Priest, bishop clash in sex, theft scandals

The Washington Times --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Priest, bishop clash in sex, theft scandals George Archibald THE WASHINGTON TIMES

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A local Roman Catholic priest says he is being retaliated against by his bishop for providing evidence that three priests in separate incidents stole church collections, impregnated a married parishioner and collected homosexual pornography. The Rev. James R. Haley says he was suspended by Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde after blowing the whistle on the three priests in the Diocese of Arlington, The Washington Times has learned. "I believe that he's trying to strangle me out of the church," Father Haley testified in a civil lawsuit. He is barred from revealing any evidence of priestly wrongdoing to law-enforcement authorities or the public under a canonical "penal precept" issued by the bishop in October 2001.

The lawsuit was filed by a parishioner whose wife was impregnated by a Catholic pastor of a Manassas church.

Bishop Loverde, who declined repeated requests for interviews, declined to say why he took away Father Haley's priestly faculties, saying an explanation "would require the diocese to discuss detailed private matters involving him." "Father Haley has his own issues and in conjunction with him they are being addressed canonically. It would simply not be appropriate for the diocese to discuss these matters," the diocese said in a statement.

Bishop Loverde's handling of the incidents follows in the wake of lay questioning of the way American bishops have dealt with priests who violate their vows of celibacy. Last month, the Vatican declined to approve the U.S. bishops' plan for disciplining errant priests. Vatican spokesmen called the plan adopted in June by U.S. Roman Catholic bishops gathered in Dallas to address, primarily, the problem of priests sexually abusing children, too ambiguous and "difficult to reconcile" with church law.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, meeting this week in Washington on the sex-abuse policy, has declined to look into the Haley matter. On Oct. 10, Bishop Wilton D. Gregory of Belleview, Ill., head of the bishops' conference, denied Father Haley's appeal to review evidence that he brought to Bishop Loverde over the past four years and the priest's charges of retaliation.

Mark E. Chopko, general counsel of the bishops' conference, says the body did not have jurisdiction to investigate Father Haley's retaliation charges. "In the church, it is a matter that exists solely between Father Haley and Bishop Loverde," Mr. Chopko said in a letter to the priest's attorney, Gregory L. Murphy of Alexandria.

Father Haley, 46, says the bishop did not act on the information he disclosed. The scandals involved:

•The Rev. James A. Verrecchia, 45, former pastor of All Saints Catholic Church in Manassas, who he said carried on a yearlong sexual affair with the wife of a parishioner, Jim A. Lambert, and impregnated her in late December 1999. Mr. Verrecchia married Nancy Lambert the following year. Father Haley was subpoenaed to testify in a civil lawsuit brought by Mr. Lambert, who charged that Arlington Diocese's cover-up prevented him from winning custody of his three children. The lawsuit was dismissed in August.

•The Rev. William J. Erbacher, 55, former pastor of St. Lawrence Catholic Church on Franconia Road in Fairfax County who, according to Father Haley's July deposition, embezzled from church collections and collected homosexual pornography. Since last month, he has been at St. Stephen the Martyr in Middleburg, Va., where he is said to be "assisting the pastor."

•The Rev. Daniel E. Hamilton, 59, former pastor of St. Mary's Parish in Fredericksburg, who had an extensive collection of bondage pornography kept at the rectory. Father Hamilton resigned two months ago, after a judge refused to seal Father Haley's deposition.

Several priests in the diocese, speaking on the condition of anonymity, say the bishop is "angry" that Father Haley "invaded privacy rights" of Father Verrecchia, the woman with whom he was having an affair, and Fathers Erbacher and Hamilton.

Parishioners at Virginia churches where Father Haley has served since 1987 expressed shock and concern over his suspension. "He's very holy, and that's his problem," said Marie K. Shaughnessy of McLean, a parishioner at St. John's Catholic Church, where Father Haley was assistant pastor from 1995 to 1997. "He doesn't budge from the straight and narrow. He doesn't accommodate."

When seeking a pastor position at Our Lady of Hope in Sterling, Father Haley told the bishop that Father Verrecchia was having an adulterous affair with a married woman he was counseling for marital difficulties. Father Haley said he found Father Verrecchia and the woman together at 1:30 a.m. in a darkened rectory office, according to diocese and Arlington County court records. After the encounter, the woman complained in a letter to the bishop that Father Haley had asked parishioners "about my personal life."

The bishop then transferred Father Haley as assistant pastor to St. Lawrence in July 1999. Upon Father Haley's transfer to St. Lawrence, according to his deposition, he was told by Father Erbacher that there was a network of "gay priests" within the diocese, including Father Erbacher himself and the bishop's chancellor, the Rev. Robert J. Rippy. "I had no idea of the interconnections of all this until I lived with Father Erbacher," Father Haley testified. "I never knew that a diocese or bishop would knowingly ordain a homosexual man."

