US reporting mechanism for episcopal abuse cases launched

Father Joseph Cao, assisted by Deacon Clarence McDavid, blesses the parts of the church affected by an Aug. 30 break-in, during a Mass of reparation at Curé d’Ars Catholic Church in Denver, Colo., Sept. 1, 2021. / Jonah McKeown/CNA.

Denver, Colo., Sep 27, 2021 / 14:49 pm (CNA).

Several valuable items belonging to a Denver Catholic parish, including the tabernacle and vessels used for Mass, were recovered late last week, after the church was robbed nearly a month ago. Consecrated hosts taken from the church were not found.

The predominantly African-American parish of Curé d’Ars, located in north Denver, was broken into and robbed overnight Aug. 30-31. All the church’s vessels used for Mass were stolen from the vestry, which the thieves accessed by kicking in a wooden door. 

The church’s tabernacle, containing the Eucharist, was stolen from the sanctuary. 

In a Sept. 25 post on the church’s Facebook page, Deacon Clarence McDavid reported that he had been called in by a detective working the case to look at items recovered from a man Denver Police had recently arrested. 

The recovered items included a number of religious objects including a tabernacle, a ciborium, a communion bowl, and a container used to hold the priest’s hosts.

“These items are clearly ours and have been retrieved from the police department. The person who is in police custody is believed to have broken into several other churches in the area,” McDavid wrote. 

McDavid said the consecrated hosts contained in the tabernacle, however, were still missing and were “obviously dumped.”

The vessels found have now been cleaned up and are at the church, he said, though not every single vessel has been recovered. A larger ciborium is still missing, he noted. 

Speaking with CNA Sept. 27, Deacon McDavid said he wished to thank everyone who, moved by the story of the robbery, reached out with donations, well-wishes, and prayers. 

“It certainly shows how connected we are as a Church. It’s been very moving to see,” he told CNA. 

Denver Police confirmed to CNA that an arrest had been made related to the Cure d’Ars burglary, and named the suspect as thirty-seven-year-old Deshaun Glenn. 

The Cure d’Ars burglary is believed to be a pattern burglary involving other churches, the police department confirmed to CNA. The investigation is ongoing and any charges against Glenn will be determined by the District Attorney. 

The thief, or thieves, also took a laptop used for live streaming Masses, and a sound board used to connect to the church’s microphones. Those items were not among those recovered, and the church has since ordered new ones. 

The assailants also tore out several security cameras throughout the sanctuary, ensuring they would not be caught on video. McDavid said the security alarm company is set soon to replace the three security cameras that were stolen and broken.

The thieves also cut all the copper piping off of the building’s furnaces downstairs and from a stairwell on the building’s exterior, flooding the church basement with water. The church currently has no heating or air conditioning as a result, McDavid said. 

“Work to replace all five furnaces and the air conditioner units will hopefully start within the next two weeks. As reported previously, we need to wait until the necessary supplies are available before the installation can happen. The company that we are working with has escalated the matter as they know that we are without a heating or cooling system,” McDavid wrote in the Facebook post. 

Father Joseph Cao, the church’s pastor, told CNA immediately following the robbery that he has no idea who could have done it. Around 8:40am on Aug. 31, Father Cao discovered that the church’s outer door had been pried open. 

Fr. Cao found an upturned chair and several unconsecrated hosts on the ground when he entered the sanctuary. He then saw that the tabernacle was gone, and found the flood in the basement. 

“As you can imagine, this is very devastating for the entire community,” Deacon McDavid told CNA Sept. 1. 

“We have people who have been here probably since the mid-60s…I’ve been a deacon here for 34 years.”

Curé d’Ars parish dates to 1952, and its name honors St. John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests who had care of souls in Ars, France, in the nineteenth century.

By the 1970s, thanks mainly to changing demographics in the area, Curé d’Ars served approximately 200 predominantly black families. The current church building was dedicated in 1978 under pastor Fr. Robert Kinkel. The parish later welcomed Charlie Bright as the first African-American deacon in the Denver archdiocese.

The sanctuary was blessed and rededicated as a sacred space Aug. 31.

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Washington D.C., Dec 12, 2017 / 12:09 pm (CNA).- Folk music is known for its foot-tapping, hand-clapping, barn-raising style – but now, a group of Dominican brothers is giving the genre a theological twist.

Meet the Hillbilly Thomists, a group of Dominican brothers who have a new album coming out on Dec. 12, which they describe as an authentic human and religious experience.

