Bishop Gracida on Fr. Corapi and Process for Accused Priests

Bishop Rene Henry Gracida has posted a calm and rational explanation of the most recent abuses of power by prelates.

The procedure operates something like this. A person accuses a priest of sexual misconduct (again, not involving a minor). The priest is immediately suspended from active exercise of his priestly ministry while an investigation is launched into the truth or falsity of the accusations.

There is no need for a public announcement to be made that gives the name of the priest and the fact of the accusation and the suspension, and yet, all to often such a public announcement is made. Such public announcement by a diocese almost always results in media exploitation of the news in a sensational manner to the detriment of the Catholic Church and its priesthood. It seems that rarely, if ever, is mention is made in the announcement of the name of the accuser.

The investigation may take days or months or years to complete. In the meantime the priest’s reputation is effectively destroyed and perhaps he is ‘thrown out on the street’ with no means of support. The accuser, on the other hand, enjoys anonymity and suffers no loss of reputation or negative material consequences and in the case of an accusation later proven to have been false the injustice to priest is great.

In cases where the priest is accused of having used force (rape or some other form of involuntary abuse) there is some justification for not publishing the name of the accuser. But, where there is reason to believe that the alleged sexual misconduct was effected through mutual consent there is no justification for not publishing the name of the accuser.

Under the present procedure it is too easy for a person to allege sexual misconduct (again not involving minors) for a variety of possible unworthy motives: revenge, hope for monetary gain, hostility to the Catholic Faith, etc. Such is reported to have been the case of the accusation against Father Corapi. The only safe way to guard against damaging the reputation of individual priests and the Catholic priesthood in general is to not publish the name of an accused priest until an investigation has proved beyond doubt the guilt of the priest.

Let an investigation take place first, that is all we are saying. It should take no more than a month to interview the accuser and the accused and witnesses. No announcement should be made unless there is reason to suspect that the allegations have merit.

With the exception of someone who is emotionally and spiritually disturbed who is then taken advantage of, there is no need to protect jilted women licking their wounds and self-esteem by outing her consensual sexual relationship.

Adult women who engaged in a mutually enjoyable sexual relationship with a priest and goes on to regret it after she gets dumped when he returns to God should not be afforded anonymity because she wants compensation for the sex she had. The priest needs counseling to see if he is committed to celibacy. Followup includes mentoring under a watchful eye. The woman needs guidance on boundaries and how to recognize an available man and healthy relationships. It is what it is and the fact that it did not end happily ever after doesn't make it an abusive situation.

Of course, if he has a series of women, that is another story. But if it happens once, lumping this category of situations in with pedophiles is unjust and hysterical.

There are a lot of people who have personal or spiritual disorder, gripes against the Catholic Church and a need for vengeance that are helicoptering over the Fr. Corapi situation.

There are people with low self esteem who are envious of the attention people with talents receive. There are people who are jealous over other people's possessions. These people have stepped forward all over the internet to make owning a home or a boat, having a following, a tan or dying our hair a covert indication they are sexual abusers.

There's another group of individuals who claim pleading innocence and using your own situation to expose injustice is evidence of guilt.

For example, police now take complaints and do an investigation to see if it has merit before they arrest somebody. If they changed the system to arresting people 'just in case', people protesting their innocence and saying this process violates civil rights, truth and justice - to this group of people, this is an evidence they a guilty. One individual told me this week that this would be a 'lack of humility' and 'obedience'. It is humble to let our brothers and sisters suffer injustice.

A regular humanitarian he was. I'm willing to bet if we started a discussion on the lack of humility of people complaining about waterboarding, he'd be all over us.

This same individual explained to me that the process was supposed to be secretive and Fr. Corapi violated the ethics of 'obedience' to episcopal secrets. I didn't think there was anyone left who thought what the Bishops cook up in their secretive processes is the product of the Holy Spirit, but as luck would have it, I ran into the dinosaur.

As you can imagine, edification did not accompany his retreat.

The system is still raping our children, women, young homosexually attracted boys. They will go so far as to kill them for a profit and lie about it. There is no internal system for removing them and they are all laughing all the way to the bank...

