Priest, bishop clash in sex, theft scandals

The Washington Times --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Priest, bishop clash in sex, theft scandals George Archibald THE WASHINGTON TIMES

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A local Roman Catholic priest says he is being retaliated against by his bishop for providing evidence that three priests in separate incidents stole church collections, impregnated a married parishioner and collected homosexual pornography. The Rev. James R. Haley says he was suspended by Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde after blowing the whistle on the three priests in the Diocese of Arlington, The Washington Times has learned. "I believe that he's trying to strangle me out of the church," Father Haley testified in a civil lawsuit. He is barred from revealing any evidence of priestly wrongdoing to law-enforcement authorities or the public under a canonical "penal precept" issued by the bishop in October 2001.

The lawsuit was filed by a parishioner whose wife was impregnated by a Catholic pastor of a Manassas church.

Bishop Loverde, who declined repeated requests for interviews, declined to say why he took away Father Haley's priestly faculties, saying an explanation "would require the diocese to discuss detailed private matters involving him." "Father Haley has his own issues and in conjunction with him they are being addressed canonically. It would simply not be appropriate for the diocese to discuss these matters," the diocese said in a statement.

Bishop Loverde's handling of the incidents follows in the wake of lay questioning of the way American bishops have dealt with priests who violate their vows of celibacy. Last month, the Vatican declined to approve the U.S. bishops' plan for disciplining errant priests. Vatican spokesmen called the plan adopted in June by U.S. Roman Catholic bishops gathered in Dallas to address, primarily, the problem of priests sexually abusing children, too ambiguous and "difficult to reconcile" with church law.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, meeting this week in Washington on the sex-abuse policy, has declined to look into the Haley matter. On Oct. 10, Bishop Wilton D. Gregory of Belleview, Ill., head of the bishops' conference, denied Father Haley's appeal to review evidence that he brought to Bishop Loverde over the past four years and the priest's charges of retaliation.

Mark E. Chopko, general counsel of the bishops' conference, says the body did not have jurisdiction to investigate Father Haley's retaliation charges. "In the church, it is a matter that exists solely between Father Haley and Bishop Loverde," Mr. Chopko said in a letter to the priest's attorney, Gregory L. Murphy of Alexandria.

Father Haley, 46, says the bishop did not act on the information he disclosed. The scandals involved:

•The Rev. James A. Verrecchia, 45, former pastor of All Saints Catholic Church in Manassas, who he said carried on a yearlong sexual affair with the wife of a parishioner, Jim A. Lambert, and impregnated her in late December 1999. Mr. Verrecchia married Nancy Lambert the following year. Father Haley was subpoenaed to testify in a civil lawsuit brought by Mr. Lambert, who charged that Arlington Diocese's cover-up prevented him from winning custody of his three children. The lawsuit was dismissed in August.

•The Rev. William J. Erbacher, 55, former pastor of St. Lawrence Catholic Church on Franconia Road in Fairfax County who, according to Father Haley's July deposition, embezzled from church collections and collected homosexual pornography. Since last month, he has been at St. Stephen the Martyr in Middleburg, Va., where he is said to be "assisting the pastor."

•The Rev. Daniel E. Hamilton, 59, former pastor of St. Mary's Parish in Fredericksburg, who had an extensive collection of bondage pornography kept at the rectory. Father Hamilton resigned two months ago, after a judge refused to seal Father Haley's deposition.

Several priests in the diocese, speaking on the condition of anonymity, say the bishop is "angry" that Father Haley "invaded privacy rights" of Father Verrecchia, the woman with whom he was having an affair, and Fathers Erbacher and Hamilton.

Parishioners at Virginia churches where Father Haley has served since 1987 expressed shock and concern over his suspension. "He's very holy, and that's his problem," said Marie K. Shaughnessy of McLean, a parishioner at St. John's Catholic Church, where Father Haley was assistant pastor from 1995 to 1997. "He doesn't budge from the straight and narrow. He doesn't accommodate."

When seeking a pastor position at Our Lady of Hope in Sterling, Father Haley told the bishop that Father Verrecchia was having an adulterous affair with a married woman he was counseling for marital difficulties. Father Haley said he found Father Verrecchia and the woman together at 1:30 a.m. in a darkened rectory office, according to diocese and Arlington County court records. After the encounter, the woman complained in a letter to the bishop that Father Haley had asked parishioners "about my personal life."

