Father John Corapi, of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, very big in conservative (orthodox, traditional) Catholic circles, accused by an adult woman, has this to say for himself (and arguably for others accused):
On Ash Wednesday I learned that a former employee sent a three-page letter to several bishops accusing me of everything from drug addiction to multiple sexual exploits with her and several other adult women. There seems to no longer be the need for a complaint to be deemed credible in order for Church authorities to pull the trigger on the Churchs procedure, which was in recent years crafted to respond to cases of the sexual abuse of minors. I am not accused of that, but it seems, once again, that they now dont have to deem the complaint to be credible or not, and it is being applied broadly to respond to all complaints. I have been placed on “administrative leave” as the result of this.
Ill certainly cooperate with the process, but personally believe that it is seriously flawed, and is tantamount to treating the priest as guilty just in case, then through the process determining if he is innocent. The resultant damage to the accused is immediate, irreparable, and serious, especially for someone like myself, since I am so well known. I am not alone in this assessment, as multiple canon lawyers and civil and criminal attorneys have stated publicly that the procedure does grave damage to the accused from the outset, regardless of rhetoric denying this, and has little regard for any form of meaningful due process.
All of the allegations in the complaint are false, and I ask you to pray for all concerned.
. . . it is well known that Notre Dame has high standards for student conduct, takes these matters seriously, follows the facts where they lead, and, when necessary, institutes appropriate sanctions at the appropriate time.”
Says spokesman regarding pass-catcher Michael Floyd, up on a drunk-driving charge.
That so? And the sex-assault charge vs. a footballer during the recent season went unpursued by campus police etc. and remains unresolved? What’s that evidence of?
Are we Catholics past the point of settling with accusers to avoid bad publicity and/or losing in court in sexual abuse and/or harassment matters? Rev. Thomas Gleeson SJ, outed three weeks ago in Philadelphia, could have had his day in court 11 years ago, but Jesuits fought the very idea and settled with the accuser, a former Jesuit scholastic. Case closed, end of story, they thought or hoped. Hardly.
As a campus chaplain at St. Joseph’s U., he had been placed in a position too public to be ignored by The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), and there he was again, in the very limelight he’d wanted to avoid by the settlement. And people in charge of his new place of employment tried once again to slide under publicity radar, and once again failed. (His crucial role in ousting a fellow Jesuit from the Wheeling Jesuit U. presidency — under suspicious circumstances partly of Gleeson’s own making — was a bad move by someone seeking anonymity.)
This time, Phila. Daily News coverage drove the St. Joe’s president, Rev. Timothy Lannon, S.J., to issue a university-wide memo “as students were finishing midterms and packing up for spring break,” as the student newspaper, The Hawk, noted this week. The memo was terse, even perfunctory: Gleeson had been accused but had been vetted by the Jesuits — “cleared for assignment,” a spokeswoman told the News.
Missing from the memo was “information concerning Gleeson’s history and subsequent settlement,” The Hawk’s editors wrote. Indeed, “the poorly worded statement created more questions and concerns than conclusions, and the university has yet to reveal how it plans to move forward with Gleeson’s case in the future,” they wrote in a carefully constructed editorial.
They added:
Given the enormous accusations currently levied against the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, it is surprising that Saint Joseph’s University officials did not think more carefully before responding in a seemingly distant and ineffective way.
The university could have opened the door for conversation about the circumstances and reasoning behind Gleeson’s hire, providing a great opportunity for community discussion on issues that are dominating Philadelphia’s headlines. Instead, St. Joe’s offered the same one-way declaration that has plagued the Catholic Church for decades.
Instead, the university offered “lackluster explanations” that did not inspire confidence. “When the university doesn’t defend their employees it makes it hard for students to get behind them with support,” the editorial noted.
That’s a fair description of how the Gleeson business has been handled, not only in Philadelphia but before that in West Virginia and before that in California. (It’s also how much or most priest abuse and/or harassment has been treated, for that matter.)
At what point, we must ask, does Jesuit loyalty to their own (as bishops’ to their priests) give way to the sort of “open communication” that has been respectfully requested by St. Joseph’s U. student editors?
Pfleger’s flock fears that a new priest handpicked by Cardinal Francis George will dismantle anything that doesn’t adhere to church guidelines, but enriches their worship and brings them closer to God.