In February 2001, Father Haley talked to Bishop Loverde about Father Erbacher's disclosures of a homosexual network of priests. In another meeting, June 6, 2001, Father Haley set out what he said were details of Father Erbacher's library of homosexual pornography and evidence that he was stealing from church collections.

He gave the bishop photographs of pouches containing thousands of dollars of cash, stored in Father Erbacher's bedroom closet, and the priest's personal bank records showing deposits averaging more than $99,240 per year, 5½ times his annual income as a pastor. More than half the deposits were in cash.

Father Haley was transferred to St. Mary's in Fredericksburg three weeks after he sent the bishop the evidence about Father Erbacher's finances. The diocese began an internal investigation of the St. Lawrence theft accusations after it discovered "substantial financial irregularities" at another parish.

At St. Mary's, a maid told Father Haley that Father Hamilton had large quantities of homosexual pornography in his room, said Mr. Murphy, Father Haley's attorney. Father Haley asked the bishop for another transfer or leave of absence for "discernment" to find another diocese, Mr. Murphy says. The bishop refused in a letter Oct. 8, 2001. "I would direct that you remain as a parochial vicar at the church of St. Mary in Fredericksburg while continuing your initial discernment with your spiritual director," the bishop wrote.

Angered, Father Haley confronted the bishop Oct. 16, 2001, with "factual self-incriminating evidence on Father Hamilton's completely outrageous sexual addiction" in a further effort to be moved out of the rectory. "And at the end of the meeting, which was basically a slide show of the pictures of his incredible collection [of pornography], the bishop told me that I had better watch out, that I did not know what he was capable of doing," Father Haley testified.

A week later, Bishop Loverde summoned Father Haley to Arlington, gave him four hours to move out of the rectory and into a hotel in Fredericksburg, and ordered him not to return to the rectory without an escort. He stripped the priest of his faculties, which authorize him to wear a clerical collar, say Mass, take confessions, and perform baptisms and funerals.

In a series of "decrees" dated Oct. 23, 2001, the bishop also expelled Father Haley from any diocese post and gagged him with the canonical penal precept. Under the suspension, Father Haley has been denied church housing for the past year and restricted to monthly pay of about $2,000 for housing and all other expenses. He is living in a house trailer in Northern Virginia.

Bishop Loverde agreed only to answer written questions from The Times. Chancellor Rippy did not respond to questions nor requests for an interview. "Bishop Loverde takes very seriously any credible allegation of misconduct on the part of a diocesan priest, employee or volunteer. [He] has not and will not punish anyone for bringing him a concern or complaint." Regarding the bishop's action concerning Fathers Verrecchia, Erbacher and Hamilton, the diocese said: The bishop "confronted Father Verrecchia with the information [about his adulterous affair] and eventually ordered him to break all contact with the person with whom he had a questionable relationship. Father Verrecchia is no longer serving as a priest in the diocese."

The diocese accepted the resignation of Father Erbacher after receiving the results of an "independent forensic financial audit and a psychological evaluation." It said the bishop confronted Father Hamilton about the pornography, and he was sent for a "psychological evaluation and is no longer the pastor of St. Mary Catholic Church in Fredericksburg, Va." The bishop did not comment on Father Erbacher's role at St. Stephen the Martyr in Middleburg and declined to comment on the treatment of Father Erbacher and Father Haley. He said the diocese does not discuss personnel matters.

Mr. Murphy says Bishop Loverde's assertion that he had addressed Father Haley's complaints was a "blatant lie." The bishop's "duplicity has no boundaries," Mr. Murphy says. "His response was keep it quiet, move [Father Haley] around, and when he was forced to testify in legal proceedings, he silenced him."

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I've been pondering a reply all afternoon. All I can say is thank God I am a member of the Laity, and can drive across the Potomac River to attend Mass in the Archdiocese of Washington. If on the other hand I were a cleric in the Diocese of Arlington, subject to a vow of Obedience to my Ordinary (i.e., Bishop), I dunno...I would probably be a very bitter man - or a saint. It's probably that vow of Obedience which has caught Fr. Haley in a bind.

That being said, I pray every day for priests and bishops.

...probably after he demolishes any dissent on genuflecting during Holy Communion.

From the GIRM 2000, paragraph 160:
160 The priest then takes the paten or a vessel and goes to the communicants, who, as a rule, approach in a procession.
The faithful are not permitted to take up the consecrated bread or the sacred chalice themselves, and still less hand them on to one another. The faithful may communicate either standing or kneeling, as established by the Conference of Bishops. However, when they communicate standing, it is recommended that they make an appropriate gesture of reverence, to be laid down in the same norms, before receiving the Sacrament.

However, our pastor told us that we should bow our heads which is the "appropriate" sign of reverence before receiving Communion, instead of genuflecting (for the sake of unity).

