Gallup, N.M., Jun 29, 2017 / 02:06 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Diocese of Gallup, New Mexico added three names earlier this year to its list of workers against whom there are credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor, as part of the diocesan commitment to transparency and youth protection.
The local Church is also holding healing services in many of its parishes across New Mexico and Arizona, in which Bishop James Wall listens to and prays with any who wish to do so, as they seek healing from sexual abuse.
The three new names on the list of credibly accused are Brother Mark Schornack, OFM, who served at parishes in the Gallup diocese between 1952 and 1984, and who is now deceased; Fr. Ephraim Beltramea, OFM, who served at St. Francis parish in Gallup from 1970 to 1973; and Fr. Diego Mazon, OFM, who served in parishes of the diocese between 1977 and 2003.
Emails sent by CNA to representatives of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Province of the Order of Friars Minor inquiring about Fr. Beltramea and Fr. Mazon were not acknowledged.
Bishop Wall spoke to CNA recently about the Diocese of Gallup’s efforts at child protection, the need to find healing, and the central role that transparency plays in the life of the Church.
“We use transparency so much as a buzzword,” he reflected. “I think transparency’s important because all things must be brought into the light; things shouldn’t remain in the darkness.”
“In the past I think we’ve learned from some our mistakes, and some of that had to do with shielding those who committed abuses, or sometimes maybe turning a blind eye, or allowing people to remain in ministry – and I don’t think that’s a good practice, because that doesn’t really protect young people, vulnerable adults. It doesn’t allow for them to have a safe place to encounter the living Christ.”
Transparency means “showing our policies, our procedures, what we’re doing,” he said, so that “everything is brought into the light, so there’s nothing that’s hidden.”
April’s inclusion of three new names brings the list of those who have worked in the Gallup diocese who have been deemed by the diocese to have credible accusations of sexual abuse of a minor against them to a total of 34.
Most of them (21) were diocesan priests. Another 11 were priests or brothers of religious communities, including the Order of Friars Minor, the Claretians, the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, and the Crosier Fathers. There was also one seminarian and one lay CCD teacher.
Some two-thirds of the credibly accused (22) are deceased.
Bishop Wall explained that when the diocese receives an allegation of sex abuse of a minor, it undertakes an investigation, or has an outside investigator look into it. The investigator brings its findings to a review board, which makes recommendations to the diocese.
“Through that process, if we discover that the allegation is credible, then we will post that name on the diocesan website, as well as let the parishes where this person has served know.”
He added that the investigation is done because “we always have to make sure that we’re protecting everyone’s rights involved in this, being sensitive to everyone: the person bringing the accusation forward, as well as the accused,” noting that “the legal system is innocent until proven guilty.”
If the credibly accused person is a cleric, “immediately their faculties are withdrawn and they’re informed that they are not to function or present themselves as a cleric in the Church.”
The bishop added that their case can be sent to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where they can be assessed various penalties, such as dismissal from the clerical state.
When the credibly accused person is a member of a religious community, “the expectation is that (their community) take the lead,” Bishop Wall explained, though the diocese does work closely with the religious community throughout the process.
The Gallup diocese’s list of credibly accused was first made in December 2014, and its recent update reflects the fact that “sometimes we don’t have enough information on a particular case; we might not have enough information to investigate it, and then deem it credible.”
“If at a later date more information does come to us, so that we are able to investigate it, and then we are able to deem it credible, then we immediately put it on our list of credibly accused,” the bishop said. “So it all has to deal with the information that we have.”
The diocese’s list reflects any local Church workers who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor, whether while they were in ministry in Gallup or in another diocese. It also shows when and where they ministered within the diocese, whether or not the alleged abuse was carried out at those times and places.
Those who have been credibly accused were in ministry between the 1930s and the 2010s. There was a sharp rise of those in ministry in the 1950s, with a peak in the 1960s. Many of the credibly accused were also in ministry in the 1970s and ’80s. The numbers fell in the 1990s and 2000s.
