Washington D.C., Feb 15, 2020 / 04:08 pm (CNA).- A priest who was the personal secretary of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick said he is sickened by manipulative fundraising tactics employed while McCarrick was Archbishop of Washington. The priest called McCarrick a “manipulator” and a “devourer of souls.”
“For a portion of my priesthood, I worked directly for the foremost fund-raiser in the Church – in the whole Church, the universal Church.”
“He was a master of the art, and knew every technique and tactic to its finest point. He paired with that an extraordinary, even preternatural sense of people, what they wanted and what they needed,” Monsignor K. Bartholomew Smith wrote Feb. 15 on a blog he maintains for parishioners of St. Bernadette’s parish in Silver Spring, Maryland.
“My stomach churns at the recollection, and not only because of how successful he was at this; but also because of what he obtained by this. He received the gratitude, the affection, and the emotional dependence of untold numbers of people high and low, rich and poor, because he made himself the bestower of the approval that they craved, told them that they were good and God Himself was grateful to them, and delivered them from the authentic demands of Jesus and His Gospel.”
“This is what their giving purchased, and what his fundraising obtained. But he took more from them than just their donations, for he was a ravening manipulator of human affections, and a devourer of souls,” Bartholomew added.
The priest, who was ordained in 1998, was McCarrick’s private secretary in the early 2000s, before being appointed to serve in a similar role for Cardinal William Baum, who was then living in Rome.
Smith told his parishioners that “you would be hard pressed to find a person in our Archdiocese, Catholic or not, who did not fall for [McCarrick’s] seduction to some degree, or at some time. We all want approval; we all enjoy gratitude. He offered Divine approval and God’s own gratitude, and many were the ones who did his bidding to obtain it.”
McCarrick, Smith wrote, “was a master of convincing folks of the pernicious delusion that God Himself needed, approved, and in fact was grateful to them for the difference that they were making in the world. This, in one line, is the snake-oil song of the ecclesiastical fundraiser, and he was the all-time virtuoso chanter and enchanter.”
“Many good works were accomplished in this manner, and benefits from them still accrue to this day. But the cost, the cost in human lives and dignity, the cost to the integrity of the Faith, the cost to the fabric of the Church, is only recently become apparent to all,” Smith added.
Smith’s remarks came in the context of the annual archdiocesan appeal. He told his parishioners that because of his experience with McCarrick, “I beg your indulgence if I eschew fundraising techniques, and avoid tactics with proven records of success.”
“Instead of a fund raiser, I am charged by God to be a faith-raiser,” the priest added.
McCarrick served as Archbishop of Washington from 2000-2006, capping an ecclesiastical career in which he had also been the Archbishop of Newark, the Bishop of Metuchen, and an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of New York.
In June 2018, a report emerged that McCarrick had been credibly accused of sexually abusing a minor. That report was followed by a torrent of sexual abuse, coercion, and harassment allegations against McCarrick made by priests, former seminarians, and laypeople. McCarrick was dismissed from the clerical state in Feb. 2019.
Catholics in the U.S. are awaiting a Vatican report on McCarrick that is the result of an internal investigation into the former cardinal’s ecclesiastical career. While the report was initially expected to be released in the early weeks of 2020, Cardinal Blase Cupich told EWTN News this week that it might be released in March, but the exact date of release is still under consideration by Pope Francis.
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Anchorage, Alaska, Nov 26, 2019 / 03:01 am (CNA).- A multi-million dollar grant could help Catholic Social Services of Anchorage and its partners bring the homeless population of that city to “functional zero.”
“This grant will make an enormous impact on our community by expanding the work Catholic Social Services does every day to support families in homelessness to transition to permanent stability,” Lisa Aquino, executive director of CSS, said Nov. 22.
“We believe that this funding will propel us, together with our partners, to achieve functional zero in family homelessness in the Anchorage area.”
