With CofA Blog now in Albuquerque, we begin what should be an outpouring of information about the Servants of the Paraclete treatment center for priests with "psycho-sexual problems." Started in 1949 with the best intentions of providing spiritual renewal and prison-like oversight of problem priests, Via Coeli in Jemez Springs morphed by the 1960s into a psychology-dependent almost New Age secular rehab that was so assured of its success treating pedophilia that it sent its priests into local parishes while they were still in treatment, thus creating an inordinately high number of victims of clergy sex crimes in the region around Jemez Springs in Northern New Mexico
Scanned here for you to click enlarge and read are minutes from a February 13, 1967, meeting held: “To present to the archbishop a plan whereby guest-priests under the care of the Servants of the Paraclete could enter into ministerial work in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe as a final step in a graduated program of rehabilitation begun at Via Coeli Monastery, and continued through the Paraclete houses in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.”The minutes were among documents found during the discovery phase of the L.A. Clergy Cases that settled in 2007, where Cardinal Roger Mahony authorized payment of $660 million to 510 plaintiffs and avoided testifying in trials where these documents would have been released by much more mainstream media than City of Angels Blog.
The Archbishop of Santa Fe and Servants of the Paraclete leaders felt it prudent not to tell local parishes about the problems the out-patient priests brought with them, the minutes reveal, as you can read on Page 2:
“In placing men in the parishes, the Archbishop would use his judgment and discretion in informing the pastors only of what he thought they must absolutely know about the priest they were receiving, so that they might more effectively work with the man."
The minutes continue: “No details or particulars of a clinical nature need be made known regarding the man’s past history.”
“The Archbishop seemed immediately receptive to the idea (of placing out-patient priests in parishes) and added his own personal interest in and concern for the work, then proposed the following parishes as suitable fur such a plan:
In Albuquerque:
Sacred Heart
St. Anza’s
San Felipe
Our Lady of Fatima
Queen of Heaven
Holy Ghost
Our Lady of Assumption
St. Francis Xavier
St. Bernadette’s
St. Theresa
Annunciation
Immaculate Conception
St. Charles
Holy Family
St. Edwin’s
Ascension
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Nativity EVM (Alameda)
St. Clement’s (Los Lunas)
(My God, how big was the population of Albuquerque in 1967 that they even had this many Catholic Churches. City of Angels will be absorbing local culture as we remain in Albuquerque.)
More from the Minutes page 2:“The point was made that the program as so far stated might carry with it an inconvenience in terms of constant personnel changes in the parishes. The Archbishop remarked that there were enough parishes available to obviate that problem… He repeated that the priests of the archdiocese were ready and willing to help in this operation.”
(More from page 2-3, where as CofA Blog reads it, The Catholic Church through SotP experimented with the people in local New Mexico parishes, used them as guinea pigs to see if pedophile priests who completed treatment were ready for full-time assignments or not:)
“It was further agreed that the parochial assignment was to be of an indefinite nature, lasting as long as was necessary for the man to give evident signs that he had readjusted well to the ministry and was now deserving of a full time assignment, either in his home diocese, his religious community, or in whatever opportune situation he might be placed. It was agreed that should a man fail to measure up in his parochial assignment, he should be returned to a Paraclete house, preferably in the Canyon, where efforts at his priestly renewal might begin again.”The Paraclete New Mexico Corporation?
Page 3 goes on to discuss teaching opportunities for the Servants of the Paraclete out-patients as “not feasible at the moment, with one possible exception, at St. Vincent’s Academy.” Also on Page 3: They're adding four more rooms because of the “influx of guests,” the $10,000 cost would be referred to the Paraclete New Mexico Corporation.
The Archbishop “spoke of his admiration for the professional services being extended to the Paracletes by Dr. Frank Rowe (Howe? It's hard to read this 1967 typewriter with its ink splotches), and Dr. John Salazar.”
Also on Page 3, the Archbishop, concerned about overcrowding and understaffing, “cautioned that we not allow a large number of specifically ill-adjusted emotional cases to accumulate in one place.”
Dr. Salazar interjects:
“So far as treating the seriously disturbed (in the psycho-sexual sphere) no good is gained from segregating these individuals from men with dissimilar problems. This only serves to accentuate their feelings of being cut off from society.”
(Thanks for being so concerned about the needs of the perpetrators, Dr. Salazar.)
More from the Minutes:
“Fr. Connolly then reminded the group that an integral part of the Paraclete apostolate was and always would be the care of those who, either by personal decision or obvious signs, would NOT return to the active ministry. He pointed out the benefits to community life some of these ‘retired’ priests were able to make.”
(Again, no one ever wonders what happened to the victims of these “priests with boundary problems” but they are so concerned that the perpetrators are well tended.)
Page 4 of the Minutes from February 1967:“The Archbishop was in agreement that Via Coeli existed to help priests in whatever capacity possible or necessary…. He pointed out there is an area of reasonableness to be hoped for between luxury and poverty and that a pleasant and liveable [SIC] kind of living quarters was a factor in a man’s readjustment and rehabilitation.”
Then they go on to discuss how well the AA program is fitting in to the Servants of the Paraclete treatment plan.
Minutes submitted by Fr. John Feit, 2/15/67
Attending this meeting where they all agreed it was great to send pedophiles into local parishes were:
Most Rev. James P. Davis, Archbishop
Rev. John Vincent
Rev. Edwin Connolly
Rev. John Feit
Rev. Patrick Hulcahy
Rev. Harry Kenney
John Salazar, Ph.D.
*************
We are including
TWO BONUS documents
from L.A. Clergy Cases Discovery for today’s post:
First This letter from Father Gerald Fitzgerald, founder of Servants of the Paraclete, written July 4, 1956, for those who like to know the names of priests involved in Servants of the Paraclete work (looking for signs your perpetrator was in treatment there).