The bishop then transferred Father Haley as assistant pastor to St. Lawrence in July 1999. Upon Father Haley's transfer to St. Lawrence, according to his deposition, he was told by Father Erbacher that there was a network of "gay priests" within the diocese, including Father Erbacher himself and the bishop's chancellor, the Rev. Robert J. Rippy. "I had no idea of the interconnections of all this until I lived with Father Erbacher," Father Haley testified. "I never knew that a diocese or bishop would knowingly ordain a homosexual man."

In February 2001, Father Haley talked to Bishop Loverde about Father Erbacher's disclosures of a homosexual network of priests. In another meeting, June 6, 2001, Father Haley set out what he said were details of Father Erbacher's library of homosexual pornography and evidence that he was stealing from church collections.

He gave the bishop photographs of pouches containing thousands of dollars of cash, stored in Father Erbacher's bedroom closet, and the priest's personal bank records showing deposits averaging more than $99,240 per year, 5½ times his annual income as a pastor. More than half the deposits were in cash.

Father Haley was transferred to St. Mary's in Fredericksburg three weeks after he sent the bishop the evidence about Father Erbacher's finances. The diocese began an internal investigation of the St. Lawrence theft accusations after it discovered "substantial financial irregularities" at another parish.

At St. Mary's, a maid told Father Haley that Father Hamilton had large quantities of homosexual pornography in his room, said Mr. Murphy, Father Haley's attorney. Father Haley asked the bishop for another transfer or leave of absence for "discernment" to find another diocese, Mr. Murphy says. The bishop refused in a letter Oct. 8, 2001. "I would direct that you remain as a parochial vicar at the church of St. Mary in Fredericksburg while continuing your initial discernment with your spiritual director," the bishop wrote.

Angered, Father Haley confronted the bishop Oct. 16, 2001, with "factual self-incriminating evidence on Father Hamilton's completely outrageous sexual addiction" in a further effort to be moved out of the rectory. "And at the end of the meeting, which was basically a slide show of the pictures of his incredible collection [of pornography], the bishop told me that I had better watch out, that I did not know what he was capable of doing," Father Haley testified.

A week later, Bishop Loverde summoned Father Haley to Arlington, gave him four hours to move out of the rectory and into a hotel in Fredericksburg, and ordered him not to return to the rectory without an escort. He stripped the priest of his faculties, which authorize him to wear a clerical collar, say Mass, take confessions, and perform baptisms and funerals.

In a series of "decrees" dated Oct. 23, 2001, the bishop also expelled Father Haley from any diocese post and gagged him with the canonical penal precept. Under the suspension, Father Haley has been denied church housing for the past year and restricted to monthly pay of about $2,000 for housing and all other expenses. He is living in a house trailer in Northern Virginia.

Bishop Loverde agreed only to answer written questions from The Times. Chancellor Rippy did not respond to questions nor requests for an interview. "Bishop Loverde takes very seriously any credible allegation of misconduct on the part of a diocesan priest, employee or volunteer. [He] has not and will not punish anyone for bringing him a concern or complaint." Regarding the bishop's action concerning Fathers Verrecchia, Erbacher and Hamilton, the diocese said: The bishop "confronted Father Verrecchia with the information [about his adulterous affair] and eventually ordered him to break all contact with the person with whom he had a questionable relationship. Father Verrecchia is no longer serving as a priest in the diocese."

The diocese accepted the resignation of Father Erbacher after receiving the results of an "independent forensic financial audit and a psychological evaluation." It said the bishop confronted Father Hamilton about the pornography, and he was sent for a "psychological evaluation and is no longer the pastor of St. Mary Catholic Church in Fredericksburg, Va." The bishop did not comment on Father Erbacher's role at St. Stephen the Martyr in Middleburg and declined to comment on the treatment of Father Erbacher and Father Haley. He said the diocese does not discuss personnel matters.

Mr. Murphy says Bishop Loverde's assertion that he had addressed Father Haley's complaints was a "blatant lie." The bishop's "duplicity has no boundaries," Mr. Murphy says. "His response was keep it quiet, move [Father Haley] around, and when he was forced to testify in legal proceedings, he silenced him."

