Ex-monk admits sexual misconduct while under Abp. Hamus at Conception Abbey

A former Benedictine monk who directed a boys choir at a northwest Missouri abbey in the 1980s admitted on Thursday that he had inappropriate sexual relations with several members of the group.

Bede Parry, who led the Abbey Boy Choir of Conception Abbey from 1982 to 1987, told The Kansas City Star that he had sexual contact with five or six of the choir members as well as a student at a Minnesota university.

One of the former choir members filed a lawsuit on Thursday, contending that Parry molested him in 1987 during a summer camp at the abbey.

The lawsuit, filed against Conception Abbey by a Missouri man under the name John Doe 181, alleges that the abbey knew that Parry had sexually abused other students prior to abusing him but covered it up.

"Frankly, those allegations, most of them are true," Parry said in a phone interview with The Star from Las Vegas. "As far as I’m concerned, great harm was done to those people. To lie and not recognize that would be a gross injustice to those folks.

"The whole thing is terrible. I feel so terrible. I’m just praying for everybody, and I ask for prayers."

Most of the inappropriate sexual contact was with males over 18, Parry said. Two of the encounters, he said, involved males ages 16 to 18. He said he has not had inappropriate sexual relations since the 1987 incident.

Jeff Anderson, a Minnesota lawyer who represents the plaintiff, called the situation "a grave institutional failure."

"Bede Parry wasn’t able to control himself, but it was the (Conception Abbey) abbot and the top officials who knew that and made the choice to protect themselves at the peril of many kids and young adults," he said.

Conception Abbey is a Benedictine monastery with a 30-acre campus. It is home to one of the largest Roman Catholic college seminaries in the nation and the largest priest-training center in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. The seminary, which the monks run, draws students from about two dozen dioceses in the United States.

Between 1973 and 1979, the lawsuit says, Parry told the Conception Abbey abbot that he had inappropriate sexual contact with three people at the abbey. And in 1981, the lawsuit says, Parry had sexual contact with a student at St. John’s in Minnesota. Parry admitted that misconduct to several people, including abbots at Conception and St. John’s, according to the lawsuit.

Parry confirmed to The Star his three relationships between 1973 and 1979 at Conception Abbey and one in 1981 in Minnesota. He said he reported those incidents to then-abbot Jerome Hanus at Conception Abbey and to the abbot at St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota.

Hanus is now head of the Archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa. His office did not return phone calls for comment on Thursday.

Parry said he first opened up about his sexual misconduct last fall, when a Seattle area man named Pat Marker showed up at his doorstep. Marker, a sex abuse victim who had attended St. John’s Preparatory School in Minnesota, had learned about Parry while researching other cases from St. John’s.

"I confronted Bede with the allegations ... that took place at St. John’s, and he admitted to the misconduct and expressed remorse but did not disclose any information about the (Conception Abbey) boys choir at that time," Marker said. "After learning he directed the choir, I confronted him again. At first he denied anything but later admitted to misconduct."

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/08/3255149/ex-monk-admits-sexual-misconduct.html#ixzz1dmsmE4Ex

Iowa monks and their llamas settle into new home, and iritate Iowa dioceses

The sympathetic nature of their rare Argentine llamas reflects the ministry of Benedictine monks making a home for themselves in the former Buchanan County Care Facility.

Argentine llamas have a spiritual quality that is consistent with the monks’ mission of healing, mercy and charity, said the Rev. Ryan St. Anne, abbot of Buchanan Abbey, which opened earlier this year in the three-story brick building that had long served county residents who could not care for themselves.

“I can’t tell you why, but if you put your arms around one, you’ll understand,” the abbot said.

Buchanan Abbey, which has operated under other names in other Midwest states, has had a contentious relationship with the Catholic Church, in part because it adheres to a traditionalist view that rejects reforms instituted by the Second Vatican Council in 1963.[I'd really like to know the details here.  VII was mostly(in ambiguous mushy fashion) just a reaffirmation of what the Church already taught.  Maybe they reject some of the reforms after the council?]

Neither the Vatican nor several Midwest dioceses, including the Archdiocese of Dubuque, recognize it as a Catholic institution. In fact, in a Sept. 4 statement, the Archdiocese of Dubuque warned its faithful “to exercise great caution in relating to” Buchanan Abbey.
Monsignor Thomas Toale, vicar general of the archdiocese, said the warning was prompted by public notices that Mass and other religious services are being performed at the abbey and that its abbot is a Roman Catholic priest.

[now get this....]“No evidence has been provided to the officials of the archdiocese of a valid ordination to the priesthood … and the institution is clearly not in communion with the archbishop of Dubuque, who has not given any permission or approval to the institution,” the statement said.

St. Anne said he was originally ordained in 1993 and later reordained by Bishop James Byrne of the Dubuque archdiocese and that he has the documents to prove it.

Buchanan County Supervisor Ellen Gaffney, a Catholic, said she initially had reservations about selling the former county home to the abbey.

“But we didn’t have any other offers, and I thought it best for the people of the county to get some money out of it — it sold for $125,000 — rather than having to pay to tear it down,” she said.

The supervisors’ subsequent good relationship with the abbey and its monks has alleviated those initial concerns, she said.

“They appear to be an asset to the community, and we wish them well,” Gaffney said.

 continue at Cedar Rapids Gazette

Very interesting article, and I think reported well, worth reading the whole thing, including the fact they are growing and attracting Franciscans and Carmelites to join their order.  Not sure if they are operating under emergency faculties or what or if they won't step in line regarding liturgy.  Is the Traditional Mass offered anywhere in the area?  Will tradition minded Catholics be pushed to this order because dioceses in the area have not supported or taken action on Summorum Pontificum?