The focus is the pursuit of truth, not silence in the face of corruption, which Chancery rogues like to call obedience.

He also said that the testimony of coworkers of Fr. Corapi and the woman at Santa Cruz Media should be inadmissible to any fact finding missions.

Really?

These are the same people who were making demands that HLI report what they witnessed about Fr. Euteneuer. Back then, they said coworkers must have seen or heard and they demanded to know what it was. After HLI came out with their statement, they considered Fr. Euteneuer's coworkers accountable.

Naturally, this makes sense. If you've ever worked with a drug addict is hitting on and sleeping with numerous women, their conduct is as plain as the nose on your face.

Oddly enough, when coworkers stepped forward to give their testimony on what they witnessed with Fr. Corapi and what the woman said and did (including beating them up and threatening to destroy Fr. Corapi after getting fired), it shouldn't have merit because they are violating the Bishops secrets? And, they lack "humility"?

I don't much care for duplicity.

When you see the helicopters overhead, remember that lots of people have agendas that have nothing to do with protecting children, serving Christ's Church and the pursuit of truth and justice.

Here's my free advice: Test everything.

Have a great day!

Update on Fr. Corapi

The secular media company that publishes Fr. Corapi's DVDs and programs has issued a press release saying they are not affiliated with the Catholic Church, nor are they under the jurisdiction of the Bishop or any other official in the Catholic Church.

One assumes this means they are under no obligation to refrain from saying what they know. (Bishops prohibit priests from revealing information that exonerates them).

Their statement paints a picture of unstable behavior of the accused after being fired (including assaulting other employees,) and threats of retaliation.

We have consulted with a number of canon lawyers. They have assured us that the actions of the Bishop of Corpus Christi, Texas are, on several points of canon law, illicit. It is our fervent hope that The Dallas Charter will be changed because of false accusations like this. There is no evidence at this time that Fr. Corapi did anything wrong, only the unsubstantiated rant of a former employee, who, after losing her job with this office, physically assaulted me and another employee and promised to "destroy" Father Corapi. We all continue to pray for this person, and we ask you to do the same.

I'd love to see the Dallas Charter changed too. Pedophiles got away with raping children because the Bishops can have nobody who will hold them accountable and there are some personalities that will take advantage of the situation. They breed the cult mentality in the people underneath them and they are off to the races.

There are too many nutcases out there and people with grudge against the teachings of the Church to remove our priests, take away their faculties to perform Sacraments, leave them hanging for a decade without a dime to hire an attorney and then refuse to reinstate those found innocent to appease Catholic Church vigilantes.

Police do investigations before they come and remove a criminal. People making accusations against priests need to be held to the standard of 'credible' before our priests are removed.

"Credible", means when you ask them questions they can supply you with compelling facts and witnesses who at least saw something fishy, inappropriate or too much together time, googly eyes. Credible people who can substantiate times and places.

An end should come to silencing the accused who often have evidence that exonerates them as the 'case' drags on for ten years or who are never returned to appease vigilantes.

Terrorists in Guantanamo Bay have more rights than Catholic priests.

h/t to Maryanne Kreitzer

Mark Shea and Pat Archibald on Fr. Corapi

Two posts of note on the Fr. Corapi situation.

Mark Shea posted HERE and takes the healthy position of reserving judgment. As I've pointed out,thought it's tempting to make a judgment based upon what we know about Fr. Corapi and what we know about the injustices of the 'zero tolerance' policy -- we have zero details.

So what do we "do" about the question of Fr. Corapi vs. his accusers? I think the wisdom of Professer Digory Kirke should be our guiding light: How about if everybody minds their own business and lets the investigation proceed so that the facts, whatever they are, will be uncovered?

This situation has not begun to unravel - and so we need to let the situation take it's course. To a point, that is, because we've been letting our priests get sidelined ad infinatum - and many of them on allegations that have no merit.

I don't know what the answer is, but this much I know: There's been way too much minding our own business. Way too much.

Pat Archibald echoes some of the same concerns I've expressed.

