From The Catholic League:
CATHOLIC LEAGUE
FOR RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL RIGHT
KC STAR OMITS STORY ON TOP EPISCOPAL BISHOPNovember 8, 2011
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:
Yesterday, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) held a press conference in front of the Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph to bring attention to a case involving an Episcopal priest, Bede Parry, who is being charged with molesting young boys while he was studying to be a Catholic priest. Parry was thrown out of the Benedictines of Conception Abbey in Missouri back in 1990; then he left for Las Vegas; eventually he became an Episcopal priest there. The person who knew about his record of abuse and still allowed him to join the clergy of the Episcopal Church was the Episcopal Bishop of Nevada, Katharine Jefferts Schori; today she is the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the U.S., located in New York City.
The Kansas City Star, which has been relentless in its pursuit of clergy abuse by Catholic priests, said absolutely nothing about this case today. Is this because it involves another religion? Or is it because it implicates a woman clergyperson, thus getting in the way of the contrived narrative that Catholic bishops have some kind of special “old boy” network that inhibits them from being forthcoming? No matter, to think that the person who is the head of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. is named in a cover up involving the sexual abuse of minors—and isn’t even mentioned in the Star—speaks volumes about its politically driven agenda against Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop Robert Finn.
Then there is the politics of SNAP. Can anyone believe that SNAP would hold a press conference in front of a Jewish synagogue about a case involving the sexual abuse of a minor committed by a minister? So why did it pick the most prominent Catholic cathedral in the Diocese for its press conference, especially when the issue has nothing to do with the Diocese? (Parry was never a priest there—he was an order priest.)
Contact Star publisher Mi-Ai Parrish: mparrish@kcstar.com
Contact our director of communications about Donohue’s remarks:
Jeff Field
Phone: 212-371-3191
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Very curious…
I should think the diocese would have every right to sue SNAP for defamation since they clearly chose that location in order to negatively portray the diocese with willful malice.
If I am reading the article correctly, he allegedly abused young boys while he was studying. He was then ordained as a Catholic priest in the Benedictine Order. He was dismissed from the Benedictines and left the Catholic Church. He became Episcopalian By this point there was a record of abuse that presumably had been prepared by Catholic authorities, which was made available to the Episcopalians.
So which Catholic authorities knew about this, when did they know it, and what did they do about it?
This is not to let the Episcopalians off the hook, nor the KC Star. But I might give SNAP a 50% pass on this.
This just goes to show that Fr. Z’s tome still rings true….
Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice.
Donahue seems to have confused the story by saying that Parry was accused of “molesting young boys while he was studying to be a Catholic priest.”
In Parry’s “Confession” (HERE) he says he was ordained at Conception Abbey in 1983 and it was in 1987 that he had “inappropriate sexual contact” with a member of the Abbey Boys choir and was shipped off for therapy in New Mexico.
He says that in 2002 he “pursued a cooperative dismissal from the Catholic church” and that a canon lawyer from St. john’s Abby prepared the papers.
He mentions working as an organist and choir director at a Lutheran church starting in 1987 and later being recruited to work at an Episcopal church. He doesn’t mention being ordained as an Episcopal priest, but that was apparently in 2004, after his exit from Catholic orders was approved.
Bishop Schori’s name is included in a list along with several Catholic bishops and priests who were notified In 2000 when he was turned down for admission to a Catholic monastery in California after a psychological evaluation showed he “had a proclivity to reoffend with minors” Episcopal blogs are worked up about why she ordained him if she knew of his past problems, but that is a different issue from his career in the Catholic church. Apparently, he is not accused of abusing anyone since being ordained in the Episcopal church.
SNAP is one of the most Anti-Catholic, Anti-Priest organizations out there. They are relentless in their attacks against the Church. It seems that they are more concerned with attacking the Church than with helping survivors. God have mercy on them
Catherine
David Clohessy is to abuse as Al Sharpton is to race.
@jhayes,
You wrote
The facts surrounding Schori’s choice to ordain him, and how much she knew are in dispute, and if the multiple independent accounts are correct (which they certainly seem to be based upon statements made by her defenders), then it would appear that she violated some number of canons of the ecclesial community over which she now presides. A compact but detailed summary of the various testimonies and the pertinent Episcopal Canons can be found at this Episcopal canon lawyrer’s blog article.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer