On May 30, 2026, the day I posted the essay Bulwark for the Siege about abuses in the early days of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Pope Leo XIV met with Charis International, an organization which unified Catholic charismatics under the pontificate of Pope Francis, who referred to the charismatic movement as “a current of grace for the whole Church”. I did not know Pope Leo XIV was meeting with international charismatic members on that day, but it was providential for my own understanding of the dissonance between abuses in the United States during the early days and the present state of the movement.

At the inauguration of Charis in 2019, Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa acknowledged that the charismatic movement has not been able to clearly define itself, describing it as “a river that carves out its own bed as it moves forward”. He also called the early efforts to establish a strict way of life “unfortunate”. The original members of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in the United States— like Ralph Martin, Steve Clark, and Kevin Ranaghan— are not and never have been members of Charis International. Both Ranaghan and Clark recently passed away. Martin, who runs Renewal Ministries, was vocal about his opposition to Pope Francis, who organized Charis International.

Cantalamessa, whose collected homilies I have enjoyed and learned much from, reminds me that the Charismatic Catholic Renewal of 1975 in the Midwest is likely a different organization than what exists today internationally. Pope Francis encountered the charismatic movement as a bishop in Argentina and slowly began to appreciate the Catholic life he saw develop from its members. Pope Leo XIV spent years as an Augustinian monk in Peru, where the Catholic charismatic movement has been quite successful. It is important for me to keep this in mind when I hear him praise the “spiritual vitality” of a movement which extends beyond the borders of the United States—and even further beyond the borders of the Midwest. It is too easy for Catholics of any locality to have a vision of the Church which is restricted to a neighborhood, and in the United States, American Catholics are guilty of this shortsighted vision quite often. I don’t want to fall prey to that, and so I fully acknowledge that Pope Leo has seen and experienced a movement of faith and conversion in a place and among a people about whom I know very little.

In his address to Charis on May 30, Pope Leo XIV referred to each of his predecessors’ responses to charismatic Catholics, ending with Pope Saint Paul VI’s address to the International Conference of Charismatics in 1975. He referred to Pope Paul VI’s affirmation of the necessity of a “witness of spiritual renewal”. The 1975 conference and papal affirmation overshadowed testimonies of abuse within the CCR that were, even in that moment, sitting on bishops’ desks throughout the United States. There’s dissonance in that moment, and I found myself, on May 30 of this year, trying to reconcile the papal response to the charismatic movement with the fruit of it here in Steubenville.

Perhaps the answer is plainly there in the papal response.

The Parable of the Good Seed (Matthew 13:24-30)

The parable of the good seed is, like most of Christ’s parables told in the Gospels, befuddling. The seeds are planted, flower and grow alongside the weeds. It would be intuitive to extract the weeds, which can choke the wheat or spread infestation and disease. Yet Christ cautions against pulling out the weeds lest the wheat also be uprooted.

I often forget this parable exists until I hear it on a Sunday; I most often think of the Parable of the Sower when I think of the Gospel as scattered seed. In both parables, the driving message is that Christ is generous with the Gospel. He neither counts the cost nor calculates success.

Pope Paul VI alluded to the parable of the good seed on October 10, 1973 when he addressed leaders of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. While his message was mostly encouraging, he cautioned that in times of renewal “weeds may be found among the good seed” and therefore “a work of discernment is indispensable”^[1]. This discernment, Pope Paul VI adds, should be provided by the Church—by her priests and bishops.

This caution was significant to a movement powered by laity, a movement that was inspired by the Second Vatican Council which stressed the priesthood of all believers and involvement of laity, something that Cardinal Josef Suenens of Brussels-Malines supported as one of the four Cardinals who moderated the Council in 1963. Suenens would become the Catholic Charismatic Renewal’s Vatican champion and would plan, along with the leaders of the CCR movement, the 1975 gathering in Rome.

Described as “taciturn but brilliant” by the New York Times, Cardinal Suenens survived World War II as somewhat of a clerical hero after he “circumvented, when he did not openly defy, many German directives” and would have been killed by the Nazis along with thirty other hostages had it not been for the liberation of Belgium. By the Second Vatican Council in 1963, Suenens would come to be known as the “highest-ranking rebel in the Roman Church” and “strongest progressive voice”, especially after opening the Council’s debate on birth control with a suggestion that the Church “reexamine its whole approach”.^[2]

In 1969, Cardinal Suenens vocalized criticisms of the Catholic Church through an interview in The Tablet, a weekly publication in Rome. He questioned “archaic customs” within the central administrative body of the Church, insisting that “the Curia must be accessible to genuine dialogue” like a healthy family.^[3] His suggestions sound more like a synodal Church which Pope Francis initiated and Pope Leo XIV continues. But at that time, Suenen’s criticisms and suggestions were considered part of Pope Paul VI’s mourning of a “lessened sense of doctrinal orthodoxy” within the Church.^[4]

It’s hard to believe that such a progressive voice would become the CCR’s Vatican representative. At least in the United States, the CCR, having risen from the Protestant Pentecostal movement, would align itself with the more fundamentalist teachings of Protestantism, such as male headship and generational sin. But in the early days of the movement, an excitement about the charisms of the Holy Spirit aligned with Suenen’s vision of a “more democratic decision making”^[5] within the Catholic Church.

However, between the 1973 visit to Rome by CCR leaders and the 1975 CCR International Conference, some within the CCR movement argued that Cardinal Suenens and other Church leaders had been manipulated, that the side of the Renewal they were allowed to see by leaders was “carefully orchestrated”^[6]. Bord and Faulkner, in their book Catholic Charismatics, describe how when members of the CCR needed to interact with those on the outside, “only the most articulate, attractive, and impeccably well-behaved Pentecostals were selected” for interaction and “were told which topics to discuss and which to avoid”.^[7]

This kind of design for a “desired image” was more elaborate for Cardinal Suenen’s visit to University of Notre Dame in 1973. Bord and Faulkner describe “a loose but effective protective ring of bodies” shielding the Cardinal from “persons deemed by the leadership to be intrusive or unacceptable” (ibid). Yet, Bord and Faulkner go on to argue that, despite the planned “artificial environment” created for the cardinal, Suenens had “long been a proponent of shared responsibility in the church” between the clergy and laity.

