I have edited this post about the recent hit pieces against Dr. Alcuin Reid (and by association Cardinal Pell and Pope Benedict XVI and the Church in general). I may take down the post eventually, but I thought at the very least I should edit it to include a defense of Dr. Reid based on the communication from a commentator that there is a lack of evidence to support the claims made against him, and by extension, his superiors.

Wow.

[I am leaving the original post for now, appending to the end of the post a defense of Dr. Reid that is based on information supplied in a comment. I do not know the person who left the comment, but I have no reason at this point in time to suspect that what she says is not true or that she is not who she claims she is. It is a relief to read that there is no evidence to back up the charges. Rather, this incident is just another instance of the animus of the secular media against the Church at work.]

Hrm... did a search and this turned up. Pell and 'sex deacon' at conference. See comments here and this thread at Angelqueen. (Catholic Culture has a round-up of news.) The same Alcuin Reid with whom we are faimliar? If it is, is there something else to the separation between him and Dr. Laurence Paul Hemming and Usus Antiquior? (An interview of Drs. Reid and Hemming, back when Dr. Reid was still an editor of the journal, has either been deleted or has disappeared. Dr. Hemming has been surrounded with some controversy as well.)

If the allegations are true, do they affect the quality of his scholarship? No, those arguments would have to be evaluated on their own terms, but it is not easy to separate the arguments from the man making them. They will reinforce in the minds of some the associations between liturgists and aesthetes with other things. Or they will be used by some to discredit the liturgical movement of the 20th century. (For example, there is one comment at the Angelqueen thread.) Will Dr. Reid complete the second volume of his history of liturgical reform in the 20th century?

I've found only a brief response by Dr. Reid so far, published in The Tablet:

Top liturgist refuses to be laicised

21 May 2010

A leading traditionalist Catholic on the verge of being ordained a priest in France has repeatedly refused to act on requests to seek laicisation, according to his former archdiocese where he was a deacon. Alcuin Reid, a liturgist in the Tridentine Rite who until recently was based in England, had his faculties as a deacon removed in 1991 by the then Archbishop of Melbourne, Frank Little. According to a statement issued by the present archbishop on Wednesday, the action was taken against Dr Reid “because of failure to comply with the vow of celibacy”. Archbishop Denis Hart went on to say that his predecessors in Melbourne including Cardinal George Pell had “all, without success, strenuously and repeatedly urged Scott [Alcuin] Reid to seek laicisation. He refused to act on all these requests”.

Archbishop Hart issued his statement to The Tablet after a report about Dr Reid’s private life as a seminarian appeared in the Melbourne daily The Age. Dr Reid’s faculties were reinstated by Bishop Dominique Rey of Fréjus-Toulon in France last year and it was expected that he would be ordained a priest this year.

Dr Reid told The Tablet that in 1991, following a confidential conversation with Archbishop Little, he had requested leave of absence from ministry as a deacon in Melbourne. He said this request had been granted by the archbishop and his faculties to act as deacon had been withdrawn. “My dealings with my superiors have always been transparent from the outset and I have hidden nothing from them,” he said, adding that he was as a deacon of the Fréjus-Toulon Diocese in good standing.

[This statement should have been enough for the reporter to do his own digging and to see what evidence there actually is, and to learn about the canonical procedures of the Church?]

I don't recall seeing any mention of the allegations in the traditionalist or liturgical blogs that I visit regularly. Perhaps this is to avoid the sin of detraction or calumny, or to avoid damaging someone's reputation without any evidence to substantiate a claim. But my searches have turned up this post at Fr. Z's blog: A brief comment about the stories concerning the author Alcuin Reid. A post at Australia Incognita. Damian Thompson.

Re-reading the article in The Age, I ask if certain facts aren't being interpreted in the worst possible light in order to substantiate the allegations? What is the truth of the matter? Sigh. At this moment I am doubting whether I should even "publish" this post. Newspapers report these sorts of claims all the time, but that doesn't make it right, even though in my case I am not supporting the allegations, merely noting them and adding some comments.

Edit. Please see the comment left by Eileen M. Ross, J.C.L. If there is no evidence to back up the allegation then the articles, as other commentators have pointed out, are just hit pieces making use of unsubstantiated allegations in order to harm the reputations of a prominent traditionalist liturgist and Pope Benedict XVI, and the Church in general. I hope in a few months that the articles are no longer at the top of the Google search results.