There was a sole case since Bishop Wall was named Bishop of Gallup in 2009: Fr. Timothy Conlon, a member of the Crosier Fathers. He served in two Arizona parishes from 2011 to 2013 before the diocese was informed by his religious community of an allegation of sexual abuse against him.
The bishop said the Church is now “really in the forefront of making sure that we provide a safe environment for our young people, and vulnerable adults as well,” with its screening of potential ministers leadings its efforts.
He cited the use of psychological screening and testing, and the fact that “our interview process is much, much more extensive than it was” in past times. Moreover, the Gallup diocese trains its volunteers, employees, students and clerics in child safety, and has a mandatory background check.
“We try to put in as many safety procedures as possible,” he said.
Reflecting on the spike of credibly accused clerics in the 1950s and ’60s, Bishop Wall said that while there were a number of contributing factors, he believes that chief among them was the sexual revolution and “the groundwork [which] was already being laid prior to that.”
“But then again, these were bad people who did bad things to people; and these people should never have been placed in the positions to violate the trust, to violate these young people.”
In response to the crisis of sexual abuse, the Diocese of Gallup has also held healing services in parishes across its territory, in which Bishop Wall listens to and prays with survivors of sexual abuse, regardless of who their abuser was.
“It provides an opportunity not only to come together to pray, to pray for healing, but also gives an opportunity for anyone, and I stress that – anyone – who is a survivor of sexual abuse to meet with me,” the bishop explained.
“So we could have someone who is a survivor of sexual abuse by a worker of the Church, or someone who’s a survivor of sexual abuse not by a worker of the Church, it could be family or friends, whatever the case might be … that’s what the Church is about, it’s what our ministry is about: offering the healing of Christ, so we provide that opportunity as well.”
Communities across the diocese have responded differently to the healing services, which began in November 2016.
In some places, Bishop Wall said, there is “a pretty good sized group that comes, and people who will want to meet with me individually afterwards; some people will bring family members in with them, they feel a little more comfortable, and some people just come to pray – you don’t have to be a survivor of sexual abuse to come and pray.”
Healing services are scheduled at different communities in the diocese through March 2018.
While acknowledging that “it is difficult,” Bishop Wall also affirmed that “I think it’s necessary, and it’s a good thing, to allow people to come and sit and talk, and kind of, really unload their burden. Especially for someone who was abused by a worker of the Church, I think it’s important for the bishop, who’s the shepherd of the diocese, to sit with the person, to talk with the person, pray with them, apologize. I think that’s one of the most important things were able to do in this.”
“These healing services, difficult though they are, provide a great opportunity for survivors of sexual abuse, whether at the hands of workers of the Church or someone else … to come before the Lord and find healing in the Lord,” the bishop concluded.
Survivors of sexual abuse are also afforded an opportunity “to pray, too, and also I think to realize they’re not alone, because I think many times if someone is a survivor of sexual abuse, sometimes they feel like they’re alone. And I think coming together with others, and the Church welcoming and inviting them to come together, it lets them feel that they’re not alone, they’re not isolated, there are people that are there for them, the Church is there for them.”
[…]
Glad they expressed an objection, and bless them, even though I have my doubts about how strongly they feel it.
Hopefully they’ll encourage priests to share this info with us in the pews. That hasn’t been a thing in the past & many Catholics I know believe that IVF is prolife because it can result in a birth.
If Catholics think IVF is prolife why do we expect Pres. Trump to know any better?
Hope so too. But over the last four decades or so, I’ve never heard a single pro-life homily, except from unique figures like the late Father Richard Neuhaus and the late Monsignor Phillip Reilly. And I’ll also concede a pro-life very early morning homily from whichever priest joins us on the bus to Washington for the annual March for Life. Speaking of which, decades ago some would march with a sign that read, here are your people, where are our bishops?
Nonetheless, in more recent years a few have trickled in.
