Fr. Corapi Announces Announcement<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yesterday evening, on the Deacon's Bench, the lovely and talented Deacon Greg Kandra announced that Fr. John Corapi's company announced that Fr. John\" \/>\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.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/fr-corapi-announces-announcement\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fr. Corapi Announces Announcement\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yesterday evening, on the Deacon's Bench, the lovely and talented Deacon Greg Kandra announced that Fr. John Corapi's company announced that Fr. John\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/fr-corapi-announces-announcement\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Diary of a Wimpy Catholic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-16T14:42:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-03-13T21:04:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Max Lindenman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Max Lindenman\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/fr-corapi-announces-announcement\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/fr-corapi-announces-announcement\/\",\"name\":\"Fr. Corapi Announces Announcement\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-06-16T14:42:30+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-03-13T21:04:50+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/f28642d6ff756d058ed6ff35f876e355\"},\"description\":\"Yesterday evening, on the Deacon's Bench, the lovely and talented Deacon Greg Kandra announced that Fr. John Corapi's company announced that Fr. John\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/fr-corapi-announces-announcement\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/fr-corapi-announces-announcement\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/fr-corapi-announces-announcement\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Fr. Corapi Announces Announcement\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/\",\"name\":\"Diary of a Wimpy Catholic\",\"description\":\"A Hedonist Contemplates Heaven\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/f28642d6ff756d058ed6ff35f876e355\",\"name\":\"Max Lindenman\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2823340b259acd6c04cbc8d94213ca58?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2823340b259acd6c04cbc8d94213ca58?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"caption\":\"Max Lindenman\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/author\/maxlindenman\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Fr. Corapi Announces Announcement","description":"Yesterday evening, on the Deacon's Bench, the lovely and talented Deacon Greg Kandra announced that Fr. John Corapi's company announced that Fr. John","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/fr-corapi-announces-announcement\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Fr. Corapi Announces Announcement","og_description":"Yesterday evening, on the Deacon's Bench, the lovely and talented Deacon Greg Kandra announced that Fr. John Corapi's company announced that Fr. John","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/fr-corapi-announces-announcement\/","og_site_name":"Diary of a Wimpy Catholic","article_published_time":"2011-06-16T14:42:30+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-03-13T21:04:50+00:00","author":"Max Lindenman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Max Lindenman","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/fr-corapi-announces-announcement\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/fr-corapi-announces-announcement\/","name":"Fr. Corapi Announces Announcement","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-06-16T14:42:30+00:00","dateModified":"2015-03-13T21:04:50+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/f28642d6ff756d058ed6ff35f876e355"},"description":"Yesterday evening, on the Deacon's Bench, the lovely and talented Deacon Greg Kandra announced that Fr. John Corapi's company announced that Fr. John","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/fr-corapi-announces-announcement\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/fr-corapi-announces-announcement\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/fr-corapi-announces-announcement\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Fr. Corapi Announces Announcement"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/","name":"Diary of a Wimpy Catholic","description":"A Hedonist Contemplates Heaven","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/f28642d6ff756d058ed6ff35f876e355","name":"Max Lindenman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2823340b259acd6c04cbc8d94213ca58?s=96&d=mm&r=r","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2823340b259acd6c04cbc8d94213ca58?s=96&d=mm&r=r","caption":"Max Lindenman"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/author\/maxlindenman\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/192"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":372,"date":"2011-06-16T14:42:30","date_gmt":"2011-06-16T14:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/?p=372"},"modified":"2015-03-13T15:04:50","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:04:50","slug":"fr-corapi-announces-announcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/fr-corapi-announces-announcement\/","title":{"rendered":"Fr. Corapi Announces Announcement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Yesterday evening, on the Deacon\u2019s Bench, the lovely and talented Deacon Greg Kandra announced<\/strong><\/a> that Fr. John Corapi\u2019s company announced that Fr. John Corapi himself will soon announce something \u201cvery important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fr. Corapi was placed on administrative leave in March \u2014 on Ash Wednesday, in fact \u2014 pending a canonical investigation tnto allegations of sexual misconduct with a former employee. The e-mail Greg quotes sounds distinctly hopeful; there\u2019s every possibility Corap could be preparing to declare his own re-instatement.<\/p>\n