The $5 million dollar grant came from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Day 1 Families Fund, which awards one-time grants to organizations that are making an impact on homeless populations. This year, it awarded a total of $98.5 million in grants to 32 organizations working with the homeless population throughout the United States.
Anchorage is the most populous city in Alaska, with 294,356 people. Of that population, about 92 families are in the city’s homelessness system at a given time, Aquino told local news station KTUU.
“That number has pretty much stayed the same over the past years,” Aquino told KTUU, as some families have been rehoused while others have become homeless.
Currently, there’s room in the Anchorage rehousing system to serve about 60 families per year.
Jasmine Boyle, executive director of the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness, told KTUU she thinks the grant could help CSS and its local partners to bring the homeless population to essentially zero.
“This, I believe, will allow us to either get darn close to, or solve family homelessness…In partnership with two other local initiatives that we have in our community,” she said.
“Clare House is our safe place; I’m very comfortable here,” Shanna, who stayed at Clare House, a CSS shelter and now is rehoused, said in the CSS statement about the grant. “I don’t know where we would be without the help of Catholic Social Services. I’m so grateful that they are here.”
Aquino told KTUU that while the grant is for CSS, it will serve the whole community because “we could never do this alone.”
Partners of CSS include the Coalition to End Homelessness, Salvation Army, United Way, and other service providers who serve the gamut of needs of the homeless.
“What I’ve seen firsthand is that the intent is for Catholic Social Services to take the lead in convening partners in the community so that we’re building systems to address family homelessness,” Boyle told KTUU.
The grant will also be used for a homelessness prevention program, which would provide families with rent assistance or other one-time needs that may prevent them from ending up on the streets, Boyle said.
Such “diversion programs”, as they are calle,d “help people seeking shelter identify immediate alternate housing arrangements, often on the phone or before they even enter shelter. These programs focus on eliminating the footprint in the system and keeping families who just need a little support right now, get it and not have to come to the shelter,” the CSS statement noted.
Because the Day 1 Families grant is a one-time donation, Aquino said she hopes that it will encourage more donations in the future, especially after state budget cuts threatened to dramatically decrease funding for CSS and other homeless service providers earlier this year.
“The more that we can demonstrate its success, and show partners in the community how much this helps, then I think that we’ll be able to find other funding to support it in an ongoing way,” Aquino told KTUU.
Washington D.C., Jan 19, 2018 / 12:29 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Myra Neyer used to work a medical assistant at Planned Parenthood Baltimore. Today, she has left the abortion industry and is a pro-life advocate.
Instrumental to her conversion and decision t… […]
The trailer of the upcoming Russell Crowe movie “The Pope’s Exorcist” indicates that the film might not do justice to the Italian exorcist Father Gabriel Amorth or the rite of exorcism as practiced in the Catholic Church, according to an exorcist organization Amorth himself helped to found.
The International Association of Exorcists on March 7 voiced concern that the film seems to fall under the category of “splatter cinema,” which it calls a “sub-genre of horror.”
The Vatican, the statement said, is filmed with a high-contrast “chiaroscuro” effect seen in film noir.
This gives the film a “‘Da Vinci Code’ effect to instill in the public the usual doubt: Who is the real enemy? The devil or ecclesiastical ‘power’?” the exorcists’ association said.
While special effects are “inevitable” in every film about demonic possession, “everything is exaggerated, with striking physical and verbal manifestations, typical of horror films,” the group said.
“This way of narrating Don Amorth’s experience as an exorcist, in addition to being contrary to historical reality, distorts and falsifies what is truly lived and experienced during the exorcism of truly possessed people,” said the association, which claims more than 800 exorcist members and more than 120 auxiliary members worldwide.
“In addition, it is offensive with regard to the state of suffering in which those who are victims of an extraordinary action of the devil find themselves,” the group’s statement added. The statement responded to the release of the movie trailer and promised a more in-depth response to the film’s April 14 theatrical release.