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Then the Pope should resign gracefully and admit the job is too much for him, it that's the case. The idea that the Church has to go to hell in a handbasket because the pontiff is trying to be a saint is ridiculous. It would be the height of folly and narcissism, if true. I personally think a better explanation is that he simply lacks good judgment. Example: Cardinal Law submitted his resignation this summer when the cardinals were summoned to Rome. The Pope refused to accept it. What does this say about the Pontiff's common sense? Here was a prelate who knew that one of his priests had raped a six-year-old boy as well as a score of other small kids, a man who knew the same priest had openly lectured in support of NAMBLA. Yet Law still found it in himself to write a glowing letter of recommendation for the guy--as he did for more than eighty other priest-perverts. Knowing all this, the Pope schmoozed with the "spiritual shepherd" over lunch and gave him another chance. The message was clear: the destruction of a few thousand young souls is small beer compared to the well-being and good fellowship of bishops. Another message: there is no penalty in today's liberal Church for great moral failure, no matter how grotesque and evil.

Hey, not just me--almost any traditionalist Catholic would have done a better job. Let me repeat what I've said elsewhere.

The Catholic press has been complaining for years about the gay problem in the American Church. Even the secular press back in the 80s got into the act when Time and Newsweek Magazines separately published stories and surveys on the rampant homosexuality in the Catholic Church--this after a priest in Louisiana was convicted of raping and otherwise sexually abusing 31 small boys. There was absolutely no reaction from Rome.

A couple of years later the bishops convened--after over 300 priests had by then been brought before the authorities for sexually abusing minors--to discuss the pedophile problem on the part of "some bishops and priests." Still no rise from the Vatican. In 1992 a gay symposium met in Chicago which was sponsored by 91 dioceses and religious orders and which openly pushed the right of priests and seminarians to live sexually active lives. Participating in the symposium were bishops and priests. It was estimated 37% of the attendees were in leadership positions in the American Church. Still nothing out of Rome. Priests were holding gay dances on church property and celebrating gay Masses and boinking altar boys left and right. Scandal after scandal was getting local press attention. Hush money was pouring out of chanceries faster than you could say Michael Jackson, but still the Pope was oblivious. To cap it all off the Kansas City Star published a survey that revealed that priests were dying of AIDS at four times the rate of the general male public. In all this time NOT A SINGLE REFORM WAS INSTITUTED.

So don't give me this song and dance about my running for pope. Almost anybody who understands human nature and has a modicum of common sense would have done a better job of dealing with the problem of clerical corruption. At least they would have tried SOMETHING. Anybody with horse sense would at the very least have fired Law when he proferred his resignation last summer. If a cardinal has knowingly allowed 84 priests to ruin the lives of thousands of young boys--the operative word is KNOWINGLY--what message is the Pope sending when he allows that cardinal to hang onto his job as "spiritual shepherd"? I know what he's saying to me: we bishops have got to stick together, the kids can fend for themselves--as they have had to do for decades. It tells me he thinks the title is a farce, not to be taken seriously. Whatever other spin you want to put on it, that's the real message.

If this were the only problem the Church is facing, I wouldn't be so outraged. But it is only the tip of the iceberg. There are liturgical and doctrinal corruptions as well. We've got bishops in open apostasy and heretics being awarded the red hat. Our catechesis programs are a joke, with more careful attention being paid to the sex education given to kids than to the Catechism. What is the Pope's answer to all of this? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

<> Zviadist, you are your buddies like to slam those in union with the Pope. I thought you and your ilk would like to read a little bit about your side:)<>

:: I. Shawn McElhinney 4:22 PM [+] ::

"Trad" Internal Inconsistency (Part II)

This is a continuation of the thread started HERE. Please read it before reading this one for proper context.

