more california candor

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Oct 14, 2005

The Log Cabin Dominicans of St. Albert's Priory, Oakland, incensed their neighbors last year by warehousing seven sex abusers on its grounds without alerting the community. They have just issued a press release intended to smother the firestorm that followed, aimed particularly at a pair of articles in the San Francisco Faith unflattering to their claims of openness, candor, and responsible supervision. While they insinuate errors are abroad because of information supplied by "disaffected" former Dominicans, they correct nothing of substance, and indeed corroborate the SFF account.

For example, the SFF quoted a neighbor who'd attended a carefully scripted damage-control meeting at the Priory on December 14, 2004:

"[The Dominican superiors] spoke about one of the men falling in love with a girl and running away with her several years ago, but I assumed that all the others are there because of pedophilia and there was not much further distinction made. The people there wanted names and photographs because they have children and want to protect them, and that was denied."

The recent press release proves this assumption -- i.e., of a misdirection play -- was essentially correct. One abuser got in trouble with a girl and the others all hit on boys -- though most victims were post-pubertal and their abusers therefore not pedophiles but rather Thinking Catholics. The issue of the Bangkok-bound friar had also raised some hackles at the December meeting ...

"Around 8:30, the subject came up about a priest asking permission of Corral to go to Bangkok. It was denied, and he went anyway. That really blew the lid off things, that he was able to go anyway. Everyone wants to know where he got the money, and he obviously didn't go there for priestly duties. It got a little acrimonious after that.

... to which the Dominicans now respond as follows:

[The case of Fr. Leo Tubbs] involved an allegation of non-genital touching over clothing of a 14 to 17 year old male 20 years ago. Because of some other instances of boundary violations with adults and because of disobedience issues since that time not relating to sexual misconduct (including accusations of an unauthorized trip to Thailand), this friar is now not permitted to leave the residence unattended or without permission. He has no public ministry, nor does he have contact with youngsters.

The trip to Thailand that this friar took was in order to visit the family of a friend who was undergoing investiture as a Buddhist monk. While in Thailand, the friar visited with his friend and his friend's family during the family's celebration of the monk's investiture into the Buddhist religious life. There is no indication that the friar engaged in inappropriate activity while in Thailand.

"To visit the family of a friend ..." Couldn't he send a post-card? One notes the profound concern for penitential reparation on the part of Fra Leo's superiors. Recall how often we're told by the St. Luke Squad that it's better to keep sex offenders in Church institutions where they receive supervision and therapy rather than "throw them out on the streets" where they wouldn't be monitored and they'd have to buy their own ride to Bangkok.

The OPs put in content filtering on their IT system, though. Progress!