Father Gabriele Amorth, chief exorcist of Rome, speaks to CNA on May 22, 2013. Steven Driscoll/CNA
Amorth, who died at age 91 in 2016, said he performed an estimated 100,000 exorcisms during his life. He was perhaps the world’s best-known exorcist and the author of many books, including “An Exorcist Tells His Story,” reportedly an inspiration for the upcoming movie.
Several of Amorth’s books are carried by the U.S. publisher Sophia Institute Press. The publisher’s newly released book “The Pope’s Exorcist: 101 Questions About Fr. Gabriele Amorth” is an interview in which the priest addresses many topics ranging from prayer to pop music.
Michael Lichens, editor and spokesperson at Sophia Institute Press, voiced some agreement with the exorcist group.
“The International Association of Exorcists is right to be concerned and I’m thankful for their words,” Lichens told CNA. “My hope is that audiences will remember that Father Amorth is a real person with a great legacy and perhaps a few moviegoers will look up an interview or pick up his books.”
“This was a man who included St. Padre Pio and Blessed Giacomo Alberione as mentors, as well as Servant of God Candido Amantini, who was his teacher for the ministry of exorcism,” he said. “Father Amorth fought as a partisan as a young man and grew to fight greater evil as an exorcist. His life is an inspiration and I know that his work and words will still reach many.”
Amorth was born in Modena, Italy, on May 1, 1925. In wartime Italy, he was a soldier with the underground anti-fascist partisans. He was ordained a priest in 1951. He did not become an exorcist until 1986, when Cardinal Ugo Poletti, the vicar general of the Diocese of Rome, named him the diocesan exorcist.
The priest was frequently in the news for his comments on the subject of demonic forces. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph in 2000, he said: “I speak with the devil every day. I talk to him in Latin. He answers in Italian. I have been wrestling with him, day in, day out, for 14 years.”
The movie “The Pope’s Exorcist” claims to be “inspired by the actual files of the Vatican’s chief exorcist.” The Sony Pictures movie stars the New Zealand-born actor Russell Crowe as Amorth. Crowe’s character wears a gray beard and speaks English with a noticeable accent.
“The majority of cases do not require an exorcism,” the Amorth character says in the movie’s first trailer. A cardinal explains that Crowe’s character recommends 98% of people who seek an exorcism to doctors and psychiatrists instead.
“The other 2%… I call it… evil,” Crowe adds.
The plot appears to concern Amorth’s encounter with a particular demon. Crowe’s character suggests the Church “has fought this demon before” but covered it up.
“We need to find out why,” he says.
The trailer shows short dramatic scenes of exorcism, including a confrontation between Amorth and a girl apparently suffering demonic possession.
The International Association of Exorcists said such a representation makes exorcism become “a spectacle aimed at inspiring strong and unhealthy emotions, thanks to a gloomy scenography, with sound effects such as to inspire only anxiety, restlessness, and fear in the viewer.”
“The end result is to instill the conviction that exorcism is an abnormal, monstrous, and frightening phenomenon, whose only protagonist is the devil, whose violent reactions can be faced with great difficulty,” said the exorcist group. “This is the exact opposite of what occurs in the context of exorcism celebrated in the Catholic Church in obedience to the directives imparted by it.”
CNA sought comment from Sony Pictures and “The Pope’s Exorcist” executive producer Father Edward Siebert, SJ, but did not receive a response by publication.
Amorth co-founded the International Association of Exorcists with Father René Laurentin in 1994. In 2014 the Catholic Church recognized the group as a Private Association of the Faithful.
The association trains exorcists and promotes their incorporation into local communities and normal pastoral care. It also aims to promote “correct knowledge” about exorcism ministry and collaboration with medical and psychiatric experts who have competence in spirituality.
Exorcism is considered a sacramental, not a sacrament, of the Church. It is a liturgical rite that only a priest can perform.