“Music can be sacred, but it can also be simply human – which is also sacred, just in a less explicit way with lyrics and themes,” Brother Timothy Danaher, one of the vocalists, told CNA in an interview with four of the band members.

“The New Evangelization needs all kinds of music, both the sacred and the human, to get the attention of people going about their daily lives.”

The band consists of 10 members from the Dominican House of Study and St. Dominic’s Priory in Washington D.C. It began as a lighthearted project with a focus on traditional Celtic music.

“The band itself was started by a couple of friars in our province,” said Brother Jonah Teller, who sings and plays guitar in the band. It grew out of a group of brothers who would get together to play Irish tunes, he said.

At first, the project was a fun excuse for the brothers to get together weekly and enjoy music. But as it grew from Irish tunes to more folk and bluegrass, the band began to perform publicly, receiving gigs for Catholics venues outside of the house.  

The name “Hillbilly Thomists” comes from a line delivered by Catholic author Flannery O’Connor. After her novel Wise Blood was released, she said people had identified her as a “hillbilly nihilist,” to which she responded that she was more like a “hillbilly Thomist.”

The album is eponymous – named after the band – and consists of 12 songs featuring instruments including the guitar, washboard, fiddle, banjo, and the bodhrán, an Irish drum. Eleven of the songs are covers of old-timey spirituals like “Poor Wayfaring Stranger,” “Amazing Grace,” and “St. Anne’s Reel.” The album also includes an original song, “I am Dog,” written by Brother Justin Bolger.

When asked how music corresponds to evangelization, the band emphasized that humans are both spiritual and physical beings, and that their spirits are lifted by beautiful images and sounds, especially when accompanied by Scripture-based lyrics.

“I do think music can enhance evangelization if done right. We’re bodily beings, so beautiful images and sounds can be good for us, can help lift our minds to God,” said Brother Peter Gaustsch, who plays mandolin, piano, and guitar.

The Dominican order has released several albums of choir music, but the band hopes that this project reaches hearts of its listeners in a different way.

“There are so many great old songs in this tradition that speak of God’s love, his mercy, his grace, and our hope in him,” said Brother Justin Bolger, who sings and also plays piano, accordion, bass, and guitar.

Among the songs on the album is “Poor Wayfaring Stranger” – an American spiritual which has been covered by artists including Johnny Cash and Emmylou Harris.

The wayfarer – or traveler – is an important image in Catholic theology, one of the brothers said, and cited examples from St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine.

“The poor wayfaring stranger is all of us,” said Gautsch. “There’s a strong theme in the history of Christian spirituality of our lives as a kind of pilgrimage to our heavenly homeland.”

“There’s a loveliness and beauty that carries with it the longing for our heavenly home and the trials that can face us as we make our way towards the Lord, hopeful because of the promise of his love and mercy,” added Teller.

Gautsch said the song depicts the struggle that is part of carrying our individual cross and learning to rely on the graces Christ provides for the journey.

“Sometimes the way is hard and steep, as the song says – in fact, it inevitably involves the cross – but the path has already been trod by Christ, who goes before us to prepare a place for us.”

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The Cathedral of Saint Peter in Kansas City, Kansas, located in the Diocese of Kansas City, which was one of the four dioceses named in the state’s clergy abuse investigation. / Mwkruse|Wikimedia|CC BY-SA 4.0

Boston, Mass., Jan 11, 2023 / 10:35 am (CNA).

Kansas authorities investigating clerical sex abuse have identified 188 Catholic and Society of St. Pius X clergy members who are suspected of committing various crimes, according to a report released following a four-year-long investigation.

No charges have resulted from the investigation because the statute of limitations on the cases has expired or the accused priests are deceased.

The Society of St. Pius X, commonly referred to as the SSPX, is a traditionalist group, founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970, which has an irregular canonical status. The group is not overseen by the Catholic Church or any diocese within the Catholic Church.

The identities of the priests were not revealed in the report, which said that the investigation’s scope spanned from 1950–2022. It is not clear how many of the accused were Catholic clergy and how many were SSPX clergy.

Melissa Underwood, communications director for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) told CNA she did not have information on the division of allegations.

The report says that 125 criminal cases were initiated and 30 charging affidavits were distributed to prosecutors. A charging affidavit lays out the essential facts of the alleged offense by the perpetrator.

However, no prosecutor has filed charges against a clergy member as of Jan. 10, Underwood said. 