Careless, I hope. She meant to write “enriches their worship and THEY SAY brings them closer to God.” As I say, I hope she meant that. Otherwise, you have an unseemly, un-journalistic identifying with a subject, unworthy of her calling.
Moreover, she argues a position:
The mere fact that Pfleger is still at St. Sabina after nearly 30 years illustrates an exception to the rule that permits priests to stay at one church for two six-year terms, or up to 12 years. By-the-book Catholics have frowned on Pflegers exemption for years.
Unless “illustrates an exception” is a laboring of the obvious, that Pfleger has plowed his own path. We know that.
However, she has a good news item that I have not read elsewhere, though I suspected it:
[President of Leo HS Dan] McGrath [Leo alum, ex-Trib sports editor] said progress also has been made repairing the schools relationship with Pfleger, which had soured in recent years. [Italics
added]
It’s disconcerting, however, to read the lede:
The hullabaloo regarding whether the Rev. Michael Pfleger will stay at St. Sabina Catholic Church has become something of a traditional rite in Chicagos Roman Catholic Archdiocese, much like the 40 days of Lent. [Heh]
Here’s how it always unfolds: Rumors swirl with no one willing to confirm or deny them. His fans rally for him to stay. His foes rally for him to go. Non-statements are issued. The rumors are put to rest and everyone goes back to business as usual. Why do we care?
A blog is less formal, let-hair-down kind of writing, but no matter the venue, you don’t want to ask that question in the second paragraph article or item and then go on for many paragraphs more.
Flash:In a Breaking News story posted 20 minutes ago that draws heavily on the blogged one, Pfleger says he is writing a reponse to the archdiocese “but wouldn’t say to what he was responding.”
Rev. Michael Pfleger in talks with archdiocese to take over struggling Leo High School, a few blocks from the St. Sabina rectory, says Jay Levine of CBS-2, as carried by Sun-Times.
To which Pfleger: neither confirm nor deny:
I’m in discussions with the Archdiocese but you know those are private conversations at this point and I cant comment at this point about those conversations.
Some creative thinking here?
Later: He’s going to fight this, says a Blithe Spirit source.
Yet later: He’s mobilizing the troops:
In response to the news broadcasts about St. Sabina, The Cabinet is holding a Parish Town Hall Meeting in the Church Sanctuary on Thursday, March 17th at 7pm. This meeting is for St. Sabina Members only.
Three years [after her parish church in Minersville PA
was shuttered], [Marie] Lutkus and parishioners at eight other shuttered churches in Pennsylvania‘s Allentown diocese have persuaded a Vatican panel to overturn the bishop’s decision to close them down an exceedingly rare reversal that experts say may signal a policy shift on U.S. church closures.
“This is a thunderclap. I am absolutely floored,” said Charles Wilson, executive director of the Saint Joseph Foundation, a San Antonio, Texas-based group that helps Catholic laity navigate church law.
What else?
In a series of decisions that parishioner groups began receiving in January, the Congregation for the Clergy the Vatican office in charge of the world’s 400,000 Catholic priests said the bishop had failed to come up with a “grave reason” for shuttering the churches as required by Catholic law. The panel ruled that parishioners must be allowed to use the padlocked buildings for worship.
“It does not bring the parish back to life, but it puts on the table what could be a workable compromise: to physically re-open the locked-up church as a Catholic place of worship,” said prominent Catholic activist Peter Borre of the Council of Parishes, which has spent years appealing church closures in the Boston area.
They can start with Bible services and maybe persuade a priest to come and offer the holy sacrifice. Who knows?
They also need a finance committee. volunteer maintenance, money, etc. Can it be done?
And let me put in a good word for fasting, and I don’t mean the minimal requirements of the church.
For years, I did longer fasts of five to seven days and it was easier to do than imagined because a little button in my brain related to food just clicked off. I was usually hungry the first day, but not after that. The energy usually given to the digestive process was channeled into a higher state of spiritual awareness. And fasting brought up emotional issues big time, causing psychological as well as physical cleansing.
Fasting is a powerful spiritual tool I urge you to consider. And youre not going to starve or ruin your health in a few days, as some would have you believe. Fasting is great for your health and is recommended many times in the Bible.
Tilapia because it’s the fish we had for dinner that set off the smoke alarm because we left the kitchen door open and set off neither stove nor ceiling fan.