Thank you for that nauseating information about Palpatine. Didn't Chancellor Palpatine turn out to be the evil Emperor consumed by the dark side of the Force in Star Wars?

But back to the subject of murdering a child in the womb conceived through incest:
Because a parent commits incest the child produced receives a sentence of death? That is insane. The babe in the womb committed no crime.

The climate of institutional control that conservative and traditional Catholics worship is one which engenders the stifling of true spirituality, fiefdoms and coverups when those fiefdoms engage in corrupt practices. The Churches of the East booted you out over it, the Protestant Reformation occurred over it, and you guys have never learned the lesson.

There you sit, wringing your hands and whimpering in the hope that Rome will do something about it, all while Rome, and her attitude toward power and authority is the problem.

Your Pope has plenipotentiary powers of discipline, which he failed to exercise. how many lapses have resulted in church censure over the millennia? What about even over the past century? How about the exercise of rigid Papal discipline over the responsible clerics in the Vatican bank scandal? How many Catholic Germans were excommunicated over their activities during the second world war?

For whatever reason, Rome has chosen, in order to preserve institutional power, to practice a form of moral inversion - where the powerful and the connected are rewarded for their "service" by a lack of censure for heinous activities.

How many mobsters have been excommunicated, and how many priests and bishops happily show up at the events of a crime family with greasy smiles and outstretched palms?

The pregnant child committed no crime. You would enslave one to another, wrecking her life and putting her through in favor of the unknown. Of course, since Catholicism has historically been about making non Catholics suffer for sake of the tortured definitions and beliefs of Catholics, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, especially since you'd have a nice Catholic adoption agency ready to broker the baby for tens of thousands of dollars (hey, and its pure profit - the birth mother can receive no money by law, but the agency can really pad its pockets with the wreckage of the life of a raped preteen).

The climate of institutional control that conservative and traditional Catholics worship

Sorry, wrong religion. We worship God, not "climates". I'm sure you can find some neo-pagans out there who worship climates.

The Churches of the East booted you out over it

Huh? Out of what did they "boot us," and when did this "booting" take place?

How many mobsters have been excommunicated

Most mobsters are guilty of sins which render them unable to receive the Eucharist anyway, not that mobsters outside of the movies actually spend much time in church. Excommunicating them would accomplish nothing. You might as well excommunicate Saddam Hussein, for all the good it will do you.

Okay, you want to know? Just remember: you asked.

The Churches of the East booted you out over it, - politcal power struggle/split. We weren't booted: it was a full-scale split.

the Protestant Reformation occurred over it, - power struggle/I didn't get my way so I'm leaving (resuling in excommunication) split. By a bunch of people who thought they were smarter than they were.

and you guys have never learned the lesson.

Oh, we learned a lesson alright - don't argue with the ignorant until they learn what they are talking about. Otherwise, it's fruitless.

There you sit, wringing your hands and whimpering in the hope that Rome will do something about it, all while Rome, and her attitude toward power and authority is the problem.

Not quite. Rome knows the problem - they want the bishops to fix it themselves (or they're waiting for the liberals to die off). We're waiting for Rome to realize that they won't do it.

How about the exercise of rigid Papal discipline over the responsible clerics in the Vatican bank scandal?

Uh, well, it did result in the assasination of the previous pope.... It was fixed. It just took a little longer.

How many Catholic Germans were excommunicated over their activities during the second world war?

You mean the ones in the German Army? Because many Catholics were more in the Oscar Schindler catagory, according to people I know who lived through it.

For whatever reason, Rome has chosen, in order to preserve institutional power, to practice a form of moral inversion - where the powerful and the connected are rewarded for their "service" by a lack of censure for heinous activities.

It does tick off the faithful, but there are signs that it might be changing.

How many mobsters have been excommunicated,

I don't know about excommunicated - they don't do that kind of crime - but they are refused a Catholic burial. There is a whole cemetary in New York just for them. St. John somebody.

bishops happily show up at the events of a crime family with greasy smiles and outstretched palms?

You've been watching too much Godfather.

I realize you don't know to whom you are writing. I have 2 adopted children who were the products of incest. Their right to life was always primary as is the case with every child who is conceived, and their right to life can never be ignored or rejected. Their right to life could never be overuled for any reason -- and especially not because of your melodramatic prognositcations about what the mother's life would be. Where life is honored, there is hope.

You would make the victim of incest a murderess. Utterly vile and absolutely wrong.

Your Cardinal Humbert received the Bull of Excommunication in 1054, excommunicating the Pope. Dontcha read history?

I'm not the Pope, and excommunicating the Pope doesn't "boot" the Catholic Church "out" of anything. Cardinal Humbert had no authority to excommunicate the Patriarch or anyone else, because the Pope who sent him had died, so the whole thing was a misunderstanding. And the edicts of excommunication on both sides were formally rescinded in 1968.

Unlike you, I both read history and understand it.

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