Everything we do in life is a source of witness. I wish I could remember this when I occasionally cuss.
What lies behind this debate over IVF is not merely a bioethical dispute about embryos or medical technique, but a profound philosophical crisis — the triumph of moral relativism over the classical and Christian understanding of truth, being, and human dignity.
Relativism is not new. It has a history — indeed, it has the history of humanity’s fall. The first relativist was not a man, but the Devil. His argument in Eden — “You will not die … you will be like God, knowing good and evil” — was the prototype of all later moral subjectivism. The serpent’s logic introduced the fateful idea that good and evil are relative, that truth is negotiable, that divine law is a matter of interpretation. This primordial “hermeneutic of suspicion” toward God’s word continues, refined and intellectualized, in every age.
The Sophists of ancient Greece were its first human spokesmen. “Man is the measure of all things,” said Protagoras. Against them rose Socrates, insisting that the soul must conform itself to truth, not truth to the soul’s desires. This same battle — between the arrogance of the self-measured man and the humility of the truth-seeking man — is the one we still fight today.
In Christian philosophy, neither Plato nor Aristotle reduced being to thought. The mind was to receive, imitate, and participate in what is. Truth, therefore, was objective, ontological, and binding. But with Descartes — “I think, therefore I am” — a seismic reversal occurred. Being was subordinated to consciousness. The “I” became the measure not only of truth but of reality itself. This idealist revolution was the philosophical fall of modernity, giving rise to the many descendants of Cartesian egocentrism: pantheism, atheism, Marxism, and, in the moral order, the sexual revolution.
From this genealogy arises the modern “culture of death,” in which even life itself is defined by utility, convenience, and control. IVF, therefore, is not just a medical act; it is a metaphysical declaration. It asserts that human life may be produced, selected, frozen, or discarded at will — that man may be both the artisan and the arbiter of being. It is the culmination of the Cartesian project: not “I think, therefore I am,” but “I produce, therefore I am.”
The bishops are right to condemn IVF, not only because it destroys innumerable embryonic lives, but because it corrodes the very notion of what it means to be human. Each embryo is not a potential human being; it is a human being with potential — a person who already is. When human life becomes a byproduct of technique, children cease to be gifts and become commodities. Love yields to manufacture; procreation becomes production.
This is why IVF, for all its apparent compassion, represents a deeper spiritual crisis than abortion itself. Abortion kills; IVF redefines. It teaches society to see life as raw material, to accept that the most sacred mystery — the transmission of life — can be mastered and mechanized. It turns the womb into a laboratory and the act of love into an industrial process.
In this sense, IVF is the emblem of the technological relativism of our age — the same relativism that began in Eden, found its philosophical expression in the Sophists, and took metaphysical root in Descartes. Its logical end is the abolition of man, the transformation of the human person into an object of design.
The bishops’ warning is therefore prophetic. To reject IVF is not to reject science; it is to defend the ontological dignity of life and the integrity of love. If man is no longer born of the gift of persons but of the will to power, then even the family, the first temple of human communion, becomes an artifact. Against this new Babel, the Church stands as the last custodian of the truth that life is sacred because it is not ours.
Paolo thank you for this well-crafted comment.
It was a pleasure to read.
That relativism was the devil’s action from the beginning is an eye opener in this age of post-Fiducia supplicans which relativises mortal sin for Ecumenical New Church.
Kind regards
CN
I agree. A well expressed thumbnail history of vanity to which we might add the current relativism of “diversity” and subjectivism of “discernment,” that is discernment without humility. And we know how easily we forget true prophesy. Benedict began his papacy with a reflection on the poison of relativism, and the first day of Leo’s pontificate began with his validating cultural prerogatives for interpreting Fiducia Supplicans.