Whether he was duped or not, Suenens was decidedly supportive of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and worked with CCR leaders for over a year to prepare for the international Conference in 1975. He would claim that he owed a “renewal of spiritual youth” to the movement, “a more tangible hope, and the joy of seeing impossible things become possible”.^[8]

Cardinal Suenens, in the enthusiasm of his support, would react defensively to criticisms of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. While he had once accused a Vatican newspaper of report bias concerning Church controversies, remarking, “If you only hear one bell, you are only hearing one sound; there are times when one prefers to hear a carillon,”^[9] he would reject a “carillon” of opinions when it came to the CCR. He would reject criticisms, even when these criticisms were founded on members’ personal experiences, citing them as biased, unfounded, or willful misunderstandings. In the wake of his “tangible hope”, he would try and protect the CCR from negative press.

In May of 1975, an interview with Notre Dame professor, Dr. William Storey, was published in A.D. Correspondence by John L. Reedy, C.S.C., a bi-weekly religious newsletter from the publisher of Ave Maria Press at the University of Notre Dame. It was “a public, radical, negative criticism” of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal which came as a surprise to Reedy, who had interviewed Dr. Storey about the CCR three years earlier.

Reedy precludes the interview with a startling statement: “The interview which takes up most of this issue is probably the most significant article I have published in my 22 years as an editor.” And while he encourages Storey’s criticisms to be “investigated carefully” and “tested for validity”, he acknowledges Storey’s significance within the movement. Reedy identifies Storey as “a person who is informed, who possesses the scholarly credentials” and has “in the past been sympathetic and supportive of the movement”, which lends credence to his evaluation.

But Storey was not just sympathetic towards the movement; he was one of its founders.

Storey opposes the Movement’s supernaturalism, misleading terminology, rash exorcisms, and elitism

Dr. William Storey, an Associate Professor of Liturgy and Church History at Notre Dame University, was one of the professors who was “baptized in the Holy Spirit” at a retreat at Duquense University in 1967, the retreat credited with the birth of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Storey returned to the University of Notre Dame, excited by charisms like healing and speaking in tongues. Several years later, in his first interview with John Reedy, Storey would describe the CCR as “a prayer movement within the Church” with a focused “concern for scripture” and “openness to God’s inspiration”. Even by then, Storey recognized “a tendency toward literal, almost superstitious use of biblical texts”, which was an influence of Protestant brethren within the movement. He also questioned the developing leadership, which seemed parallel but separate from the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. By 1975, Storey had quietly removed himself from the movement because of these concerns.

Once True House, a charismatic covenant community in South Bend, disbanded in scandal with rumors of abuse, Storey’s concerns grew more acute.

And when he heard of the CCR’s preparations for an international gathering in Rome and a hoped-for audience with Pope Paul VI, he wrote to the bishop of South Bend, Bishop Pursley, in which he expressed concern that the pope would “both be led astray personally and be in grave danger of misleading the Church as a whole” should he explicitly bless the movement. Storey encouraged a canonical and theological investigation. He specifically expressed concern about “the Movement’s supernaturalism, its strange and misleading terminology in regard to tongues, prophecy, baptism in the Spirit… its rash and unwarranted use of exorcisms, its fundamentalist and superstitious use of the Holy Scriptures… and its elitism.”^[10]

It was sobering to read Storey’s concerns in 1975, as these would be the same concerns that arose in Bishop Ottenweller’s report in 1991 of Steubenville’s charismatic community, Servants of Christ the King. Some of Storey’s concerns would also reappear as cultural norms within systemic abuse at Franciscan University in the police investigation of 2021 following charges of sexual battery against Fr. David Morrier, TOR.

Of all the alleged prophets of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Dr. William Storey, in his letter to Bishop Pursley, delivers a prophetic warning of the CCR movement’s “dangerous tendencies”. He wisely writes, “If it is truly of God, it will not be harmed by a top-level theological investigation,” echoing the response to Christ’s Apostles by the Pharisee, Gamaliel, in Acts of Apostles: “But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men.”^[11]

In a letter dated April 7, 1975, Bishop Pursley responds to Dr. Storey by admitting that he is “aware of the dangers” of the CCR movement and refers to it as a “difficult problem, made more difficult by the appearance of high prelates in the Church in connection with the movement”.^[12] On that same day, Bishop Pursley sent a letter to Jean Cardinal Villot, who at that time served as Vatican Secretary of State, and included the testimonials from former True House members gathered by Storey, which detailed abuse of authority and invasive exorcisms within the CCR movement.

In the meantime, Fr. Killian McDonnell, OSB, a Benedictine priest heavily involved with the CCR movement, wrote to Bishop Pursley that while he did not “doubt that many of the accusations in the documents were true” and believed that a theological commission examining the teachings of the CCR “would be welcomed by the national leaders”, he also implied that even the testimonials were not enough to discourage the pope’s involvement.^[13]

Fr. McDonnell, OSB would be celebrated by the end of his life as having worked diligently towards Christian unity. In the spirit of Vatican II, he worked in ecumenical outreach, and the Catholic Charismatic Renewal was a part of that vision. Like Cardinal Suenens, McDonnell was undoubtedly excited by the work of the CCR in drawing together Protestants and Catholics alike under a Pentecostal umbrella. Their dismissal of testimonies of abuse within the movement as anomalies was foolishly optimistic. In 1975, as leaders of the CCR prepared to meet in Rome for papal recognition and blessing, the movement was not even a decade old and had already raised major concerns.

Dr. William Storey’s concerns became public in his interview with John Reedy. Storey spells it out plainly:

“Trends encouraged and established by the national leadership have contributed to abuses and conditions which constitute very serious dangers, theological errors and patterns of religious response which cannot be reconciled with authentic Catholic tradition.”

Storey allows the movement some grace in the rapidity at which it grew, which forced quick organization that, by 1975, had become “big business”. The executive committee— “a very select, closed group”— united members by controlling ideas through the control of materials. “Only certain books, certain authors and tapes by certain speakers are to be distributed,” Storey said, while “others are to be avoided.”

