The Bishop of Oakland has put a Danville pastor on leave after learning he let an itinerant priest who was removed from ministry over a child abuse accusation in another diocese celebrate Mass and sacraments at St. Isidore Parish.
In a Sept. 21 letter to parishioners read at Mass last weekend, Bishop Michael C. Barber said he learned last week from another diocese’s disclosure reported by this news organization that “Father Patrick Foley was removed from priestly ministry due to inappropriate behavior with children.”
He said it “also was brought to my attention that Father Foley celebrated Mass and other sacraments at St. Isidore” without having received a “letter of suitability” from the diocese in violation of the Catholic Church’s national protocols.
The bishop said he has “ordered an investigation of how this violation could have taken place” and that the parish pastor, the Rev. Gerry Moran, “has been placed on administrative leave from the parish so that the investigation can proceed in a totally independent manner.”
The San Diego diocese earlier this month added names to a list of disgraced priests compiled originally as part of court proceedings in 2007. Among those named was Foley, who had left the San Diego diocese in the early 1990s but remained under its authority. While working in the Sacramento area in 2010, he was accused of molesting two boys and brought before a church tribunal.
The boys didn’t testify and the tribunal was inconclusive, the San Diego diocese said. The diocese briefly restored Foley’s priestly faculties in 2012, but after a new bishop took over in San Diego, he permanently removed Foley from ministry in August 2015.
Foley, however, continued to offer himself up as a priest, maintaining a website that describes himself as an “itinerant papist preacher” based in Sacramento. In addition to celebrating Mass at St. Isidore’s, he has led spiritual retreats throughout northern California, including in Danville and Soquel. He did not respond to phone and email requests for comment about the allegations.
In his letter to parishioners, Barber said that “as of today, we are not aware of any children or vulnerable adults being harmed in any way by Father Foley.” He urged anyone who knows otherwise to call police.
For now, Barber said that “Father Moran remains a priest of the diocese and is able to celebrate the sacraments elsewhere” while the investigation is ongoing. But he will not live at the St. Isidore rectory, celebrate sacraments there or comment publicly during that time, Barber said.
The bishop appointed the Rev. Paul Schmidt as the “temporary administrator” at St. Isidore and said the investigation will be conducted “in as timely a manner as possible” and its results reported to parishioners.
“As your bishop I apologize for the scandal this unauthorized invitation of a sanctioned priest has caused you,” Barber told parishioners in the letter. “I will do everything in my power to make sure it never happens again.”
Full story at Mercury News.
Any priest who poses like Fr. Foley did for that photo is highly suspicious in my book. I’d have nothing to do with him and I wouldn’t let my boys near him.
Don’t these guys have a central place to determine who is ‘in good standing’?
Why did the new San Diego Bishop terminate Fr Foley in 2015?
Lots of unanswered questions.
I think it is correct to say Father Moran is a member of the modernist movement in the Church that we were warned about by Pope Saint Pius X and Pius XI. This movement is the group that took over Vatican II and has caused the turmoil the Church is now experiencing. Father Foley, a long time friend of Father Moran, has given frequent talks at Saint Isidores that are not in keeping with Catholic Church teaching.
But thank goodness the pastor didn’t burn a rainbow banner.
The Rev. J. Patrick Foley. While attached to the San Diego diocese, Foley has been living in Northern California since 1991. In 2010, he was suspended from ministry pending a church trial on charges that he had abused two Sacramento-area boys, whose parents had been friends of the priest.
The canonical trial ended in January 2011 without a clear verdict. “He wasn’t guilty,” said Rodrigo Valdivia, the San Diego diocese’s vice-moderator of the curia, “but that’s not to say he was innocent.” His priestly faculties were restored until McElroy removed them in August 2015.
What issue of PQ (Priests’ Quarterly) did the good father pose for in that picture?
And my associates wonder why I am a Nazi in demanding letters of good standing and celebrets from visiting priests. I left this article on the dining room table for them to read, weep and learn. Reminds me of Voltaire’s Candide and the book’s description of the hanging of British Admiral Byng: “”In this country, it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.”
Good for Bishop Barber!
If the pastor let the itinerant priest say Mass without getting the proper paperwork and clearance first, then the pastor is indeed at fault. Sacraments are serious business. Pastors should know better. if it was an oversight by the pastor, that’s one thing and can be forgiven. if the pastor did this on the sly knowing who the priest is and hoping that the bishop wouldn’t find out, then the pastor needs to be forced into retirement.
The article says that Bishop Barber said that Fr. Moran said Mass at St. Isidore’s “without having received a “letter of suitability” from the diocese in violation of the Catholic Church’s national protocols. This seems to be the core reason the pastor who allowed him to say Mass at his parish is being investigated.
Then it quotes the bishop as saying “Father Moran remains a priest of the diocese and is able to celebrate the sacraments elsewhere” One sentence seems to contradict the other.
Angry Bob: I was thinking the same thing about the photo. That is not a holy priest, the way he is presenting himself is inappropriate.
I think Angry Bob nails it.
A picture really can be worth a thousand words.