is scarcely a single moral voice raised against such heretical doings. If one equates professors of all sorts with the Catholic hierarchy and teaching staff in seminaries, one knows exactly where to place the blame, for just as the majority of my university professor colleagues were ultra-liberal, Rose describes seminary professors as being of the same "tolerant" stripe. The main difference is that professors in secular institutions are not ordained to their function and consequently do not have the same obligation toward their flock as do clergy. Instead, it is now apparently acceptable to "act" as a priest and is not necessary any longer to "be" a priest, with all that that entails in knowledge, devotion, and moral uprightness. If you want more proof, read my _Clerical Failure_, which came out in 2004.
Rating:
Summary: Looking for someone else to blame
Review: I knew seminaries were in trouble, but are they this bad?
I am pondering the priesthood, and a friend of mine handed me this to warn me about what I might encounter. He wants me prepared to survive it. However, the vocations director of my diocese says things aren't nearly as bad as Rose portrays them, and Rose rarely uses the names of seminarians who gave him this information.
Also, the book repeats a lot of stuff he mentioned earlier.
Rose talks about how the vocation shortage is contrived, orthodox diocese like Atlanta and Lincoln do not have this problem, and how those in charge do little to stop the rampent heresy and homosexuality in the seminaries.
Rating:
Summary: Why all the controversy?
Review: Non-Catholics and those whose life in the Church has been somewhat sheltered may wonder at the accuracy of the portrait that Michael Rose paints in his book. In some ways it does seem too bad to be true- how could Catholic seminaries go from orthodoxy to a "gay subculture" in a mere decade? What possible factors could cause priests and nuns to reject core Catholic doctrines? Are conservatives really persecuted?However, I do believe it. Moreover, I don't think the substance of Rose's assertions can be reasonably denied. How else to explain the simple reality that in many dioceses in the USA, it is extremely difficult or impossible to find a reasonably traditional parish with solid teaching and a reverent liturgy? Orthodox and devout men are, by definition, more apt to be attracted to the priesthood than any other group. So where are these men? To suggest they are all unfit for the priesthood is laughable- unless you believe that orthodoxy itself makes a man unfit. This is exactly what the powers that be in many dioceses do believe, and that is the situation Rose describes. It is worth noting that nowhere in the book does Rose pretend this describes all dioceses, or that the situation is equally bad everywhere. The descriptions of a gay subculture I would have believed exaggerated, except for the recent revelations regarding priestly assaults on (mostly teenaged) boys. Sorry, but there is no way to explain this abysmal scandal unless we understand that homosexuality has been thriving in certain sectors of the Catholic priesthood for decades. To blame celibacy is irrational, since a heterosexual man who can't cope with abstinence will turn to women, girls or even magazines. He certainly won't turn to boys, unless we want to believe that men can be spontaneously "converted" to homosexuality by lack of sex!! Since most of the material in the book is anecdotal, it's tough to make any real conclusions about the state of the American Church in general. More analysis of the source of these problems along with more data about their scope would have made the book even more useful. I will note that some of the book's material is so scandalous, that Catholics have to be very discerning about reading it (especially true of sexual material). Let's face it, the "dirt" tends to be fascinating, and can easily distract good Catholics from their own sins and need for improvement. Granted, an educated population is in a better position to work for positive change, which is why I think the book is important and valuable. But don't hesitate to skip over certain portions, and do read only with the intention of taking some sort of action in response, even if it is only to support good seminaries, or to inform yourself about your own local programs. An appendix helping Catholics to respond to the book's information in an appropriate and fruitful way would have been a great addition. I'm recommending this book with the reservations expressed above. Catholic adults need to understand and continue to combat the realities Rose describes.
Rating: 
Summary: Hmm...
Review: What Rose doesn't tell you is that many of the ex-seminarians he interviews are biased due to being removed from seminaries for engaging in their own inappropriate behavior. Reading this book, one would be influenced to think that the seminary system in the U.S. today is out of control and hopeless. Not true. One of the Midwest seminaries that is mentioned in his book I am attending now is quite orthodox, and there is absolutely no homosexual promiscuity or discrimination against those who adhere to magisterial teachings. Almost all of the men I've met during my first year are wonderfully dedicated to serving God's Church and His people. I'm sure some of the accounts in this book are accurate, but I would wager that many are greatly exaggerated. I have a problem with the title "Goodbye, Good Men," which suggests that qualified candidates for Holy Orders no longer exist anymore. I would like to challenge Mr. Rose to spend a week at one of the "Midwest Seminaries" so he can see how his book speaks to an issue that no longer subsists at all (much less to the extent he was speaking of), and how the seminaries today have nothing to do with the sex abuse scandal in our Church.
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