When Reedy asked Storey to elaborate on his concern of authoritarianism within the movement, Storey described a phenomenon that contributes to Protestant church splits, wherein disagreements result in fracture:

“It is rooted in the fundamental notion of direct reliance on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit even in deciding routine, ordinary details. I see it as a complete dismissal of the notion that God often guides us through secondary causes. Well, if you attribute everything within the movement to the direct working of the Holy Spirit, then there’s obviously no need to be concerned about checks and controls within your organization… The only option for those who disagree is to resign from the leadership.”

Storey insists that this problem was built into the whole system. Spirit-inspired control was at play within the executive committee all the way down to individual prayer groups.

For example, that “confessional matter” could become “a subject of open conversation” was a grave accusation made by Storey as this behavior breaks the seal of confession if it is committed by a priest. Yet Storey explains that members’ sins were revealed and discussed by fellow members with “astonishing openness” (while true scandal, like that of Jim Byrne of True House, was concealed). This reminded me of Fr. David Morrier’s reputation as the “pamphlet priest”; the pamphlets were color-coded corresponding to specific sins so fellow students could presume what their peers had confessed.

As Bord and Faulkner would discuss in their book Catholic Charismatics years later, Storey points out how eagerly the movement sought acceptance from Church hierarchy. He admits how inspiring it might be for a bishop to find a group of people “praying enthusiastically and joyfully”, and how he may not be inclined to “examine the phenomenon very carefully”. And yet, as Bord and Faulkner also discussed, Storey adds that a visiting bishop would only see what had been planned for him to see.

The Wheat

This tactic on the part of CCR leaders was successful. The International Conference for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal would go forward as planned in May of 1975 with supportive cardinals and bishops on the Feast of Pentecost. As Ralph Martin reported in New Covenant, “Ten thousand people were singing in the Spirit within the walls of St. Peter’s; prophecies were being spoken from the main altar”.^[14] These 10,000 attendees gathered from 50 countries; talks at sessions were given in multiple languages. It was an organizational miracle and an apparent new Pentecost. Descriptions of the event are inspiring to read: the faithful throng breaking out into joyful praise, pick-pocketers being treated mercifully and returning goods of their own accord, children distractedly picking poppies in a nearby field.

Pope Paul VI’s warning two years before about allowing clergy to help discern within the movement may have appeared to have been addressed. There were several priests from all over the world, including Fr. Michael Scanlan, at the International Conference in Rome, teaching, preaching, saying Mass, and hearing confessions.

Just a month before, however, Bishop Pursley of South Bend was corresponding with both Kevin Ranaghan and Steve Clark, leaders of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, about the scandal—or what CCR leaders referred to as a “moral situation”—at True House. Pursley was befuddled and disappointed as to how he had been kept in the dark about the abuses occurring in True House. As a shepherd, he felt a responsibility towards the care of his sheep. Though Ranaghan and Clark offered excuses, each CCR leader passed responsibility to another, and in the end, it was clear that Pursley was purposely uninformed. Bishop Ottenweller would echo Pursley’s befuddlement decades later in Steubenville, Ohio, when he realized Fr. Michael Scanlan had not kept him informed about reports of abuse in the charismatic covenant community within Ottenweller’s bishopric.

These same CCR leaders who concealed abuse from their local bishop gathered with other bishops and cardinals in Rome to hear Pope Paul VI address the attendees of the International Conference on Pentecost Monday.^[15] The pope acknowledged the movement’s significance in the world: “Nothing is more necessary to this more and more secularized world than the witness of this ‘spiritual renewal’ that we see the Holy Spirit evoking in the most diverse regions and milieux”. He praised it as a “chance” for the church and the world. Then he offered guidance on how “to ensure it remains so”. In fact, Pope Paul VI’s message gives the impression that, even if he had not heard about the specific abuses in South Bend, he was well aware of the movement’s weaknesses.

First, Pope Paul VI cautioned the movement from “ever-possible deviations” and to hold fast to authentic Catholic teaching. He went so far as to insist that the movement needed deeper doctrinal formation, a recognition of the movement’s connection to Pentecostalism.

Secondly, he encouraged the movement to receive all spiritual gifts with gratitude, especially “those most useful for the community”. The CCR had already put an inordinate value on the gift of prophecy and healing, while the gift of knowledge had been discouraged (Notre Dame students were encouraged to lower their GPAs as an act of humility) and counsel— also a gift of the Spirit—had been ignored.

Pope Paul VI left them with this final suggestion: “No matter how desirable spiritual goods are—and they are desirable—only the love of charity, agape, makes the Christian perfect.”

In his address in Italian, Pope Paul VI alluded to why his heart had warmed to the CCR movement. He said, “Today, either one lives one’s faith with devotion, depth, energy, and joy or that faith will die out.” No one could doubt the energy and joy of the charismatics in Rome, as even bishops at one point joined in dance during a praise and worship session.^[16]

The Weeds

When the CCR Service Committee returned to the United States, Kevin Ranaghan released a statement^[17] on May 30 in response to learning that “sweeping criticisms” of the CCR were sitting on bishops’ desks throughout the country following the publication of Storey’s interview in AD Correspondence. Bishop Pursley was responsible for this widespread communication. In a letter dated May 24, 1975^[18], Pursley writes to Storey to tell him he has sent copies of Storey’s interview to bishops throughout the country, as well as many in Rome. Though, he adds, “I have had no response.”

Ranaghan’s statement displays the CCR leaders’ takeaway from the International Conference and Pope Paul VI’s response. He insists that “the warm welcome given us by the Holy Father… ought to be reassuring to all Catholics”. He addresses Storey’s concerns by admitting that the CCR is “large and fluid” as well as “broad, diverse, and considerably unorganized”, and as such, problems and differences of vision inevitably arise.

But then Kevin Ranaghan attempts to address the situation at True House, and Storey’s suggestion that details were concealed from Bishop Pursley. Ranaghan calls Storey’s statement “so misleading as to be erroneous”. Correspondence between Ranaghan, Clark, Fr. McDonnell, and Bishop Pursley prove that it is Ranaghan’s claim that is erroneous. Ranaghan also insists that coercion of conscience and the Pentecostal-influenced ‘breakthrough ministry’ “have never been widespread in the Catholic charismatic renewal and do not presently exist”. A testimonial from True House contradicts this very presumption.

