Diocese of Dallas defends priest's transfer

Dallas Morning News ^ | 4/19/2002 | Susan Hogan/Albach

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

• On Sept. 4, Father Bierschenk signed a document stating that all church employees and volunteers were completing criminal background checks though that wasn't the case. The priest also indicated to the diocese that he didn't need help putting the policy into place. Father Bierschenk said Thursday that he didn't read the document carefully before signing it.

Bierschenk lied and got caught, plain and simple. Someone that "sloppy" doesn't belong running a parish.

[Slyfox]

Again, you have misinterpeted my words. Father is not being dismissed for his failure to complete ALL of the background checks. He is being dismissed because they want his parrish. They conveniently waited until Msgr. John was in an assisted-living facility before they moved in. The pastor at another North Dallas Catholic church complained to his secratary about not being able to get the finger print ink off his fingers, TWO DAYS AGO. He is not in full compliance. Will he be shown the door also? No he won't because he's not one of those 'stinking' traditional priest's. I would suspect that many pastors right now are running like banshee's to finish it all up.

How dare you infer that our good pastor is anything less than honest. We knew that he would have to move on someday, but we NEVER, NEVER thought that his reputation would be soiled in such a way. Here he is being lumped in with the likes of Rudy Kos. You should be ashamed of yourself. How can you even remotely think that you are defending the Church when you allow one of Christ's faithful pastor's to be spoken of in such a way?

By the way, we have so much respect for our pastor that we do not call him 'Steve'.

[Slyfox]

Father did not need any help at all in completing his checks. He is on record for getting rid of people who have any sort potential for abuse. He doesn't pass them on to other parrishes like this diocese in on record for doing. 31 million bucks Dallas has had to pay. Quite unlike our good Father.

[sinkspur]

How dare you infer that our good pastor is anything less than honest.

The newspaper accounts bear out that he was less than truthful when he said that everybody was checked. In addition, it seems that the auditing firm can find NO PAPERWORK from ANYBODY.

Here he is being lumped in with the likes of Rudy Kos.

He is NOT being lumped in with Rudy Kos. He is being lumped in with Fr. Efren Ortega, another Dallas priest who didn't do background checks on everybody.

How can you even remotely think that you are defending the Church when you allow one of Christ's faithful pastor's to be spoken of in such a way?

I'm defending the Church in Dallas' practice of requiring background checks, and demanding that every priest comply. Nobody skates because he's the pastor of the cash cow for the diocese.

By the way, we have so much respect for our pastor that we do not call him 'Steve'.

I knew him as Steve in the seminary.

[BlackElk]

Citation to Canon Law section, please.

[sinkspur]

Sorry, Elk. I heard it on Paul Harvey's show on Friday. I don't have a Code to cite.

[BlackElk]

Tempted though I always am to side with a traditionalist priest, isn't a vow of obedience part of the tradition? If the bishop is a jerk, he is still the bishop. Your parish may be a separate corporation from the diocese, but I would bet it is structured to give the bishop control. If your priest does not obey in all things moral even a liberal bishop, how do you expect to see an actual Catholic bishop bring liberal pastors to heel.

These fights are going to wind up in civil courts which have no absolutely no business telling us what Catholicism is or how it shall be run, even according to the secular laws of the United States.

If, in fact, the pastor failed to take seriously a demand from the bishop for background checks on all personnel in any diocese much less in one like Dallas which has been hammered so hard, he ought to have anticipated consequences.

[BlackElk]

I believe that Paul Harvey is a Mormon and, whatever his virtues or the virtues of the Mormon Church may be, being an authority on Canon Law is not likely among them. This sounds like a religious Urban Legend.

[sinkspur]

It very well could be. I was just quoting what I heard him say. That the Church would view relations with a female more seriously than those with a child surprises me not at all, given the actions of bishops around the world toward pederasts.