“In nearly all cases involving those offending priests, the statute of limitations had expired or the priest was no longer living. Both situations prevented prosecution of the offending priests,” the report says.

The report said that the 30 charging affidavits involved 14 priests. Clergy sexual abuse occurred in all four Catholic dioceses of Kansas, which includes the Archdiocese of Kansas City, the Diocese of Salina, the Diocese of Wichita, and the Diocese of Dodge City. 

Allegations were also brought against the SSPX, which was added to the investigation in 2019, as well as a Capuchin order of priests that operates within Kansas dioceses. The report did not name the Capuchin province. 

The report did, however, mention an encounter at a Colorado ranch run by the Franciscan Capuchin province “where multiple offender priests reside.”

“Our agents were met by staff who informed the priests why the KBI was there. The priests declined to meet with the KBI agents. Therefore, there was no access to those priests for questioning,” the report said. 

The report found “many of the same issues reported by the 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury investigation that related to the Church’s handling of abuse allegations were, in general, identified and documented in the KBI investigation as well.”

Certain Church practices and circumstances “served to obscure the truth about both the allegations of child abuse and sexual assault and their handling of such allegations,” the report said. 

The report gave nine examples of challenges that the KBI faced in its investigation.

1. Some victims had signed nondisclosure agreements with the Church in a civil lawsuit and “were reluctant” to provide information. 

2. The priests or victims had died in many cases. 

3. Church officials would often use euphemisms to minimize the severity of sexual abuse by clergy.

4. Allegations of sexual abuse would sometimes not be reported to law enforcement by Church officials.

5. Parishioners were not offered transparency from the Church on sexual abuse.

6. Dioceses did not practice good record-keeping. The deletion of documents related to sexual abuse, whether intentional or unintentional, resulted. 

7. Diocesan investigations into past sex abuse allegations were insufficient.

8. Each diocese failed to follow its own policy on sex abuse allegations of the clergy.

9. Church officials “frequently attempted to avoid scandal” and would not take action against offending clergy. The Church would move offending priests to different assignments, continue its financial support of the priest, fail to laicize the priest, and fail to monitor the priest.

The report said that the “investigation found a common thread regarding the prevalence of sexual abuse at the hands of clergy within a particular diocese in that it appears to be directly related to the degree of tolerance allowed by the bishop.”

The bishop was made aware of sex abuse allegations “to at least some degree” in most cases, the report said. 

“Some bishops handled the allegations appropriately, but many others facilitated further abuse of minors by concealing the crimes or reassigning the priest to a new parish,” the report said.

The report said that priests would often use their position of authority to discourage the victim from reporting them. 

“Several victims relayed accounts of being told that what was happening to them was okay because he was a priest. At least one victim reported being told by his offender that if he told anyone he would go to hell,” the report said.

The long-term effect of the abuse on the victims was also detailed in the report.

“Throughout the investigation, our team heard from many victims who attributed their alcohol or drug abuse, or their ‘wrecked lives,’ to the sexual abuse they endured,” the report said.

The report said that a few of the victims interviewed were in prison and partly attributed their incarceration to their abuse from the clergy. In certain cases where the victims of sexual abuse had committed suicide, the family of the victims said that they believed the victim’s death was directly correlated to the abuse.

“Our agents witnessed men, now in their 60s and 70s, break down in tears as they reported their sexual abuse to our team,” the report said.

According to the report, the SSPX investigation will continue. 

The investigation began in November 2018 at the request of Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City. 

A Jan. 7 statement from the Archdiocese of Kansas City said: “The archbishop expressed his gratitude to the Kansas attorney general for the professionalism and thoroughness he and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation brought to the study.”

Naumann said in the statement: “You cannot read this report without your heart breaking.”

“Like other dioceses across the country, the dioceses in Kansas have for some 20+ years implemented programs to protect children and vulnerable adults in its parishes and schools, and the report indicates a steep decline in allegations in recent decades,” the statement said.

“But the most significant change Archbishop Naumann has introduced locally has been adopting a victim-centered approach using restorative principles to address the grave harm of abuse. He prays these efforts will be successful and provide a new avenue to bring healing to victims in the future,” the statement said.

The full statement can be read here. 

If you are aware of abuse or neglect, a report can be made to the Kansas Protection Report Center at 800-922-5330. If you are aware of abuse by a cleric or someone employed by the archdiocese, regardless of when the abuse happened, the archdiocese has a confidential report line that can be contacted at 913-647-3051.

One can also make a report online using this link.

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