Former True House member, Francis Hittinger, writes in his testimony received and dispersed by Bishop Pursley:

“The rite of exorcism and the rubrick [sic] of ‘healing of memories’ are used frequent in [other] communities… The primary difference in the tact employed by True-House and other groups is one of style rather than substance… I would suggest that even a perfunctory survey of groups in this country will reveal: the use of exorcism, healing of memories, and absolute authority on the part of men who use these methods.”

Though Ranaghan would seemingly dismiss Hittinger’s experience and knowledge, from what was revealed through the police investigation into Franciscan University in 2021, Ranaghan was wrong and Hittinger was correct: “breakthrough ministry” was present and would continue both in the covenant communities and their spiritual successors, like Franciscan University.

It is worth noting that Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR is listed in Ranaghan’s statement as a member of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Service Committee. He, therefore, would have been aware of the abuses already present within the movement which he then continued in his Steubenville community. I do want to give Scanlan credit for making the Eucharist the center of the community in Steubenville, the lack of which had been one of Storey’s criticisms of earlier communities. But Scanlan continued deliverance ministry; in fact, it was a hallmark of the conferences Franciscan University sponsored, as well as spiritual life on campus.

Ranaghan’s statement does not address the allegations of abuse, except to insist abuse was not widespread. He generally accuses Storey of making ill-founded accusations.

The CCR’s assumption of complete and total Vatican support did not put a full-stop to criticisms as they hoped. Rick Casey at the National Catholic Reporter would release a series of articles before the year was out describing life within charismatic covenant communities, activities among leaders, and aspects of the business behind it. The first article, released mid-August, opens with the question, “Will church investigate covenanted communities?” and points out that CCR leaders consider the personal testimonies from True House alleging abuse to be “exaggerated and distorted”. If you’ve been following this series, this response to abuse should sound familiar.

Pope Paul VI’s address in 1975 at the International Conference in Rome, while encouraging, was hardly a broad acceptance of the movement. He was loving and gentle, like a good shepherd, and offered valid suggestions that, looking back, would reappear in bishops’ investigations of charismatic covenant communities.

Pope Paul VI’s response to the CCR was a Gospel-inspired effort to accept the weeds alongside the wheat, as he alluded to two years before the International Conference. In the CCR’s enthusiasm and desperation to be given a Vatican stamp of approval, the pope’s warnings were lost amidst the encouragement. His warnings were dismissed alongside Storey’s concerns and testimonies of True House abuse. Jim Byrne, the abusive leader of True House who would later relocate to the Mother of God community in Maryland, was given $5,000 out of the CCR budget to leave quietly (which would be equivalent to $30,000 today) and few would know until the records were publicized.^[19] The alleged victims would be passed off by Kevin Ranaghan, who approved Byrne’s payout, as “exaggerated and distorted”.

I understand the charismatic movement has impacted and rejuvenated faith in many Christians’ lives. I assume the Church, in her wisdom, knew that a suppression of the charismatic movement would have alienated faithful Catholics and snuffed out an excitement within the Church that the Roman curia had hoped for in the wake of Vatican II. But the weeds of abuse— and deflection of responsibility—adversely affected the faith of many others. It’s difficult to measure. I don’t pretend to understand why the Church chooses to suppress the movements it suppresses while allowing others to breathe and flourish.

Sitting where I do in Steubenville, Ohio, in the shadow of abuse at Franciscan University amidst the elitism of a Catholic community, I would say the CCR should have been thoroughly investigated in 1975. I would argue that Cardinal Suenens, in his excitement and hope, ignored substantial weaknesses and forged ahead with blinders on. He would refer to the “Storey dossier”—which, remember, included testimonies of abuse—as a “grave lack of justice and charity”. He also insisted “criticism done in such a way does not construct, but destroys”.^[20] The long game for the renewal would prove the opposite: ignoring the criticism and testimonies of abuse early on in the movement would be destructive, at least in my corner of the world, which casts a beacon of influence into the Catholic Church in the United States.

Perhaps the most disturbing concern Storey mentions in his interview with Reedy would affect Franciscan University decades later. He drew a parallel between the CCR and Protestant fundamentalism, with influence by Protestants like Dan Basham and Derek Prince, both of whom were fascinated with demonology and saw “the devil everywhere” (Storey’s phrasing). Basham and Prince would inspire the ‘breakthrough sessions’ (invasive and at times violent exorcisms) at True House, and the CCR-accepted ‘deliverance ministry’, which would lead to the spiritual abuse of students at Franciscan University and eventual sexual abuse as well. Storey pointed out a fact that many Catholics even now forget: exorcisms are “a very rare occurrence” that are “always under episcopal authority”.

I want to respect the Church’s wisdom in allowing weeds to grow among the wheat. The charismatic movement as an organization would weed itself out. The covenant communities in the United States were strong for only one generation. Steubenville’s Catholic population continues to diminish at a faster rate than its general population. Pope Paul VI’s warnings have proved to matter, and the bishops’ interventions helped correct abuses. It was less a plucking of the weeds and more of a nurturing the wheat.

Storey’s concerns of supernaturalism, misleading terminology, rash exorcisms, and elitism continue at Franciscan University

I do not want Franciscan University to fail any more than I would want the Catholic Charismatic Renewal to be suppressed, especially if the Church has called it good and bishops have tried to correct abuses. Yet the abuse within Franciscan University is strangely protected because it is run by an order over which hierarchical jurisdiction is precarious. What helped to refine the Catholic Charismatic Renewal—hierarchical oversight and gentle shepherding—is not active at Franciscan University. The University is in need of either hierarchal oversight or a strong response from laity demanding accountability. And while they, like the early leaders of the CCR, court Catholic journalists and hierarchy—while they wine, dine, and hear confessions for wealthy, influential organizations like the Napa Institute— I fear nothing will change.

In 2026, under a new pope, charismatic Catholics were encouraged by Pope Leo XIV in the words he borrowed from his predecessors. He also echoed their concerns put forth in their practical suggestions:

“Put yourselves at the service of the dioceses and parishes, offering your experience and methods of evangelization. Faithfully follow the guidance of your priests; and, in your communal discernment, listen to the voices of wise people, even if they do not belong to your groups.”^[21]

This advice is the fruit that flowers out of early abuses within the CCR movement, which sought to form their own non-geographic parishes, secluded themselves from the world, criticized and ignored their bishops, and rejected correction. By focusing on evangelization, by working with diocesan priests and bishops, by accepting criticism in the spirit of humility and charity, not only will a movement bear fruit within the Church and world, but the participants within will have access to more protection against abuses.