But rather than speculate, I\u2019d rather reflect on the Fr. Corapi phenomenon. When the story broke, I wasn\u2019t blogging yet, but I\u2019d already started writing my Patheos column, and that gave me somewhat of an entre into the popular bloggers\u2019 worlds. As a fly on the wall at the Deacon\u2019s Bench and the Anchoress, I saw quite plainly that Corapi\u2019s was the story of the year. Neither one said exactly how many hits the story was good for \u2014 they\u2019re not loan officers, for Pete\u2019s sake \u2014 but Greg\u2019s initial blog post<\/strong><\/a> was shared 444 times on Facebook; Elizabeth\u2019s, 231 times.<\/strong><\/a> And neither figure includes the traffic to the numerous follow-up postings. Fr. Corapi\u2019s story had legs \u2014 at least eight of \u2019em, like those bulls the ancient Mesopotamians used to worship.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s obvious enough why. Sex sells. Conflict sells. The Corapi story amounts to a conflict involving sex \u2014 or at any rate, the question of whether sex took place. Conflicts about sex sell especially well. If that were not so, the Clinton-Lewiinsky farce would not have concluded with a Pulitzer Prize being handed to Maureen Dowd.<\/p>\n

Or, if you prefer, consider how Representative Anthony Weiner\u2019s pickup techniques have eclipsed all other news these past few weeks. Several days ago, a reader wrote me, with evidently mixed feelings, to say that my blog posts on the subject had stripped the word penis<\/i> of all its power to shock. I replied, truthfully enough, that if anything else had been happening in the world, I was damned if I knew what it might have been.<\/p>\n

But anyone reading Greg\u2019s or Elizabeth\u2019s combox will see right away that Corapi\u2019s story involves a third, even more explosive ingredient. To those following the story, Corapi was more than just an individual priest; he represented the Church, capital C. His accuser was more than an individual layperson; she represented the World, capital W. However the drafters of Lumen Gentium<\/strong><\/a> might protest, the Corapi affair saw sex-based conflict and Catholic identity meet and dance off in a furious jitterbug.<\/p>\n

This potent combination threw a number of people into a kind of intellectual paralysis. For many. It was simply inconceivable \u2014 in the Wallace Shawn sense of the word \u2014 that Corapi\u2019s accuser was telling the truth. Not a few were above shooting the messengers. One accused Elizabeth of planting \u201cseeds of doubt\u201d; another, uninterested in journalistic convention,<\/strong><\/a> accused her of lese-majeste because she\u2019d dropped his title after the first mention. To this small but vocal minority, it wasn\u2019t enough to wait and see, as both Elizabeth and Greg counseled; as Fr. Corapi went, so went the Church. The observer was either with them or against them.<\/p>\n

Since then, a few people complained about celebrity priests, but I\u2019ve always found that a little too sweeping, or at any rate, misdirected. Charisma is a charism. The Church has always had her superstars. For every gutter-dweller like Coughlin or Maciel, she can point to a hundred gems. Blessed Pope John Paul II was a superstar; so, in a very different way, was Bl. Theresa of Calcutta. Some of St. Francis\u2019 followers showed such singleminded devotion to his rule that they drifted into heresy.<\/strong><\/a> And St. Therese? If she came back to earth, just for a day, she\u2019d have to shake so many hands, mug for so many photographs, and sign so many copies of Story of a Soul<\/i> that she\u2019d reckon the experience a crueler martyrdom than the death in Vietnam she\u2019d always dreamed of.<\/p>\n

No, it\u2019s wrong to hate the playa. The fans? Those I sometimes wonder about.<\/p>\n

This weekend, Fr. Corapi\u2019s admirers may well find their champion \u2014 and themselves \u2014 vindicated. I hope they do. When and if that happens, I hope they\u2019ll return their attention to March, when some of them spoke so intemperately, and be good enough to ask themselves whether it was all worth it.<\/p>\n

Deacon Greg has closed the comments on his most recent Corapi update. I believe I\u2019ll follow his example. I may be a glutton, but not for punishment.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"