The events of this past weekend have brought about the full range of Catholic responses to Father Corapi’s decision to leave priestly ministry. I’d like to recap my perspective on this sorry tale from its beginning. Back in March, I wrote a blog that ardently defended Father Corapi. Read it here.
In that article, I was highly critical of the bishops for their lack of due process, and for applying the protections of the Dallas Charter to a priest accused of having consensual relations with a grown woman. Many criticized me, stating that priests need to be held to the highest standard.
I disagree.
Married people commit adultery on a vast scale in this age of societal disintegration. They have the opportunity for confession, Eucharist, and pastoral counseling to restore them and and their sacramental vocation. Priests, it seems, are not held to the same standard. That’s dangerous, as the deplorable state of our marriages has everything to do with people thinking that they don’t need to be as holy as their clergy.
What if on the allegation of infidelity the bishops applied the same standard to married couples as they do to priests? Chaos.
In truth, the laity are called to the same degree of holiness as the clergy. At baptism, the prayer over the parents says that they will be the first and best teachers of their children. Yet, there is abundant opportunity for married people to heal from acting out sexually with other adults. Why not our priests?
Quite frankly, I’m not interested in Father Corapi’s, or any other clergy member’s sins with adults. If Father were guilty and unrepentant it would show in time, and his following would begin to fall away. Sins that are not crimes are matters between the penitent and their confessor. and that leads to hero worship.
Many in the Church are understandably angry at the silence of so many bishops around the life issues, over the liturgical anarchy and rebellious catechesis that have gripped the Church by the throat for decades. Then, along comes a priest like a Father Corapi who speaks with authority, passion, and conviction, and people flock to him.
An Oasis in the desert.
They love him for his courage, for daring to do what the majority of priests do not. The message and the messenger become one, and that’s dangerous. When an allegation is made, many will revert to examples of other superstar priests who have had feet of clay, and suggest that history is repeating itself. Thus begins the internecine wars that have reverberated around the blogosphere this weekend.
As I have said in my posts this weekend, I believe that there is great truth in much of what Father Corapi has said about the justice denied him. But as I have also said, I think that he needs to stay and fight, if only by his silence. Walking away will do nothing to end the injustice. Staying will shame the bishops into revising the protocols originally meant to protect children, for cases of adult consensual behavior.
Then, last night, Father’s Superior spoke out about some of the details, and Father countered with a message on his new website. It seems that this will be tried in the media. That’s what happens when justice is denied in normal venues.
There are may places where this will drag on, but not here. On Wednesday night, we will begin a Divine Mercy Novena for Father Corapi. I sincerely wish that he would change his mind and heart on the matter, and take some time on retreat. His supporters are legion, and will fight for him.
I said it in March, and I’ll repeat it now. If we don’t end this denial of due process for our priests, if we do not extend to them the same sacramental restoration that they give the laity, then we deserve empty seminaries. Father Corapi isn’t a hero to me. He never was.
I have always seen him as a good man, and an inspired preacher. However, justice denied can turn good men bitter and angry, and can sap their inspiration. False allegation is one of the ten worst sins, which is why if features prominently in the Ten Commandments.
Join us here on Wednesday to pray for all involved.
Coming Home 
Excellent Gerard !! I could not imagine what it must be like to be an accused priest in today’s climate…There is no justice for our priests. People can make accusations from 20 yrs ago and are believed. This is a tragic end but does not surprise me with all the witch hunts going on.
Thank you for this! Well put indeed.
“In truth, the laity are called to the same degree of holiness as the clergy. ” DR, YOUR STATEMENT IS PRECISELY THE REASON PRIESTS MUST BE HELD TO A HIGHER STANDARD. The reason marriage is in so much trouble is pricisely why we need holiness to be SOMEWHERE in our world, visible and accessible to the masses. Priests must be held to a higher standard.
🙂 Gerard, thank you! At the risk of seeming to put too glossy a shine on it: your own post struck me as an “oasis” amidst the spittle-flecked frenzy in the blogosphere, as of late!
Gerard, what do you make of the statements issued by Fr.Sheehan of SOLT?
Hero worship?
I think Divine Mercy Novena needs to be started for the Catholic blogosphere, not Father Corapi
“It seems that this will be tried in the media.”
Too true, and it will do the Church no good. It’s time for all of us to drop this sordid mess.
I’ll be joining in your novena.
You know I am not Catholic, but I have been reading your posts Gerard, and I am very impressed with your approach to this situation. Your extensive quotes of Scripture, several posts ago, were spot on. I do not know Fr. Corapi and have only seen some clips of his preaching on FB when others have posted them. He is very impressive. Scriptural, clear, powerful and exactly what many Christians need to hear.
You are correct in your warning about revising the protocols, etc. However, I do think this has a little more to do with how the bishops are handling the charges against Corapi. I think he has become bigger than life in his own eyes and has lost any sense of humility. This is a Matthew 18 situation and he needs to stay and follow the process through to its logical conclusion. If overreaction prevails and justice does not, he would do well to remove himself at that point and he would remain in good standing with his followers ( and I hate to use that term).