As fruit of the union between the charismatic movement and the Friars of the Third Order Regular, Franciscan University should heed Pope Leo XIV’s directive to charismatics— the soil from which it sprouted—before the wheat is wholly choked by the weeds. Though if they persist in past behavior, they will not seek reform and true reform may need to be initiated by ecclesial authority.

What former True House member, Francis Hittinger, wrote about the Catholic Charismatic Renewal proved true in the 2021 police investigation of Franciscan University:

“While charismatic communities have often been an example to the wider church of how a group might dedicate itself to the Gospel, the extraordinary forms of coercion are not so evident. One must monitor and investigate the daily life of these groups…. Dozens of lives have been disoriented— some still believe themselves to have been possessed by demons… Indeed, these groups need the wisdom and direction of Mother Church!”

The Morrier case should have awakened the Catholic Church to the systemic failings within Franciscan University, and at the very least the religious order which it supports. Instead, it seems the University is still courted and protected; its ego is cushioned by religious news agencies and ecclesial authorities. I fear it repeats the same mistakes made by the ecclesial blind eye to abuses within the charismatic movement.

^[1] Bord, Richard J. and Joseph E. Faulkner. The Catholic Charismatics: The Anatomy of a Modern Religious Movement. Chapter 6. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

^[2] “’Cardinal of New Wave’: Leon-Joseph Suenens.” New York Times. 23 June 1969. https://www.nytimes.com/1969/06/24/archives/cardinal-of-new-wave-leonjoseph-suenens.html

^[3] Shuster, Alvin. “A Belgian Cardinal Asks Church Changes.” New York Times. 18 May 1969.

^[4] See Footnote 1

^[5] Bord & Faulkner, p. 112

^[6] Bord & Faulkner, p. 109

^[7] Bord & Fualkner, p. 111

^[8] See Footnote 4

^[9] See Footnote 2

^[10] Storey, William. Letter to Bishop Pursley. 2 Apr 1975. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

^[11] Acts 5:39

^[12] Pursley, Bishop. Letter to Dr. William Storey. 7 Apr 1975. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

^[13] McDonnell, Killian, OSB. Personal Letter to Most Reverend Leo A. Pursley. 10 Apr 1975. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

^[14] Martin, Ralph. “From the Editor”. New Covenant, July 1975.

^[15] “Pope Paul Addresses the Charismatic Renewal.” New Covenant. July, 1975. p. 23-25.

^[16] “A Joyful Pilgrimage.” New Covenant. July, 1975. p. 19.

^[17] Ranaghan, Kevin. “Statement on behalf of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Service Committee.” 30 May 1975. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

^[18] https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

^[19] https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

^[20] Casey, Rick. “Whither Charismatics?” National Catholic Reporter, 15 Aug 1975. Vol. 11, Num 37. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

^[21] “Address of Pope Leo XIV to Members of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.” 30 May 2026. https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/speeches/2026/may/documents/20260530-carismatici.html

Popular Catholic pundit Matt Fradd proclaimed this recently from his virtual bulwark as he and yet another male guest discussed women’s clothing. The clip, which is cut from an interview with convert-comedian Shayne Smith, is entitled Women’s Immodesty Is Out of Control and begins with Fradd declaring, “I wish they [women] would stop dressing like whores at the gym.” Besides the shame-shame-shame quote about what women wear to the gym, the 13-minute clip contains such gems as “women aren’t funny” and “women have had it too good for too long”. Joined together with Fradd’s doubts about whether women should be able to vote1, I can only assume he has a low opinion of the female sex; his encouragement of their shame spreads with evangelistic zeal throughout the virtual landscape.

While Fradd has been commenting on women’s immodesty for years, it seems to have grown more intensely and frequently in recent years. In an interview with Fr. Jason Charron, the two men discussed how the more elusive a woman is, the more attractive; “modest is the most desirable”. With Brian Holdsworth, Fradd discusses whorish yoga pants, repeating the plea he made a few years ago in an interview with Lila Rose for women to stop wearing “pants that look like they’ve been painted on”. Holdsworth claims that yoga pants-clad women in an airport “impaired” his “visual freedom”.

Fradd quotes Thomas Aquinas in one video about modesty: “Women who adorn themselves in order to be lusted after sin mortally.” This indeed is true. Yet Fradd presumes intentionality on women at the gym, in airports, and churches. He presumes women are trying to catch him, and other men, in a snare of lust. And if this is true, I would argue such a woman is deserving of pity and mercy, having been conditioned to seek sexual attention from strangers. Such conditioning would come from submersion in a culture where the objectification of women is normalized. Either way— whether a woman is intentionally looking for sexual attention or not— men cannot escape accountability.

Fradd’s presumption of intentionality infers that all women might as well be sex workers or porn stars, focused on getting his and other men’s attention. However, a woman going about her business with the shape of her legs visible is most likely not sending out a come-hither sonar. And if that’s what Matt Fradd, and other men like him, sees when he looks at a woman in yoga pants, it may have more to do with a pornographically programed view of women.

I genuinely admire Fradd for being open and honest about his struggle with pornography. I think his open struggle has helped thousands of men and women find courage and strength in their own struggle, which is an enormous problem. Pornography fuels sexual violence because it turns human beings into objects of sexual gratification, which is exactly what Matt Fradd is continuing to do, now veiled with theological vocabulary. Matt Fradd’s frequent and detailed discussions of women’s clothing are, in a word, gross—but more importantly, an objectification of women.

I would never have given a second thought about a Catholic influencer beefing with other men about women’s clothing while puffing on a cigar in a studio somewhere if that studio had not been in Steubenville, Ohio where Fradd’s perception of women was shamelessly shared among some Catholics.

“Proper Externals”

As my daughters were receiving modesty talks from the local Catholic high school and as I heard reports of modesty policing on Franciscan University’s campus, I became grossly aware of “modesty” as it is understood here and in niche Catholic culture broadly. (I am qualifying niche Catholic culture as politically conservative, tending toward a more fundamentalist practice of the Catholic faith.)