Hollywood made the topic a focus most famously in the 1973 movie “The Exorcist,” based on the novel by William Peter Blatty.
“Most movies about Catholicism and spiritual warfare sensationalize,” Lichens of Sophia Institute Press told CNA. “Sensationalism and terror sell tickets. As a fan of horror movies, I can understand and even appreciate that. As a Catholic who has studied Father Amorth, though, I think such sensationalism distorts the important work of exorcism.”
“On the other hand, ‘The Exorcist’ made the wider public more curious about this overlooked ministry. That is a good thing that came out, despite other reservations and concerns,” he continued. “Still, I would love it if a screenwriter and director spoke to exorcists and tried to show the often-quotidian parts of the ministry.”
An unhealthy curiosity can be a problem, Lichens said.
“When I work as a spokesperson for Amorth’s books, I am always concerned about inspiring curiosity about the demonic,” he told CNA. “As Christians, we know we have nothing to fear from the demonic but curiosity might lead some to want to seek out the supernatural or the demonic. Father Amorth has dozens of stories of people who found themselves afflicted after party game seances.”
Lichens encouraged those who are curious to read more of Amorth’s writings, some of which are excerpted on the Catholic Exchange website. Sophia Institute Press has published “Diary of an American Exorcist” by Monsignor Stephen Rosetti and “The Exorcism Files” by the American lay Catholic Adam Blai.
“First and foremost, Father Amorth was involved in a healing ministry,” Lichens said. “Like other exorcists, his work often involved doctors in physical and mental health because the goal is to bring healing and hope to the potentially afflicted.”
“Those of us who read Amorth might have been excited to read firsthand accounts of spiritual warfare, but readers quickly see a man whose heart was always full of love for those who sought his help,” he added.
The International Association of Exorcists, for its part, praised the 2016 documentary “Deliver Us,” saying this shows “what exorcism really is in the Catholic Church and “the authentic traits of a Catholic exorcist.” It shows exorcism as “a most joyful event,” in their view, because through experiencing “the presence and action of Christ the Lord and of the Communion of the Saints,” those who are “tormented by the extraordinary action of the devil gradually find liberation and peace.”
… forgive the skepticism, dear fr, but you lived & worked with mr mcc… dont point to the fundraising as the problem… it was the manipulation… where was your voice then & when you went to the vipers den in rome?
“My stomach churns at the recollection, and not only because of how successful he was at this; but also because of what he obtained by this. He received the gratitude, the affection, and the emotional dependence of untold numbers of people high and low, rich and poor, because he made himself the bestower of the approval that they craved, told them that they were good and God Himself was grateful to them, and delivered them from the authentic demands of Jesus and His Gospel.”
It’s called mirroring; a trait common to narcissists and sociopathy.
Yup, I’m little concerned about fund raising itself. That’s a good thing in general if the funds raised are used properly. That’s not what he got in trouble for. It’s more how he used fund raising as leverage and an incentive to not examine and expose his deviancy.
Great saints have been fund raisers but they didn’t use their skills for ulterior motives.
I’m suspicious and tired of people who get brave and “tell all” only after they’ve retired or after the whole story has been revealed by other people.
This priest, Archbishop Vigano and people like them are doing the bare minimum in terms of basic decency by speaking out when they no longer have anything to lose (and in this priest’s case maybe even gain by distancing himself from McCarrick now that the Uncle Ted gravy train has come off the tracks). Where were these dudes when wolves like McCarrick and Maciel were devouring bodies and souls. Personally, I’m sick of most of the clergy. They are such milksops. I wonder if it’s the priestly culture that completely emasculates them.
Just another say nothing do nothing Priest like the rest of them. We need a mature clergy and that does not come from Celibacy. These people never grow up. I believe there are many gay and child abusing Priests. The parties that suffer are the laity. The abuse, the school closings and the church closings all point to the failure of the Bishops and Cardinals to respond to the laity. Believe me this will just be a continuing saga.