Several Iowa Catholic institutions named in a new CCHD investigative report

In one of its 2011 newsletters, CCHD proudly describes the work of grantee AMOS, an acronym for A Mid-Iowa Organizing Strategy. AMOS is a local affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation, an Alinskyian organizing network that rallies congregations and other institutions for political advocacy.

AMOS was given a CCHD grant to help it advocate for a mobile obstetric clinic. “The mobile clinic is the happy result of a five-year effort by AMOS’s 29 member organizations, including Catholic parishes in the Archdiocese of Dubuque and the Diocese of Des Moines.”[i]

AMOS was one of four organizations involved in creating the Ames clinic. ‘The clinic was created from a partnership of AMOS (A Mid-Iowa Organizing Strategy), MICA (Mid-Iowa Community Action), Broadlawn Hospital in Des Moines, and Des Moines University.”[ii] It’s insightful to look at these other partners.

MICA (Mid-Iowa Community Action) is one of a number of associated organizations were established in the 1960s as “delivery systems that maximize the federal, state and local resources in providing services to citizens.”[iii] That is, they connect poorer citizens into government-funded programs such as Head Start, Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and others.[iv]

Among the key programs MICA uses is PROMISE JOBS, described as a “supportive, informational, and a true collaborative effort [that] gives each family an opportunity to access not only positive programs but an increased network of support.” [v] Available to all PROMISE JOBS participants – and therefore to all MICA clients - are “Family Planning Services – An option for everyone referred to PROMISE JOBS. Participants can find out how additional children can affect a family’s finances.”[vi]

Then, there’s Broadlawns Medical Center – a hospital – in Des Moines, another one of the partners that, along with the CCHD-funded AMOS, was responsible for establishing the Ames Mobile Clinic. Broadlawns’ Variety Club Women’s Health Center Family Planning Clinic provides a broad range of “specialized services and care for women” that include birth control counseling, emergency contraception, and something ominously called “pregnancy options,”[vii] a term used by Planned Parenthood to include abortion.

 continue at Spero News

Archdiocese of Dubuque to celebrate 175 years

The Cathedral is filled to capacity on the morning of Wednesday
September 30, 1891 as the Diocese of Dubuque celebrates the
silver jubilee (25th anniversary) of Bishop John Hennessey.
Note the gas lamps used to provide illumination inside the building.

While the actual anniversary is July 28, 2012, the year long observance will provide an opportunity for a year of rejoicing, reflection and renewal. The overall goal is not to add extra work or activities for the parishes but to suggest ways to utilize existing events to connect to the 175th, incorporating the major themes of the history and celebration of the Archdiocese into regular parish celebrations (e.g. Parish Festival, Parish Anniversary, First Communion, Confirmation classes. etc.), in addition to the diocesan events listed below. Throughout the year, a series of “Did You Know?” segments will be provided for use in parish bulletins and other publications to educate and celebrate the history and future of the Archdiocese.

details at Arch Dubuque

Abp. Jerome Hanus accused of negligence in abuse case

A second lawsuit was filed last week in Nodaway County Circuit Court alleging that a former monk there, who was also an ordained priest, abused a teenage boy in the early 1980s.

The alleged victim, identified only as John Doe 48, claims in the suit that he was abused by Fr. Bede Parry, a choir director at the abbey and seminary college east of Maryville, and that the abuse consisted of being coerced into various sex acts between 1982 and 1984. Illegal activity described in the lawsuit included oral sex in addition to fondling and kissing.

Parry, 69, is not named as a defendant in the suit, which claims the abbey sought to cover up the assaults, and that Parry's superior knew about the incidents but failed to take appropriate action by removing the monk from his post.

The abbot in charge of Conception Abbey at the time was Fr. Jerome Hanus, who later served as bishop of Saint Cloud, Minn., and is currently archbishop of Dubuque, Iowa.

Confronted by the alleged victim's parents, Hanus, according to the lawsuit, told them that Parry had suffered a "mental breakdown" for which he would receive treatment. In fact, the suit alleges, Parry confessed to his superior that he had been involved in three previous inappropriate sexual relationships.

The lawsuit states that Parry was ultimately sent to a Catholic treatment center in New Mexico for three months and later worked for several churches in the Southwest before becoming an Episcopal clergyman.

Maryville Daily

Iowa priest honored for more than 50 years as a pilot

Msg. Melvin Hemann received the
Wilbur and Orville Wright Award

Family and friends, his flight students, Federal Aviation Administration officials — they all conspired to pull a major surprise on the Rev. Mel Hemann.

The retired Stacyville native, 82, was honored Tuesday with the FAA’s Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award for his 50-plus years of “professionalism, skill and aviation expertise.”

Hemann was presented the award on the first evening of the 48th annual meeting of the National Association of Priest Pilots (NAPP) being held this week in North Iowa.

He also will be recognized in the FAA’s Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award Roll of Honor in Washington, D.C.

“My first vocation is as a priest, but then my second love has been flying,” Hemann said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to do both of them. It’s not only been very beneficial for me personally, but like (Archbishop Jerome Hanus of the Diocese of Dubuque) said, we’ve been able to do a lot of good things with a lot of other people in the church.”

Hemann was joined Tuesday by his flying brothers: retired Monsignor John Hemann, 76, of Clear Lake; the Rev. Everett Hemann, pastor of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Cedar Falls; and Matt Hemann, 72, a flying farmer.

Read more: http://globegazette.com/news/local/stacyville-priest-honored-for-more-than-years-as-a-pilot/article_8e7756e4-ad11-11e0-959f-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1SYM4S68y