The July 4th letter closes in Father Gerald Fitzgerald’s unique style, first a moving spiritual message:
“Let me beg you, dear Paracletes, to love the Divine Spirit and learn to live in simple childlike docility. He will lead you deeper and deeper into the Sacred Heart and there, and there alone, will you find the warmth of Divine Caritas without which priests hearts soon find themselves fighting the chill of worldliness and earthly frustration”
Followed by:
“PS: a financial Drive for a building fund for adequate facilities here in the Canyon is developing. Pray if it is God’s will that it will prosper."
“We have the happiness of professing Father Agnellus of the Sacred Heart. This brings to a total of 24 the number of professed Paracletes and 5 Oblates. We have besides 6 priests and 3 seminarians in the novitiate and a saintly priest on retreat prior to entering the novitiate.“We have in our retreat houses very close to 100 guests and as of this date, July 4, (1956) we have 10 or 11 Paracletes here and there in the country helping Bishops who are hard pressed for cover.
“Father Edwin Connolly and Father John Mathias McCarthy have the Villa Madre de Dios community functioning smoothly and efficiently in helping the needs of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.
“Here in the Canyon Father Guy Rosse and the Regina Mundi house threatens to surpass the Motherhouse and Father Pat Mulcahy is a small but vigorous planting. Father Felix is doing an outstanding job with the parish in our administration at Two Inlets. I am especially happy over his development of the Eucharistic consciousness of his people.“Father Urban, with Father Swanson’s able assistance, has Our Lady of the Snows Retreat at Neyis, Minnesota, developing rapidly. We are grateful to Bishop Schenk for this splendid development.
“Finally here at the Motherhouse, the increased number of final profession s makes it possible for us to fill out the offices of the General Administration, which at the present moment are:
Father Francis J. Morrell, Consultor and Vicar General
Fr. Joseph Moylan, Consultor and Treasurer General
Fr. Edward Woeber, Consultor and Secretary General
Fr. John D. Lee, Consultor
Thus bringing back to the General Administration Father Woeber and adding the experience of one of the oldest Paracletes who is taking care of a difficult assignment- the parish of St. Genevieve at Las Cruces, New Mexico. We wish by the selection of Father Lee to indicate how valuable in the Congregation are the spiritual contributions of those Paracletes who under holy obedience are deprived of the consolations of community life.
**************
BONUS DOC:City of Angels Blog is also running this article where Father Joseph MacNamara, writes about his personal experience in the blooming Servants of the Paracletes religious order, from being a novitiate who always felt like a failure to becoming Servant General after Fr. Fitzgerald died.
“Fr. Gerald then appointed me Father Servant at Via Coeli in Jemez Springs. At the request of Archbishop Davis, one of my tasks was to inaugurate therapy programs for our guest priests. Fr. Gerald felt that the Archbishop’s request infringed upon his own responsibility as Superior General of the Servants of the Paraclete, and he reacted strongly to the plans for the therapy program.”
(Yes, here we see that Fitzgerald knew the New Age whoo-whoo therapies psychologists were bringing in to Servants of the Paraclete were not going to stop his patients from acting out, his priests were sexual deviants, a sickness for which there is no cure. Fitzgerald called out, the lone voice, the one voice with experience, to stop thinking therapy will cure priests of pedophilia. He was ignored, when he was the smartest one.)More from MacNamara’s article:
When Father Gerald died on June 28, 1969, “I attended our General Chapter to elect Father Gerald’s successor. My reaction was shock and Surprise! I was elected.
My main goal was to assist our Community in making the transition that all newly founded religious groups must eventually make- from the charismatic presence of the founder to the ordinary operation of a religious community within the Church.“There were difficult decisions with both positive and negative consequences.”
(One big mistake MacNamara made as seen in his article was to think of Servants of the Paraclete as an “ordinary religious order” when it harbored priests that should have been kept away from mainstream society entirely, the way Father Gerald Fitzgerald wanted it, on an island cut off from society. MacNamara and others led this movement to give pedophile priests treatment, then turn them loose again on the world, like psychology is some be-all-end-all answer to all our problems.)
(Funny that a religion would adopt a stance that favored psychology over spiritual treatment.)
Page 3 of MacNamara’s article gushes out a priestly gush of gratitude.
Notice at the bottom of the three pages of this document, you see a link to a website, but the pages are no longer posted there. It says http://www.theservants.org/priestlypeople/pp11-2001part2.html when I try to go that link, it says, “cannot be found.”
Instead if you go to http://theservants.org/ you will read at the bottom of the page the same promise that has been there now for more than a year: “New and improved website coming soon.”
***********
Coming next at CofA: A Roundup of Stories we couldn't cover while we were on the road, plus more Servants of the Paraclete documents, including Oso Pious’ reaction to the case filed Monday in Gallup New Mexico.
Stay tuned.
Send up high fives by PayPal or by Western Union, thank you, all income from City of Angels Blog is reported by Kay to the IRS as free lance income as at City of Angels Blog we like to keep things legal.
And we do need money.
We have yet to get the $88.50 we need to purchase Mahony's testimony from Fresno trial, Santillan versus Bishop of Fresno, for the conclusion of "What Melissa Huckaby Heard."
If everyone who reads this blog sent five dollars today it would lift a great deal of worry and assure a professional level of ongoing coverage of the pedophile epidemic in the Catholic Church at City of Angels Blog.
-ke
Read a more personal take on our trip to Albuquerque here at City of Angels 2
CORRECTION:
Here is link to the Servants of the Paraclete article
http://web.archive.org/web/20030927032601/theservants.org/priestlypeople/pp_11-2001_part2.html
but they still have done nothing new to their website in years.
No comments:
Post a Comment