I guess, in my own mind, I am contrasting him with Fr. Tom Huteneuer who submitted himself to his spiritual authorities and I assume is accepting his discipline in all humility ( although I have no idea where he is or what he is doing ). I know that Corapi claims innocence, but still, his actions are suspicious to me.
I don’t know the story well enogh to comment. But because this may be the one time in human history that I might agree with Rosalindal, here goes. To me it does make sense that we hold to a higher standard those individuals whose job – perhaps more appropriately whose vocare / vocation – involves cultivating and maintaining intimate relationships with people, specifically those relationships that inherently demand in both parties a spiritual vulnerability and the highest level of personal trust. Any behavior that either exploits or violates that vulnerability or trust is highly problematic. If my carpenter wants to get drunk and swear at people on the street, have an affair with his neighbor’s wife, and dance the mambo naked in Central Park, as long as he’s a good carpenter that’s his business. But with a physician, therapist, priest – that would be a different story.
If indeed Fr. Corapi had a consensual sexual relationship with the woman, he should repent and be restored to ministry. I am becoming more and more convinced that mandatory clerical celibacy is a main problem in the Catholic Church. I think it is probably even the root of all sexual problems of many priests. If Fr. Corapi were allowed to love a woman and get married, we would not be having this scandal. Is it unbiblical for a priest to be married and be a good preacher of the Word of God? The Catholic Church should align more the Code Canon Law with Scriptures than in tradition, such as the tradition of clerical celibacy.
No one knows if Fr. Corapi is guilty as charged, but his actions indicate he is under alot of stress and has been for a while. And he has a history of addiction that he admits.
All the clerical issues aside, the Church needs to address a deeper problem now: the stress on the priesthood right now could lead to more men in the clergy falling into substance abuse. Priests often have 2 or 3 parishes to pastor in rural areas, and are burning the candle at both ends. Every priest has to be a kind of a “superstar”.
People are already drawing parallels between Fr. Corapi and Mel Gibson. This is justifiable, given the similarities: alcoholism, addiction, fame, the Hollywood mix and then later conversion and very effective Catholic evangelism. In Gibson’s case, probably only through the movie Passion of the Christ.
But let’s not forget that addiction is a very serious disease of mind, body and spirit, no matter who is afflicted. It makes anyone an easy target for destruction. Those who suffer from it need prayer and intervention, or at least a reminder that they are only human. Aren’t we all?
Totally agree with the need for prayers
But I don’t think we can criticize the Bishops either – they are so under fire that whatever they do, they are slaughtered by the media. We had a Bishop here who insisted on due process for his priests. He ended up being asked to resign after getting so stressed by the harassment -not only by the media but by the Atty Gen of this state who ignored a barrage of complaints (which were true) about a local abortionist to go after our Bishop, that in a state of ultra stress-out, when he hit a person in his car, he didn’t stop – just went home (police followed him there and arrested him and of course the media was there). He now has Parkinson’s but he never left the priesthood – he stayed in and endured the extreme humiliation which eventually died down and he still helps with Mass. I told him, he’s a role model for all of us – he appreciated that.
So if you are a Bishop, it’s darned if you do and darned if you don’t. If they do not almost over-quickly respond to a complaint of se/xual harrassment, they stand to be crucified. And if they do, same thing.
With John Corapi, it’s no one’s fault including his. Here is a possible scenario. He had a very quick overnight conversion (literally) and at his first confession after admittedly living a life of er… shall we say, wine, women and song, told the priest he had a vocation to the priesthood. The church should have waited and maybe the mainstream church DID tell him to wait – you know… to allow him to mature in the faith, to get involved in a parish ministry and wait. But John Corapi is a highly intelligent man and it became a challenge for him to get around the “due process” of waiting to test the vocation. He found a new religious order, so new they didn’t have a charter, and being a millionaire, (even before his settlement) he probably waved some serious bucks in front of their noses. To a poor struggling new order, well, you cannot blame them – they are human and Corapi was likely convincing. There are always exceptions. And for Corapi, it was perfect. He got in right away, got educated (he probably loved school – most intelligent folks do), got ordained and then, could continue living on his ranch in Montana because the priests in SOLT had to live off site. He was always a grandstander so loved the preaching. By his own admission, he did not often celebrate Mass or the Sacraments in his 20 years in the priesthood — mostly, he traveled and preached. But in 1994, when the order had built a monastary and started to call the priests back into cloister, Corapi ignored their call and they may have looked the other way because perhaps that monastery was built using the big bucks he was bringing in. Not right but they are just as human as John Corapi, right? Money especially if you don’t have it, is enticing. They said they were in the process of calling all the priests back, but Corapi might have suggested to them that they might cut off the “goose that laid the golden eggs” so they hesitated and looked past it. But John Corapi who had never really matured as a Christian let alone a priest, needed cloister, perhaps more than many others.