I am certainly not in any position to judge the facts in this particular case, but I must believe Fr. Corapi is innocent until proven otherwise. Beyond that, all I have is my gut feeling and my hope, both of which tend toward innocence. Time will tell. I’ve been wrong before.

But beyond the particulars of his own case, Fr. Corapi takes issue with the process, a process which seemingly holds the accused guilty until proven innocent. The truth is that someone of the prominence of Fr. Corapi may never recover his reputation, even though he be as pure as the driven snow, forever stuck in scandal limbo.

It would seem that the destruction of reputations, even of the innocent, is the inevitable consequence of a zero-tolerance policy administered by those seeking to avoid embarrassment. In the past, accusations would be ignored to avoid embarrassment, destroying lives. The flip side is that acting on any and all such accusations without meaningful due process will destroy lives too.

This topic hits home for me. As someone who was once accused of all kinds of baseless and crazy things in a wrongful termination suit, I know how it feels to be falsely accused. It is frustrating, saddening, infuriating, and much more. But the one the one emotion I retain from that horrible experience is gratitude. My employer, also implicated in the suit, stuck by me and defended me until it was eventually dropped. Wrongfully accused priests no longer have this luxury.

A zero-tolerance policy without due process that de facto impugns the reputations of the accused is immoral. The Church has a duty to protect the innocent, even if the innocent is a priest. Of course, the Church has a moral duty to make sure that the scandal of abuse and coverup is never repeated, but it cannot willfully sacrifice the reputations of the innocent as indemnification. The end does not justify the means. I do not know that any of this applies to the Father Corpai case, but we have seen this happen in other cases too and it is wrong.

It is wrong.

We can't continue to keep minding our own business.

Here are the statements of his superior and the local Bishop - both of whom are urging the presumption of innocence and state that in no way does it mean that he is guilty of the charges. They are both decent and fair statements.

Statement from Rev. Gerald Sheehan, Regional Priest Servant

Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity

18 March 2011

Today, as Regional Priest Servant for the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, I have the unhappy responsibility to announce that Father John Corapi, SOLT has been placed on administrative leave from priestly ministry, in accordance to the Code of Cannon Law of the Catholic Church. We have received an allegation that Father Corapi has behaved in a manner unbecoming of a priest and are duty-bound to conduct an investigation in this accusation.

It is important to keep in mind that this action in no way implies Father Corapi is guilty of the allegation. It is equally important to know that, based on the information we have received thus far, the claim of misconduct does not involve minors and does not arise to the of criminal conduct. Consequently, this matter will be investigated internally, and unless and until information suggests otherwise it will not be referred to civil authorities. In the event that we learn of any occasion where the criminal civil law may have been breached we will immediately refer the matter to civil authorities.

Statement of Bishop George Leo Thomas, the bishop of the Diocese of Helena

“It is important to accord Father Corapi the principles of due process, including the assumption of innocence, until a full investigation is carried out by his superiors. More importantly, I appeal for prayers on behalf of everyone involved in this very complex situation.” Father Corapi has a personal residence in Kalispell, Mont. He does not hold priestly faculties in the Diocese of Helena, said Diocese of Helena Chancellor Father John Robertson.

Fr. Corapi Has a Bad Hair Day and Suddenly He's the Next Charlie Sheen

Having been a blogger for close to ten years, I've heard many stories about sexual abuse and abuse of power. And, I've heard these stories from both legitimate sexual abuse victims and priests who have been falsely accused and exonerated.

The fact is, the Bishops made a policy that tells us what we already know. They really don't care whether an allegation is true or false, they are fundraisers and everything they do is focused on protecting the money. When Catholic were willing to take money and cover up their children's abuse for the sake of saving Father's reputation - and the faithful played along - it was focused on the keeping people in the pews giving them money.

Now that the pendulum has swung the other way, the Bishops created another policy, the "Dallas Charter", which again, has nothing to do with meritorious allegations, justice, truth or protecting children. It removes priests without affording them the opportunity to exonerate themselves. Even when the accuser is found to be lying, the priest is removed permanently because the Bishops are basically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually castrated... fundraisers. There are a couple of handfuls of exceptions to this of course -- and we have many Bishops who are sitting on the bench underneath the castrated fundraisers -- but the situation is what it is. Let us acknowledge it.