“Modesty” as it is understood in this niche culture has developed its own definition. It refers to primarily women’s clothing, and more specifically girls and young women, and a practice of dressing out of charity to male peers who are portrayed as almost animalistic in their sex drive. The conversation occasionally expands into a Catechism-centered definition of modesty (which I will get to later) but Catechism-defined modesty is not policed quite like spaghetti straps and yoga pants. Whether men dress modestly or not does not carry social weight. The modesty conversation revolves around women’s bodies, which become objects acceptable to be judged, shamed, praised or scorned.

Learning this niche definition after our move to Steubenville, Ohio illuminated my experience at the Steubenville South youth conference twenty years earlier, an anecdote I mentioned in the first essay in my series, A Proverbial Naked Bike Ride Through Steubenville, Ohio. (If you need more context, click here.)

What was the offense of my dress that day? The administrators from Franciscan University’s youth conference never let me in on the secret. Having not been raised in a modesty-incensed culture, I did not know bare shoulders caused men to sin. (Is it because they’re round? Because they lead to breasts, like dancing leads to sex?) Whatever the offense, it was broadcast over walkie-talkies while I stood there, befuddled. They kept me in my place as an outsider, as one neither in-the-know nor deserving to be in-the-know. The point was that I did not meet their expectations. I had no pre-existing adulation for Franciscan University’s Catholic culture or their definition of modest clothing.

After Steubenville South, I had brief encounters with “modesty” in homeschooling communities in the Pacific Northwest which were just as arbitrary as Steubenville South, but it was infrequent enough to seem like a fringe perspective. I met a few young mothers my age who wanted their girls to wear dresses and skirts to “be feminine”. Another mom-friend who grew up in a strict fundamentalist Catholic environment was concerned about the modesty of swimsuits but allowed tiny shorts.

Another mom-friend once suggested I listen to Fr. Chad Ripperger’s homily^[1] on modesty. Five minutes in, after he claimed that God “built into the very nature of femininity” the need to receive “approval of Adam’s judgement” about her “proper externals”, I threw-up in my mouth a little and turned it off. I knew enough to know that the dignity of a woman is not based off a man’s judgement of her. In fact, the only other place I had ever heard that notion was from a fundamentalist Protestant book a friend and I guffawed over once— Created to be His Helpmeet by Debi Pearl.

This belief that a woman was created as an object of man’s judgement was so very against what I had learned about the dignity of the human person through Catholic teaching. It was a gross interpretation of Genesis; Ripperger lists woman as though she is a part of a sequence of animals given under the dominion of Adam. This was so unlike—and in fact, the very opposite—of Pope John Paul II’s teaching on Genesis, of man and woman who bear “the divine image” in “two different ways… in the unity of that image”. It is not the purpose of woman to be judged by man (or vice versa), but rather they come to understand the meaning of their own bodies through reciprocity. Pope John Paul II’s vision of pre-fall Creation, as opposed to Ripperger’s language of domination and submission, is that man and woman “see and know each other with all the peace of the interior gaze, which creates precisely the fullness of the intimacy of persons.”^[2]

The fall of man brought forth twisted relationships of domination and submission, which is the kind of relationship that Ripperger (and many fundamentalist Protestant groups, like the Pentecostals who greatly influenced the Catholic Charismatic Renewal) describes. Let me be clear: this inversion defines relationships primarily through the language of power, domination, and submission; this logic is diabolical.

Fr. Ripperger, in his homily about modesty, assumes his God-ordained male role and models how to judge the “proper externals” of women through their clothing. He waxes loquaciously about what “nice and pretty” women should and should not wear: he condones makeup, jewelry, and “things of that sort”; while pants are okay, as long as there is not “a lack of distinction between men and women”, it is “more virtuous for a woman to wear a dress or a skirt” unless the skirt is “too tight or seductive” which can “actually be worse than a baggy set of pants”.

While women risk leading men to sin against the commandments, he adds that men are in danger of admiration if they dress too nicely. In Ripperger’s view, women should be attractive but will lead men to sin unless they follow his detailed rules about clothing. This leaves women with a small margin for error, while men should be careful not to dazzle too brightly.

My impression of modesty as some of my beloved cradle-Catholic mom-friends presented it was hypersensitivity about woman’s clothing, the parameters of which were at times vague and inconsistent, and at other times oppressively detailed. They put a smile on modesty talk, gave it a positive spin, but seemed genuinely confused about what it meant for them and their daughters.

As for Fr. Ripperger, I wrote him off as a priest leading the Catholic faithful into error. His interpretation of “modesty” came from a teleological mistake. I was sad when my friends heeded his teachings. For one family, this led to a household ban of Jane Austen novels (“too many balls”, as in female frivolity).

“What were you wearing?”

When I moved to Steubenville, the modesty fallacy was a part of the proverbial naked bike ride. The idea that women led men into sin by their clothing was no fringe perspective. It was an accepted group theory. I first noticed it in the response to the football rape case, how the victim-survivor’s clothing from the night of the rape was suggestive (“Did you see what she was wearing?”). In Jenn Morson’s article in National Catholic Reporter ^[3] in which Franciscan University alumnae shared how reports of assault were mishandled on campus, some were asked what they were wearing at the time of their assault.

The fact that a woman’s culpability in an act of sexual aggression or violence would immediately be suggested betrays a group theory that women are in some way responsible for men’s sins. This is not a part of Catholic sexual teaching. So how does it hold weight at a super-duper-Catholic college like Franciscan University?

This accepted theory didn’t just appear at Franciscan University. It is a cultural value that has roots in the charismatic covenant community established by Fr. Michael Scanlan in Steubenville fifty years earlier.

Two years after Bishop Ottenweller released his report about Servants of Christ the King, Monsignor James A. Boehm of the Steubenville diocese published a satirical piece in The Steubenville Register entitled “How to Form A Cult”. Boehm recognized the role modesty played in controlling the community. He writes, “Don’t be surprised when your followers quickly become totally dependent upon you… you can tell them how to dress (modestly, so they don’t rouse evil thoughts).”^[4] Boehm pokes fun here at what Ottenweller discovered: “The Community closely regulated the lifestyle of women, down to personal attire… Dresses were favored, pants strongly discouraged.”^[5] Ottenweller identified this, and other rules about women’s behavior, as a mode of control, and not about teaching virtue.

