God bless them both!
Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list
Posted on 07/01/2004 5:14:13 AM PDT by sinkspur
Troubling information on priest could have made me a hypocrite
12:16 AM CDT on Thursday, July 1, 2004
By ROD DREHER / The Dallas Morning News
Troublemaking whistleblower or peacekeeping hypocrite – which would you rather be? I made my choice earlier this week when I helped reveal troubling information about Father Christopher Clay, an accused sexual abuser ministering in the Roman Catholic parish I was attending. Here's what happened.
A few weeks back, my friend Rachel Dillard told me she wanted to be received into the Catholic Church. I suggested that she ask Father Clay, a dynamic orthodox priest at the marvelous St. Mary the Virgin parish in Arlington, if he would instruct her in the faith.
Father Clay seemed like the kind of priest lots of Catholics wish for, but rarely find (which is why my family had been driving all the way from our Dallas home to Arlington for Mass). He was not officially on staff at St. Mary, but he told me he was helping out while on leave from the Diocese of Scranton, where he'd run afoul of liberal diocesan politics. When he agreed to catechize Rachel, I believed she was in good hands.
About a week ago, I asked her how her lessons were going. She raved about Father Clay and what a "treasure" he is. I agreed enthusiastically, and said, "Can you believe the liberals ran off such a good priest?"
"That's funny," she said. "He told me he came home to Dallas because the conservatives drove him away."
Rachel went home and ran Father Clay's name through an Internet search engine. She discovered he had been suspended by Scranton in 2002 after a sex-abuse allegation involving a male teen. Rachel e-mailed this information to me that night, saying, "Please don't let this be true."
I spent the next several days trying to find whatever information I could about Father Clay's situation. It was true: Father Clay had been banned from active ministry.
What to do with this information? I wasn't worried about Father Clay. I was worried about Father Allan Hawkins, the parish's very fine pastor, and the good people of the congregation.
I thought: Can't this be handled quietly, so Father Hawkins and the parish aren't embarrassed?
And then I thought: If I go that route, I am no better than the bishops and others I have criticized. They kept it in-house for the sake of the church and led us all off the cliff. Public exposure is the only sure way to handle Father Clay.
But he might be innocent! Yes, he might be. But Father Clay is on suspension. He surely knew that before he presented himself to Father Hawkins and offered to help. Why was it so important for him to get back into parish work?
Because of my inquiry, the Scranton diocese had already issued a press release about Father Clay. Why not let the Pennsylvania media break the story?
If I do that, I thought, what do I tell my editors when they want to know why I didn't tell reporters at my own newspaper? The answer would have been: Because I was protecting a parish and a pastor I didn't want to see hurt. That is, because I am a hypocrite.
I couldn't be a hypocrite. The protection of children must come first. I wrote down everything I'd learned and sent it to the religion desk. Susan Hogan/Albach worked the story and wrote the article in yesterday's paper.
Rachel and I feel absolutely horrible about all this. But I have no doubt that we did the right thing. Father Clay had to be stopped. Parishioners looked up to Father Clay, liked him, admired him, trusted him. How ironic that his downfall came out of a conversation in which Rachel and I gushed about what a wonderful priest he is.
Rachel, God bless her, still wants to become a Catholic. I am searching for a new parish for my family, though my wife and I are left wondering if we'll ever be able to trust the church with the safety of our two young boys.
I am left with two lessons: First, the church's child-protection rules are only as reliable as those people whose job it is to enforce them. Catholic parents cannot have faith in bureaucratic procedures.
Second, I have more empathy with those I have denounced. I have never been able to understand why bishops and parents of abused kids would try to handle things quietly. Well, I get it now. The only reason I anguished over any of this was not for the sake of Father Clay, but for trouble publicly exposing his deception would cause innocent people.
In the end, though, kids have to be shielded, and the church has to be liberated from this curse of secrets, lies and clerical privilege. I did what I had to do, and am not sorry for it.
The Church in Scranton and the State Police found nothing to proceed with in his case. So there is no pending bureaucracy in this case.
SD
Make sure to read the comments section after Fr. Hawkins' response. There is a real time back-and-forth going on right now, including several posts by Rod Dreher himself. There is a LOT of new information contained therein.
Try reading post 20.
The Diocese "removed Fr Clay from active ministry" while the matter was investigated. The outcome of this investigation was that no charges of any kind were brought against Fr Clay (though I understand that there are still ongoing processes with regard to the other priests concerned). Furthermore, according to a message dated June 28 to me from Rod Dreher (a journalist for the Dallas Morning News whom many of you will know as a worshiper in our Parish, who appears to have instigated the present interest in the matter) "the Pennsylvania State Police … has no record of an investigation into Father Clay". (It seems that Rod Dreher has had an ongoing journalistic interest in these events in Scranton, having written about them in February 2002 in the National Review Online.)
One might imagine that that would have been the end of the matter. And, indeed, so it appeared to have been. Bishop Timlin (the now-retired Bishop of Scranton) ended Fr Clay's "removal from active ministry" by appointing him parochial vicar at St Thomas More parish in Lake Ariel, PA - and I have Bishop Timlin's letter to this effect, dated February 4, 2003, before me as I write. This could not have happened if Fr Clay had been suspended or had had his faculties removed.
SD
God bless them both!
Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list
FROTHY INSANO ALERT!
On another thread you railed at Bps. like Bruskewitz, who exerted "control" of their Dioceses.
Perhaps this post of yours is your concession that such "control" is necessary?
Texas, presumably. Did you even read post 20?
SD
Did you follow the link in reply #3, and then read the comments posted in response to it?
SD
Likewise we have competing claims about his notification to the Ft. Worth bishop of his presence.
So it would seem some things need to be sorted out. I will reserve judgment.
SD
I've tried to get to the 'comments' section on the Shea spot with no luck. Do you know the secret?
As a general observation, Dreher's a journalist first, editorialist second. As a journalist, he's learned to be pretty careful about sourcing, I would hope.
Therefore his allegations are likely substantiated. As to "someone's lying..." we have a large number of Bishops in this country who seem to have done that regularly in this sort of affair. Hard to admit it, but with only a couple of exceptions, I'm inclined to believe the press rather than a Bishop, until incontrovertible evidence emerges that the press was wrong.
It's a safer bet these days.
Go to the bottom of the letter.
Please pray for Fr Christopher Clay at this time. He is a devout and fine priest. He is, and will continue to be, a close friend of mine and my family. He is, by adoption and grace, a member of our Parish community; and we will support him. And may Blessed Mary pray for her parish, and for the priests who are her sons.
Fr Allan
And Rod Dreher talks about it all here.
posted by Mark Shea at 10:56 PM
Comments (73)
Click on the "Comments (73)" -- or whatever the number is now -- link. Its a javascript, and opens to a new window. If you have a popup blocker on, it won't open.
Texas, presumably. Did you even read post 20? SD
Yes I did. I went a little further and read the comments. I didn't drink the coolaid as you apparently have.
Do you know where he is?
Did he ever go back to Pennsylvania?
Do you know anything about the truth of the story?
Are you conditioned to accept every word of a Bishop as the gospel truth?
I haven't claimed he is guilty of anything because I simply don't know. You are willing to declare his innocence based on the word of a Bishop.
A clear case of submission of will and intellect.
It was my extremely effective popup blocker. Thanks!!!
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