“We need a mature clergy and that does not come from Celibacy. These people never grow up.”
Balderdash.
You’ve just insulted St. John Viannay, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Isaac Jogues, St. John Bosco, St. Dominic, St. Francis Xavier, St. Alphonsus Liguori, St. Athanasius, St. Damian of Molokai, St. Louis de Montfort, St. Vincent de Paul, Blessed Miguel Pro, St. Edmund Campion, St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Pius X, St. John Paul II, St. Pio of Pietrelcina, St. Philip Neri…. I could go on and on and on. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
“The abuse, the school closings and the church closings all point to the failure of the Bishops and Cardinals to respond to the laity.”
Snort. Yeah, because a)the laity are unanimous on all issues, and b)all the laity are far more saintly and far more wise than all of the bishops and cardinals. In case you need it pointed out to you, that was sarcasm.
… forgive the skepticism, dear fr, but you lived & worked with mr mcc… dont point to the fundraising as the problem… it was the manipulation… where was your voice then & when you went to the vipers den in rome?
I fail to understand why a priest is acting as a secretary or administrative assistant. A layman could do that.
“My stomach churns at the recollection, and not only because of how successful he was at this; but also because of what he obtained by this. He received the gratitude, the affection, and the emotional dependence of untold numbers of people high and low, rich and poor, because he made himself the bestower of the approval that they craved, told them that they were good and God Himself was grateful to them, and delivered them from the authentic demands of Jesus and His Gospel.”
It’s called mirroring; a trait common to narcissists and sociopathy.
Yup, I’m little concerned about fund raising itself. That’s a good thing in general if the funds raised are used properly. That’s not what he got in trouble for. It’s more how he used fund raising as leverage and an incentive to not examine and expose his deviancy.
Great saints have been fund raisers but they didn’t use their skills for ulterior motives.
I’m suspicious and tired of people who get brave and “tell all” only after they’ve retired or after the whole story has been revealed by other people.
This priest, Archbishop Vigano and people like them are doing the bare minimum in terms of basic decency by speaking out when they no longer have anything to lose (and in this priest’s case maybe even gain by distancing himself from McCarrick now that the Uncle Ted gravy train has come off the tracks). Where were these dudes when wolves like McCarrick and Maciel were devouring bodies and souls. Personally, I’m sick of most of the clergy. They are such milksops. I wonder if it’s the priestly culture that completely emasculates them.
I suppose the Archdiocese (and the Church) could give back the donations McCarrick manipulated out of people.
You know, reparation.
This priest has found a way to skewer Wuerl and Gregory without mentioning their names. Bravo.
Just another say nothing do nothing Priest like the rest of them. We need a mature clergy and that does not come from Celibacy. These people never grow up. I believe there are many gay and child abusing Priests. The parties that suffer are the laity. The abuse, the school closings and the church closings all point to the failure of the Bishops and Cardinals to respond to the laity. Believe me this will just be a continuing saga.
“We need a mature clergy and that does not come from Celibacy. These people never grow up.”
Balderdash.
You’ve just insulted St. John Viannay, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Isaac Jogues, St. John Bosco, St. Dominic, St. Francis Xavier, St. Alphonsus Liguori, St. Athanasius, St. Damian of Molokai, St. Louis de Montfort, St. Vincent de Paul, Blessed Miguel Pro, St. Edmund Campion, St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Pius X, St. John Paul II, St. Pio of Pietrelcina, St. Philip Neri…. I could go on and on and on. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
“The abuse, the school closings and the church closings all point to the failure of the Bishops and Cardinals to respond to the laity.”
Snort. Yeah, because a)the laity are unanimous on all issues, and b)all the laity are far more saintly and far more wise than all of the bishops and cardinals. In case you need it pointed out to you, that was sarcasm.
Actually I agree with her and I know many clergy do. Remember in the beginning they were. So was Saint Peter and at least 4 Pontiffs were too.