When somebody comes to you with allegations of sexual abuse or a priest comes to you with allegations he has been falsely accused and abused by the diocese, you respond by asking questions.

You ask what happened, when, where, what time. You ask if for details that you can corroborate - people who saw, heard, were around at the time.

Sometimes, they will tell you Father abused them on a trip to New York but it will turn out that Father did not go on the trip to New York, or Father wasn't even a priest in the parish at the time.

Other times, you find out the accuser has also accused their father, brother, cousin, uncle, grocery store clerk, mailman and John F. Kennedy and all of the details come together with the realization that the accuser is a mentally ill person, drug addict with a gripe against the Church who in desperate need of cash and attention.

Still, there are other times when the accuser doesnt' want to answer questions or even tell their story - they just say Father had sex with them and they demand you accept that statement and find the accused guilty.

I am in the habit of using the brain God gave me. I don't take anyone's statement on face value. I do the diligence. If people don't want me to do diligence, that is suspect to me. You know that routine? If you don't immediately condemn the accused without facts or a real victim, you are a pedophile protector or hurting the invisible victim or you are demonic.

If people start throwing around intellectual or spiritual malarkey accompanied by histrionics and emotional tantrums, instead of giving me the the facts and witnesses, that has the stink of a deceiver and manipulator.

When allegations about Fr. Euteneuer first began to surface, I proceeded with caution but my instincts were not good. Of course, there was never anything in Fr. Euteneuer's presentation to lead me to suspect he was anything but a deeply faithful and orthodox priest who understood and even used the gifts of his ordination to practice in the mystical world. But, all the experiences we had in the aftermath of his disappearance began to have a shocking context. Rational and faithful Catholics, people I respect, who had historically supported and admired Fr. Euteneuer, looked gaunt and scandalized.

When Fr. Euteneuer and his Bishop realized the charade that he was being persecuted for his orthodoxy was finally up and they put together a public statement admitting sexual abuse during the ritual of Exorcism, the despicable statement they called 'an apology' validated his spiritually manipulative nature.

Each case has to be discerned and played out. The accused has rights that we are handling with gross negligence.

Listen, people. This is getting beyond ridiculous.

It is at the point now where people are demanding when they produce a picture of Father on a bad hair day or with a tan - and circulate it through the internet -- it is evidence he is the son of beelzebub.

Push back.

We have not served our priests well in this witch hunt atmosphere.

Stand up and fight.

Be a man.

Be a handmaiden of our Lord and His Church.

We don't have any facts about Fr. Corapi's accuser and her allegations. When and if we do, you'll need to have your brain handy and you'll need to check your emotions at the door of discernment.

The accused have to have a process. We have a duty to see that falsely accused are exonerated and returned to ministry. They are crying out for justice and our response has been abysmal.

We've got to pony up.

************

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.

Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.

Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.

Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.

Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.

Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.

Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.

Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.

Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.

Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.

Give the world the best you have anyway.

Fr. Corapi Accused of Being a Drug Addicted Svengali

Fr. Corapi calls out for prayer and points out the asinine process:

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 Church’s 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 don’t 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.

I’ll 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.

I'm with him in prayer, fasting, suffering.

The problem is, the 'process' can go on for decades. Perhaps it won't because Father Corapi is so high-profile.

I don't know what happened here. I have my own personal and very serious doubts about the veracity of the claim for a variety of reasons. One thing I do know is that Fr. Corapi's statement about the process is absolutely true and it is abuse of power and injustice. I know several priests who have suffered gravely. Those who take part in the false witness have also been driven into the ground as a consequence of their temporal punishment for the grave dereliction.


Priests are not supposed to be placed on administrative leave until the allegations are proven to be credible. This standard is not met. All anyone has to do is come along and say something has happened and the diocese will give you money to shut up and remove our priests whether the allegations are credible or incredible. (In fact, here in Boston, drug addicts and mentally ill people, God Bless them, who were handed millions by the Cardinal were deemed not to be credible by Martha Coakley - the attorney general.)

It is a tragedy all around.

My updated thoughts are HERE.