So why? Why was he ordained when he probably is not going to end up a priest? We cannot second guess God. But we know that God brings all good out things for those who love Him. For example, suppose it was to remind religious orders to NOT look to this world or compromise rules which are there for good reasons, for the sake of money. S.O.L.T. probably hurt themselves much more with this event than they would have, had they resisted temptation (and perhaps a nice donation and income) and told John Corapi to get involved in a parish and mature in the faith, because he had barely reverted let alone knew if he had a vocation.
And what about John Corapi. Well it isn’t his fault either. He manipulated which he had done before. He’s a brilliant man and an actor and a grandstander. Will he go to the “other place”? No way!!… there is the mercy of God but this might have been his chance to go “the second mile” and become a saint and he blew it, probably because he wasn’t even a mature Christian, let alone ready for what we Ignatian types call “the third degree of humility”. No big deal… not in the “first fruits of the resurrection” or the JP II / Mother Teresa group, he will, like the rest of us, go the usual way… life then some purgatory and in the end, we will all meet in Heaven.
Shame on all of us. Those of us who made a hero out of a very ordinary, talented but regular guy just reverting, those in the religious order who broke rules for likely a nice donation and paycheck and those of us who so blindly loved John Corapi’s charm (probably a lot more charm than our parish priests!) and his grandstanding that we ignored his unusually quick conversion and being fast tracked into the priesthood. Probably more shame on us than on John Corapi who really might not have known any better and probably STILL doesn’t know any better. He needs to grow as a Christian before he can preach to others.
Let us love. We are all climbing the mountain together and none of us would have a prayer of making it without Jesus dying on the cross for our Salvation. I cannot judge ANYONE in this situation… JMO…
Great insight from Sue. I agree completely about Fr. Corapi not spending enough time being discipled. This isn’t the first time a celebrity of sorts claims Christ as Savior and is immediately out and about in public testifying to his/her newfound faith. Even St. Paul spent three years in the desert studying the Scriptures and their relationship to Jesus, before he began his ministry.
In response to Bren Kryg:
Actually, there are MANY Protestant ministers who ARE married and fall into all the same sexual sins. Doing away with the celibate priesthood is not the answer. Sin is sin and Satan will do anything to tarnish the gospel. Protestant or Catholic, it is the vibrant faithful men that Satan takes down either through reputation-destroying allegations or actual sin.
The office of the priesthood is more exulted than that of marriage, although both Holy Orders and Matrimony are great goods; they are sacraments. Our secular culture acknowledges this and rightly demands more of priests.
The same leniency regarding Canon law—falsely so-called “being ‘pastoral'” or “‘charitable'”—that has caused the annulment crisis in the U.S. Catholic church is also weakening the effectiveness and authority of the Church’s disciplinary actions like excommunication.
“The United States has 6% of the world’s Catholics but grants 78% percent of the world’s annulments. In 1968 the Church there granted fewer than 600 annulments; from 1984 to 1994 it granted just under 59,000 annually.” (source: http://catholicinsight.com/online/church/divorce/c_annul.shtml )
“He that spareth the rod hateth his son” (Proverbs 13:24)
Here’s the thing: Both the Diocese of Corpus Christi and SOLT have said this has nothing to do with the “Dallas Charter,” and that it has only to do with charges that Fr. Corapi was engaging in improper conduct for a member of the SOLT. It has to do with their internal disciplines, and apparently they’ve been giving him a *LOT* of leeway. Rather than “They’re out to get me because I’m famous,” they’ve given him a lot more freedom than other SOLT members because he’s so famous.
As Mark Shea and other commentators have said, suspension pending investigation happens in *ANY* profession when a person is charged with misconduct. It happens to teachers, cops, etc.
GodsGadfly,
I refer you to Father Corapis initial statement in March:
“On Ash Wednesday I learned that a former employee sent a three-page letter to several bishops accusing me of everything from drug addiction to multiple sexual exploits with her and several other adult women. There seems to no longer be the need for a complaint to be deemed “credible” in order for Church authorities to pull the trigger on the Church’s procedure, which was in recent years crafted to respond to cases of the sexual abuse of minors. I am not accused of that, but it seems, once again, that they now don’t have to deem the complaint to be credible or not, and it is being applied broadly to respond to all complaints. I have been placed on “administrative leave” as the result of this.”
see the rest of the statement on Father’s website:
http://www.fathercorapi.com/Webpage.aspx?WebpageId=85&CategoryId=123
http://abyssum.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/here-is-a-valuable-canonical-insight-into-the-case-of-father-john-corapi/comment-page-1/#comment-87
Seems like the current Bishop of Corpus Christi isn’t following canon law..
A good overview I think. Pax Christi. Let’s pray for Fr. Corapi and the entire Church which is facing her toughest storm.
Where is his humility? Why was he allowed to have a business? Why is his autobiography already written? He has always been a pompous man! What
an ego