Thank you, friend in Christ, for your kind words. The problem of Western civilization, as Peter Kreeft might say, is that we have lost the forest—the meaning, the poem—for the tree—the signs, the characters of the poem. Descartes saw only the tree; postmodernity has destroyed it altogether. Nietzsche and the deconstructionists do the opposite of Aristotle: they use the hammer, not the trowel. The remedy, as Don Bosco saw in his dream of the two pillars guiding the ship of the Church, remains the same—the Eucharistic Kingdom and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
“Catholic bishops criticize Trump’s IVF expansion: Every life is ‘sacred and loved by God’”
And, yet, so many of our bishops are ambivalent about the moral horror of abortion. Case in point: Cupich’s wanting to give a lifetime achievement award to a Catholic politician who was an outspoken supporter of killing unborn, defenseless babies. And furthermore you could count on both hands the number of bishops who came out publicly against his doing so. But when it comes to Trump and IVF, the bishops suddenly find their voice. We’re not having any more of your fecklessness
Here’s what I have to say to all our bishops and to Pope Prevost: Stop the politicization of Christ’s Church. The Church does NOT belong to you; it is Christ’s.
Indeed notice the lack of outrage of the bishops at Cardinal Cupich’s efforts to honor Democrat Senator Durbin, who favors allowing the killing of unborn babies or their silence over the pro-abortion policies of Presidents Biden, Obama, etc. ; and notice how the Pope honors Cupich by naming him to an office in the Vatican; and notice how the Pope wants open borders in other countries but keeps his own little country with some of the most strict anti-illegal aliens laws in the Western world. How applicable to all of them is
Matthew 23:13
For the Vatican’s laws and practices against illegal immigration see
Vatican Promises Stiff Penalties for Illegal Aliens Crossing its Border
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/01/16/vatican-promises-stiff-penalties-for-illegal-aliens-crossing-its-border/
IVF is expensive. Are taxpayers going to get saddled with much of the cost? Achieving a viable pregnancy might cost $50,000. If you expand this to a million cases,you will be talking billions of Dollars. Where is that money coming from?
Welfare/food stamps are expensive. Public schools are expensive. Vouchers are expensive. Health Care is expensive. Not many Catholics object to those things. IVF is just one more thing I guess the tax payers will have to dig deep to fund.
The same place Medicaid surgical gender mutilation money come from. Taxpayers.
Over the years, my wife and I have paid a lot of taxes. It’s discouraging to think what our tax dollars go to.
Since we sometimes disagree, I wanted to say, “Hear, hear!” Living in Oregon for 35 years has been especially discouraging on the tax front. Taxes are very high here (and 5-10 billion more just passed a few weeks ago), and most of them are wasted: corruption, ineptness, horrible agendas, lousy public education (ranked 45th in the nation for decades), etc. It’s maddening.
Guess your state hasn’t quite mastered the make everything free NY practice of just sending the bills to the generations of the future.
It’s discouraging indeed Mr William.
And much borrowing
Going seamless garment on us? Movement in the right direction is not to be welcomed unless every aspect of their governance meets your approval?
When have more enlightened than thou progressives ever cared about cost?
I am definitely opposed to Trump’s efforts to increase access to IVF.
However, I see the action of the USCCB as typical – send a letter to the president, or congress.
As much as I oppose Trump’s action on this, he is not our chief teacher of the faith, and sending a letter to him does not fulfill the teaching function of the bishops.
They need to teach the evil of IVF in their diocese, and have their priests do the same.
There are people in my parish who think that IVF is a good thing.
A lay person explaining to someone why IVF is not a good thing does not have nearly the effect that a priest would have saying the same thing from the pulpit.
If only the clergy had been onboard with the promotion of NFP and opposing contraception, we might not be in this situation. I gave up trying to teach NFP when the priests refused to support my efforts and assured people that contraception is okay if your conscience said so.
So, Democrats say…We must kill children in vetro. If children survive our attempts to kill them, we must kill them immediately after birth. We must also allow hundreds of thousands of children to be trafficked and work as slaves. Bishops say the democrats must be honored with lifetime achievement awards for their efforts at killing and trafficking children. OR, we at least must overlook the killing because trafficking children is such a good practice.