In niche Catholic culture thirty years after Ottenweller’s investigation, rules for modesty are presented by Fr. Ripperger, a self-proclaimed exorcist, and online influencers like Matt Fradd and Brian Holdsworth lamenting yoga pants. I wish I could dismiss Fradd, and others, as talking heads taking up virtual space. But the modesty fallacy is insidious because of how it affects females when they’re most vulnerable, as happens in cases of harassment and assault.

Not surprisingly, Fr. Chad Ripperger is respected by many in the Steubenville Catholic community (via his fixation on demonology, something charismatics and traditionalists share). Through the messages of Fradd, Ripperger, and others, men are given an implicit right to objectify women by judging their clothing. They are guilty of “voyeuristic explorations of the human body” in the way they talk about women (CCC, 2523).

Devout Christian women, many of whom already dress with care, also tune into these righteous tirades. When modesty is established as a mark of holiness in women, an accusation of immodesty—and of dressing like a “whore” whether by lycra or spandex— carries a lot of weight. The women who are already concerned about how much of their skin is showing become scrupulous and, in turn, judgmental of their female peers.

As it happens, Fradd’s inordinate devotion to show minutes concerning modesty contradicts his responsibility as explained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The virtue of modesty is defined in the Catechism as “a virtue of the heart” which “guides how one looks at others and behaves toward them in conformity with the dignity of persons”.^[7] How men and women dress is important, but judgement of one’s degree of modesty is not the responsibility of the on-looker. In fact, the on-looker should employ modesty in how he looks and behaves towards the other person.

Pope John Paul II, in his book Love and Responsibility, also places responsibility of chaste thoughts on the on-looker:

The virtue of chastity is underdeveloped in anyone who is slow to affirm the value of the person and allows the values of sex to reign supreme: these, once they take possession of the will distort one’s whole attitude to a person of the other sex. The essence of Chastity consists in quickness to affirm the value of the person in every situation.^[8]

If an onlooker is tempted to lust by a woman wearing yoga pants or spaghetti straps, I would suggest their attitude towards the other sex has been distorted; they have allowed “the values of sex to reign supreme.” The focus should be on affirming “the value of the person in every situation.”

The culture around Franciscan University, though it professes to teach and encourage a Catholic sexual ethic, has proven repeatedly that it does not affirm “the value of the person in every situation” when it comes to cases of harassment and assault. In fact, it has repeatedly favored the perpetrator—which is most often male—and has scapegoated alleged victims—who are most often female. The questions that female students have received upon reporting harassment or assault prove the strength of the prevailing group theory: It can’t be the man’s fault. There must be something the girl did to incite, invite, or welcome that behavior.

This fallacy was on full display in an article written by a Political Science professor at Franciscan University in 2018 (which I discuss more in-depth here). Dr. Stephen Krason’s article, “What Sexual Harassment ‘Crisis’?”^[9], poo-poos “mere allegations often backed up by nothing more than the fact that a woman, often out of the blue, made them” which then in turn leads to “the destruction of carers and livelihoods, the permanent damaging of reputations.” Krason released this article into a world in which Donald Trump had already been elected to the presidency after making comments like, “When you’re a star… you can do anything… Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”^[10] Krason has little evidence to support his point that men’s reputations have been ruined, even by allegations that prove to be true.

As a Catholic woman and mother, it concerns and affects me when, at the local Catholic high school, a teacher who is also a Franciscan graduate tells a classroom that “rape culture” is a product of feminism (See Krason: “The sexual harassment frenzy… is the latest poison from the Sexual Revolution”) and many men’s lives have been ruined by false accusations. This group theory that women are responsible for men’s purity is a part of their cultural evangelism. The University’s sexual assault misinformation spreads with conviction. As long as this group theory can subsist—that women are responsible for male virtue—then the friars can sidestep accountability. A University that has protected abusers (who are overwhelmingly male) and mishandled (overwhelmingly female) students’ reports of harassment and assault will be seen as not only blameless, but as a conservative institution battling the woke, feminist agenda of “rape culture” (I hope that sounds as crazy to you as it does to me).

It’s not just University personnel responding to allegations of harassment and assault with, “How much were you drinking?”, “What did you do to encourage this?”, and “What were you wearing?” The community responds likewise; fellow women make excuses for abusers and harshly judge their female peers.

What was my offense at the Steubenville South youth conference? And does it matter? If the parameters are moveable, as an outsider, I would be set up for failure no matter what. The point is that Franciscan University [place any other institution or cult personality here] is the moral authority and what they say goes. As Bishop Ottenweller wrote in his Report, “The controllers of the milieu have the conviction that reality is their exclusive possession. Theirs is the ultimate truth, the world seen from a ‘God’s-eye view’” ^[11]. And this milieu has been shaped by Catholic charismatic leaders who wrote community manuals thirty years ago as well as popular Catholic pundits who uphold the group theory that women are responsible for men’s purity, and thus also at fault if they are harassed or assaulted.

When a female’s report of assault is followed by the question, “What were you wearing?” they have been prepared for that moment by years of conditioning through chastity talks, dress codes, and the fear of sudden and random chastisement by spiritual authorities. By the time a young woman is harassed or assaulted on a “Christian” campus, she has been trained to immediately take responsibility for what has been done to her.

“Veil the Mystery”

Here’s the truth that contradicts the fallacy: Men’s minds are not kept pure because of what women are or are not wearing. And modest dress does not protect a female from male ogling, catcalling, harassment, or assault.

Even though I did not grow up in a culture like that of Catholic Steubenville, I still had a sense of modesty about clothing. To Matt Fradd’s point, I did not want to dress like a stereotypical “whore” because I did not want to be thought of as one. I wanted to be respected as a strong, intelligent woman. It was barely a conscious thought, but I had soaked in the secular cultural message that women are primarily seen as sexual objects while simultaneously holding the knowledge that this denies them of their human dignity. I knew this through observation and personal experience.

