Fr Corapi controversy w Raymond Arroyo & Joan Frawley Desmond - 06-23-2011

I am not going to be involved in public ministry as a priest any longer so for now god bless you God love you and goodbye John karate once called father now simply the black sheep dog no doubt you've been following the sad and perplexing case of father John corapi in March of this year the power preacher who regularly appeared on this network was placed on administrative leave by his order in the wake of allegations of misconduct by one of his former employees an investigation was undertaken by his religious community salt the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity and just last week he announced as you heard on his website that he's leaving priestly ministry for so many of us who knew Father kuraby this is both a shock and a puzzlement let me say up front that none of us can speak to the veracity of the accusations against father corapi since we just don't have the information or all of it with this with his decision to leave priestly ministry however father corapi has effectively ended the internal investigation so we may never know whether he's innocent or guilty of these charges with so much chatter on the internet both pro and con we thought it important to bring you a reporter who's been covering the story since it broke she's one of the few people not offering opinion but fresh reportage she serves a senior editor of the National Catholic Register recently acquired by EWTN please welcome to the program Joan Frawley Desmond Joan thanks for staying for our aftershow up come let's get into the we talked about this a little in the broadcast I want to refresh people's memory father croppie had been asked to return to the community he'd been living in Montana and you spoke to the head of salt father Jerry Sheehan and he told you what father she and told me that they really wanted father corapi to come back into the community he felt that that would be the right thing for father corapi and the right thing for the community it was really something the community wanted and he also thought father karati would benefit from um now I've really heard two things and as I said earlier this is this story is breaking we're still getting new information and a lot of things could happen in the next period we really don't know one thing two things I have come to know in the last week or so since the announcement when I first spoke with father Sheehan he told me that one issue which had come up was this collision over the investigation that there was a civil suit that had been filed previous to father's more recent decision filed against the person who had leveled this allegation against father so that civil suit was there that had started okay then we have the canonical investigation which was initiated by the order so that's starting well apparently an issue is under canon law you cannot have any pressure brought to bear on witnesses so they can fully and freely express all the facts and opinions that they have you know as a proper witness and so father Sheehan initially told me last week that this was a problem so there was a collision it meant for father corapi according to father Sheehan he said the father croppie felt his civil rights could not be properly exercised because then the witnesses that were involved in the civil suit would then be talking to the canonical investigator anyway it's complicated but the result is that that was a problem well they're assigned the witnesses and the accusers apparently signed non-disclosure agreements when working for father crappies media company sorry I should have clarified that point so that created a problem they were worried that they had violated or would violate this non-disclosure agreement and in fact the primary witness who was been who was also the same person who was now being sued she had according to Father karate violated this non-disclosure agreement that was a whole nature of the civil suit so you have that problem and then you have additional witnesses who had also signed a nondisclosure agreement so you have that going on how do the canonical investigators proceed so that created a bit of a problem and then finally father coffee according to his Canon lawyers and civil lawyers felt his civil rights could not be properly exercised so basically again he doesn't specify in the pyramid quote this yeah where he says on his website again my canonical and civil lawyers have concluded that I cannot receive a fair and just hearing under the church's present process now if this are is if this is Father Brown an unknown priest from the hinterlands I might buy this an on this show I've said repeatedly there are a number of priests and I could give you a list of them who have been unjustly accused of things and the process drags on and sometimes they're never clear they just sit there in limbo but when you have a public high public profile priest like father Groppi why wouldn't he stay and fight particularly if he's innocent to the charges I think that's the question many of his supporters have and I think they're confused they're wondering they're confused and honestly when you look at it there's not a lot of facts about it to hold on to I think you know we're in a litigious environment we're an environment we're also proper respect for privacy and these issues are important so you have those two playing a role here I think it's very difficult to get to the bottom of all of this from you know you can ask one person you can ask another person and it's hard to get all the information of the bottom line is he's leaving priestly ministry yeah I know it's upsetting to a lot of people yeah let's talk about the moniker that he's set up for himself some people have described it even in emails here you know they said what is what is this superhero alter ego that father Groppi seems to have assumed for himself the black sheep dog what are your thoughts on this well I've mostly been looking on the sites to see what people think looking at emails I went on his his site the black sheep dog to see what people said now I'm sure there's a whole spectrum of responses but I was just curious what people thought and it seems like number one black sheep dog aside people are concerned about him leaving the a stud or appearing to leave the priesthood and father Jerry Sheehan does make the point he is as father to reconfirm this decision I think he still has some doubts and on Father's site today I believe it was there was a post saying well once a priest always a priest so it seems like there is I'm not exactly what but I would say it's a little hard to get your hands wrapped around what's happening moving target here with this but anyways so people are saying first father please stay in the priesthood you know and then I saw a really touching a touching pose I think it was and ended up on YouTube but it appeared on one of the Deacon sites and these were from three people who had worked with him it was produced by st. Joseph's communication and one was a former bodyguard who had been touched by Father and very deeply moved spiritually and then two were people at st. Joseph's communications well you know they all said father we want you to stay and you know you're talking about the spiritual battleground stay and fight don't don't walk away from this however painful it may be so people what I'm getting the message of as far as their understanding of the black sheep dog I'm getting more I'm getting negative feedback on the black sheep dog to some degree I know my email is also the yeah people don't know they that some some people a good number of our respondents say it looks demonic and you see those eyes we had them up earlier yeah I mean that's their first takeaway I mean it's not a warm fuzzy image it's not afford for these and then you feel like a black sheep a black sheep dog it's like are they where's that black sheep dog taking people you know where is that where is that going but that's just a you know that's a question I don't know the answer but I think mostly people are concerned about him returning to the fight stained and being a priest and continuing his very important work in some capacity and it's hard to know right now I do want to mention Raymond there was a second thing the first was the collision over the canonical and civil issue there was a second thing the father Jerry then brought up in the formal statement that salt issued there they said father they expressed concern about his you know like as a mental emotional spiritual state they said he was under distress that he had written a letter saying he was under distress so that was part two we wrote first story online we just wrapped up our print edition and that second statement will be in the print edition and that will get priority as the public statement but basically saying there seems to be and and and Raymond who in in public life the role that he has is not under pressure all of us in public life you're going to be attacked event of accusations made against you I mean I've had them other people have had but in my case in the case of friends of mine you stand your ground you clear your name and you go through the process is it ugly yes it's part of being in the public eye uh is it uncomfortable yes do people say horrible things welcome to the club so there's a part of me that feels uh that that's part of the game and I think father knows that he certainly you know he's smart enough to realize that that's part of the slings and arrows of public life so we'll see how this turns out and what his next move is which will be interesting you know we don't plan on becoming the you know father John crappy news service here but that it'll be interesting to see what happens in the coming days Joan probably does thank you for being here for all your great work you can read Joan's columns that Nancy register.com and thanks for staying on our world over after show I'm Raymond Arroyo we'll see you next time bye now Oh

Channel: EWTN

Views: 576,248

Rating: 4.4954615 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic., priest, Corapi, Arryoro, National. register, newspaper, Catholic

Id: -YNzumJLKcM

Length: 10min 28sec (628 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 24 2011