Republicans say…We must make it easier for childless couples to conceive via IVF. Bishops immediately write a letter condemning the republicans.
Got it.
One of my college roommates had four children. Two went to Notre Dame, one to Catholic University of America and the last to Loyola. My friend and his wife are fervent Catholics and brought their children up similarly. Two of his fully Catholic-educated children had four children – two each all of whom were born as a result of IVF (to my friend’s consternation). The tuition for “Catholic” education just at the university level for all four probably cost him no less than $400,000.
Exactly, DR. Until we properly teach Catholics about IVF (or at least attempt our very best) how do we expect someone like Donald Trump to get it?
One has to wonder if this expansion is additionally a Trumpian gift to his Log Cabin Republicans who need IVF to fabricate their families. Two men can now borrow/hire an egg/s (from a female friend or relative perhaps); each man may even donate their own sperm to have “half-siblings” (split -cycle) and so perpetuate the “romantic mystery” that each of them are the “fathers”, and then hire a woman (another friend or an industrial ally) for the gestational period, while the two men sit back until birth, when they will place both their names on the birth certificate, the whole case being sealed (in many states) so that the child will never know its biological or birth mother (since the child may actually have both). I would have liked to see the bishops take the opportunity to call out this pre-meditated, psychological, child abuse.
It’s a shame when adults purposely deprive a child of a parent but these days an IVF or surrogacy child can use DNA testing to track relatives down and hopefully information on their parent’s identity.
So. Yet again.
The Catholic Church, identified as the USCCB in America, has apparently satisfied itself as to its’ apostolic mission by publishing the referenced letters of the four bishops. There is nothing here to suggest an evangelical purpose. There is nothing to suggest a clear exhortation for the moral education of the Catholic Laity. Check the boxes; file for any future need or evidence.
The American institutional Catholic Church is in spiritual stagnation, blissfully mis-understanding the primacy of its’ real purposes, and quite detached from the needs of the Laity and its’ potential in behalf of the secular world. For this world sorely needs bishops who do less “Ruling”, and a great deal more “Teaching”. Exemplify, and require of pastors, specific dogmatic instruction (such as a homily like the above note by Paolo Giosue)
Bishops need to effect real moral knowledge and living by their community. The killings by Catholic persons and hospitals in their dioceses, whether by IVF, by killing from organ/tissue harvesting, by hidden euthanasia, etc. must be acknowledged and stopped.
Well said and amen, Roger Miller.
Oh … now we hear the bishops with their prophetic voice. I seem to recall that then-USSCB president Archbishop Gomez had a strong pro-life letter to Biden in 2021, but Cardinals Cupich and Tobin prevailed on Bergoglio (do you think that was a hard sell?) to make Gomez stand down and withdraw the letter. Well, aren’t we all happy they have finally found their voice. Oh, yeah, that’s right! Biden is no longer president. The USCCB never skips a beat when it comes to “speaking truth to power.” Oh, maybe they do skip a beat … all depends on whether the president is democrat or republican.
Yes. Now “hopefully” the child can track down the mother that never met the father; the mother who perhaps is a lesbian who thinks she’s a man yet bears children for money – an excellent reunion!
It’s important Inigo. Your parent is still your parent. Inherited health issues are another concern, too. Knowledge is a good thing. And so is forgiveness.
mrscracker – I recall many of your comments to my comments and you always avoid the issue or change the subject in our conversations until the conversation ends in silly tautologies (“Your parent is still your parent”). I need no reminder about the importance of knowledge and forgiveness which I add to truth and honesty. You do your work and I’ll do mine. And as always, I will let you have the last word… you wouldn’t have it any other way.
More kudos to Paulo Giosue for his wonderful concentrated comment above!!
I’m definitely filing that one away for future reference.