It is a clear and irrefutable (not to mention damning) fact that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, and the Abbe de Nantes were all on the side of the Vichy government. (The war criminal Paul Touvier was not the only one who was given amnesty at Lefebvrist monestaries and seminaries I assure you.) There is a LOT more dirt here that I could print that I will not get into and cannot ever recall mentioning publicly in any of my refutations of pseudo-tradism: stuff that corroberates the above assertions and which all the more crystalizes to the SSPX's discredit - as if supporting the Nazis was not bad enough. (I remember one message board post from last year where I touched on the subject but I stopped short of going into detail on it.) By sharp contrast the theologians and philosophers later persecuted (referring to the theologian/philosophers de Lubac, Conger, Danielou, Blondel, and Maritain) were all affiliated with the Resistance which was opposed to the Nazi regime. Note the clean division made above.

There are many elements to this equation that are not often recognized but it is interesting to note that those who supported the stagnant neo-scholastic manual theology methods - and the duplex ordo view of nature and grace relationship - were by my reckoning always on the side of the Nazis in Germany, Franco on Spain, and Mussolini in Italy. If you are aware that the French movement "Action Francaise" factors heavily into the equation it helps to see the root and matrix of all the Lefebvrist positions.

Action Francaise was founded by Charles Maurras (1868-1952) who was an atheist. He saw the Catholic Church as a force of tradition, authority, and order as a counter to the revolutionaries of the mid nineteenth century who propounded a radical form of democracy that was condemned by the popes. Action Francaise saw as a necessary part of therir program a restoration of the Catholic monarchy. (Garrigou-Lagrange's declaring to Jacques Maritain that his support of the Free French against the Nazi occupied Vichy government was a mortal sin demonstrates the degree to which Integrisme was a core philosophy of its adherents.)

Now when you consider the teachings of Vatican I which were never completed* the apparent imbalance in Church teaching made the papacy come across as very monarchial indeed. And though collegiality is eminently traditional, Lefebvre and company saw collegiality as akin to the radicals of the nineteenth century who were pushing for dangerous forms of democracy. The idea that collegiality presupposes the papacy and is not properly exercised apart from it never permeated Lefebvre's weltsanchauung. (Much as the idea that there could be democratic forms of government that were not akin to the mob rule of the French revolutionaries.)

In the realm of religious liberty the original schema which was defended by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani actually stated that religious liberty was something that the Church claimed when she was in the minority but that she never had to concede when in the majority. How this rationale would have persuaded the overwhelmingly secularist governments - not to mention the atheist totalitarian dictatorships such as the USSR - is of course a mystery since the rationale here is so ridiculously inconsistent.

The integralists never understood (and still do not) that there was a distinction to be made between the divine law which the Catholic Church taught recognized the right of one religion and one religion alone to exist and the individual's rights in civil society to religious liberty and being able to worship in accordance with their conscience without coersion by government provided that certain limits were respected. (Limits I might add to which the Catholic religion is Constitutionally incapable of breaching if properly exercised.) This is a subject that I have written essays on and books have been written on by others. Hence it cannot be done justice in a brief weblog blurb.

And of course that the ecumenism as espoused by the Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council was diametrically different from the ecumenical efforts of the 1920's which Pope Pius XI condemned in Mortalium Animos. This is something that anyone who actually *reads* the relevant documents can see that the substance of the errors condemned in Mortalium Animos were also condemned in Unitatis Redintegratio. What differs is the usage of certain terms and the rejection by UR of certain policies that MA put into place to deal with specific contingencies of its time. But this is another area where essays and books can be written and I will not do it full justice here in this brief summation by my own admission.

In summary, those who opposed the duplex ordo were almost always opposed to the Nazis, opposed to Franco, and opposed to Mussolini. (Not to mention the strong anti-semitic streak that permeated the adherents to duplex ordo outlooks viz nature and grace.) I believe that the paralysis of duplex ordo theology is what causes the "trads" to act in the very inconsistent manner that you have noted Patrick. Hence Lefebvre (as I noted in my essay on the Syllabus of Errors) could endorse forceful suppression of Muslim worshippers and claim that it was "contrary to charity" but at the same time "you would not be doing them an injustice". When something can be by implication both opposed to charity and at the same time be just, you have a SERIOUS internal inconsistency because what is uncharitable cannot by nature be just. But when you espouse duplex ordo theology, that is the kind of twisted rationale you get.

* As the Second Dogmatic Constitution on the Church intended to deal with the episcopate was never issued. Only with Vatican II would these teachings be completed.

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