If this be penance, make the most of making fun of us holy people.
This NCReporter lady has obviously given the matter some thought:
Results are what we should be looking for this Lent, lifelong habits and virtues nurtured through our chosen disciplines.
We live in challenging times just as Jesus did, and to be a disciple of Christ requires much spiritual maturity and strength. Following Jesus example, lets go the extra mile and really expose ourselves to the sometimes scary influence of the living God, which just might turn out to be unconditional acceptance and love.
Is this the manner of fasting I wish, of keeping a day of penance: That a man bow his head like a reed, and lie in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?
This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; Setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke;
Sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; Clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own.
5Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?
6Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
7Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
NAB pedestrianizes it, to reach a new, I say lower, common denominator.
It gives up on the rhetorical questioning after verse 5, for one thing, and that lessens the impact.
Some phrases have the same effect:
5Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul?
Another accused priest works in Philadelphia Archdiocese
Jesuit was accused of sexually harassing a young seminarian
Despite a settlement in 2002 [sic], he’s chaplain at a Philly university
SNAP wants him removed and students and staff told of his past
“It’s not just kids,” [SNAP] says, “Clerics also assault vulnerable adults”
The seminarian was a scholastic, a Jesuit in training. Gleeson was president of the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. The Jesuits contested the hearing of the case, calling on a clerical exemption from workplace harassment liability, but when that issue was decided against them in late 1999, they settled with the complainant.
Gleeson was transferred back to his home base (Maryland Province) and put in charge of a retreat center in Wernersville PA, serving also as a director and trustee of Wheeling (WV) Jesuit University, where with two other (Jesuit) trustees he effected the dismissal of the WJU president in 2009, after two years in office.
In the aftermath of the widely unpopular firing, Gleeson was revealed by SNAP as having been accused of harassment. In a few months, he left the Wernersville post, remaining in his Wheeling Jesuit positions, SNAP’s protest notwithstanding.
Last October he assumed a chaplaincy at St. Joseph’s U., Philadelphia, where SNAP found him again and duly exposed and protested his California record, again calling on church authorities to depose him.
[Former Jesuit scholastic] John Bollard alleged in the suit that Gleeson and two other priests harassed him for five years while he was a seminarian at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, where Gleeson was president.
The suit was settled in 2000 out of court, with the priests denying any wrongdoing.
Unwillingness to argue the case is typical. Monetary settlement has been the norm in Catholic abuse cases, presumably according to legal and public-relations advice. But Bollard told his side on “Sixty Minutes,” and the grim details, never contested in court, remained to shock many and besmirch reputations.
Bollard, who said he was 25 when the incidents started, alleged in the suit that Gleeson had asked him to masturbate with him.
The other Jesuit priests, Drew Sotelo and Anton Harris, were accused of sending suggestive pornographic pictures of naked men to Bollard and asking him to cruise gay bars.
Harris sent a card “depicting a fully aroused man,” with the note, “Thought this might inspire some theological thoughts.”
Indeed, Harris lost his Seattle U. vice president’s job in 2006 once the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its story, in which a Seattle U. spokeswoman unfortunately brushed off the law suit story as “old news,” betraying remarkable disregard for public, especially Catholic, opinion and tradition.
A similar pattern is evident in Philadelphia. A St. Joseph U. spokeswoman told the News they had known of “the allegations,” but that Gleeson had denied them and neither archdiocese nor Maryland Province had objected to his hiring as a chaplain. The paper also reported that the St. Joseph community had not been informed of Gleeson’s past.
Saint Joseph’s University President Timothy Lannon, S.J., sent separate emails to students and staff regarding Gleeson’s employment at the university and the allegations leveled against him late yesterday afternoon. Both emails indicated that the university was made aware of Gleeson’s past by a recent letter from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. [Italics added]
However, the president’s claiming he knew nothing of Gleeson’s history is in contradiction of what the spokeswoman had told the newspaper hours earlier, as The Hawk writer points out.
[I]n a Philadelphia Daily News article published this morning, Assistant Vice President for University Communications Harriet Goodheart stated that “we were aware of the allegations of 11 years ago, which he denied, and was cleared for assignment.”
The Hawk will be updating its story, the editor notes. [Here’s the link: Goodheart explains.]
Blithe Spirit 