I went through puberty before most of my peers. I was wearing a bra by the third grade, and after boys made a game of bra-snapping on the playground, I insisted on wearing sports bras, which made me appear more flat-chested. I started menstruating before most of my peers and, haunted as I stood in the lunch line by the idea that I could technically have a baby before middle school, grew incredibly uncomfortable in my woman-body. Memories of the abuse I had endured as a child burned hot in my mind as my discomfort about my changing body incited shame and embarrassment. I did not feel safe or comfortable as a female.

So I dressed more “boyish” as I grew older. I raided my father’s closet and wore his work jeans and flannels. This was partly the fashion of the Pacific Northwest in the ‘90s, but I remember feeling powerful in his clothes. I felt less vulnerable dressed in “grunge” clothing than I did in what was popular for girls at the time: low-waist jeans and spaghetti strap tank-tops. I was not trying to be modest. I was trying to be comfortable in my own skin. And, having absorbed the world’s objectified view of women, I thought that by concealing my lady-parts, I would go unnoticed and unbothered.

In the eighth grade, I was cornered in a bathroom hallway by two male peers. I was wearing tan corduroy pants, black and white Converse, and a Hard Rock Café t-shirt (yes, I remember). I knew these dudes; they were punks, sure, but I thought we had an understanding. One stood behind me and fondled my ass and the other stood in front of me and fondled my breasts.

After having been abused, I had fantasized about defending myself in just such a moment, but when it became a reality, I froze, just as I had while being abused as a child. I just stood there until they ran away, doubled over in laughter. Then I walked back to class, sat in my seat—at the same table as those punk-ass boys—and never told a soul until I told my husband, years into our marriage.

But after that moment in the hallway, if a man objectified my body, I pretended to like it as a defense mechanism. All through my teenage and young adult years, if I was touched, grabbed, or cat called, I went along with it because I would rather feign control than feel trapped. I suspect many women learn to adapt in this way.

The way I dressed did not protect me from male sexual aggression. It also did not welcome male sexual aggression. I was not wearing hot pants and a crop top when I was abused as a child. In all the experiences I have had with male sexual aggression, my clothes could not fall under the category of “whore” or “prostitute”. I’m not alone in that experience or realization.

While the female form can incite lust in a man, it is the male’s sexual fantasies that are the object, not the woman, who is not a piece of ass wiggling around in yoga pants, but a person with a life, relationships, and a list of things to get done while wearing said yoga pants. It is the male’s pornographic perception of women as objects for sexual gratification that is The Problem.

The problem precedes the situation. The problem precludes a woman’s clothing.

When Christ addressed the problem of lust in men, he did not chastise women for drawing their gaze by being women. Even though women at that time were heavily garbed, their female form barely visible beneath yards of draped fabric, male lust was obviously a problem or Christ would not have addressed it. He did not mince his words: If your eye causes you sin, pluck it out. Your eye. Not, “the outline of that woman’s breasts”; he places the responsibility on the male gaze.

Even positive spins on the modesty fallacy, like “modest is hottest” or “veil the mystery” still order women as objects of men’s desire. This is not why women were created. And when someone like Fr. Ripperger goes so far as to claim that women ideally should not wear pants since “pants are the dress of a worker and women were not given the task of work” it betrays a view of women as vacuous sex portals, whose work even within the home is diminished and undervalued. In the end, this is the same message as secular culture, just packaged differently.

Men who harass, bully, assault, and rape do so because they are selfish, cruel, and malicious. They bully and attack women because they have allowed their twisted fantasies to materialize, or in Pope John Paul II’s words, have allowed “the values of sex to reign supreme”. Men become predatory because they are not held accountable for their actions. And Franciscan University is a fertile space for this Catholic-warped female objectification, as opposed to the Catholic sexual ethic they claim to teach.

“Positive Peer Pressure”

I have heard Franciscan University alumni tell stories of chastisement from peers, professors, and friars about their clothing. We now know that administration has asked assault victims what they were wearing at the time of their assault, implying that sexual violence is the fault of the victim. And we know that both the Catechism of the Catholic Church and Pope Saint John Paul II—one of Franciscan University’s favorites—stress the action of the on-looker, that it be informed by chastity and charity.

Fr. Michael Scanlan, former president and spiritual father of Franciscan University, wrote and spoke about “positive peer pressure” on campus. He felt campus culture was designed for students to hold each other accountable. Where is Scanlan’s “positive peer pressure” in the male sphere of Franciscan University? The Catechism says that “appearance arouses yearning in fools” (CCC 2520). Where are the men calling out other men for being “fools”?

The Catechism says that purity is attained “by refusing all complicity in impure thoughts” (ibid.). Where are the men supporting one another in refusing complicity instead of blaming a woman for having ass cheeks that move when she walks? What would it look like for men to hold each other accountable instead of scapegoating women?

If a boy or man knew that he would face the wrath of a community when he bullied, harassed, or assaulted a woman, perhaps that “positive peer pressure” would be enough to at least put a dent in the disturbing statistics of violence against women—yes, even in Catholic Steubenville. But that would require courage and conviction. It would require challenging group theories and cultural norms. The cost would be great. In Steubenville’s niche Catholic culture, it costs much less to imply a woman is a whore because she left the house in yoga pants, or was raped by football players, or was groomed and raped by a friar.

For systemic abuse to break down at Franciscan University, men need to be held accountable for how they think about and address women. This problem goes beyond Franciscan University but is part of a larger Catholic culture over which they have had a great deal of influence in the past fifty years. It’s a culture that grooms boys and girls to remove accountability from men and place undue guilt on women’s God-given bodies. Modesty is perverted when it is used to blame and control women for men’s sexual sins. Until this fallacy is corrected, female students may yet be asked what they were wearing when they report an incident of assault, instead of receiving care, compassion, and justice.

There’s one more note about modesty in the Catechism we should keep in mind: the virtue of modesty helps us resist “pressures of prevailing ideologies” since it “exists as an intuition of the spiritual dignity proper to man” (CCC 2523-24). To reorder the modesty fallacy—to give modesty its proper due according to the Catechism—we need to be taught and teach the true dignity of the human person. In practice, this does not entail humiliation or blaming others for our sins. Modesty, in its true form, helps resist this “prevailing ideology”.

If objectifying women through pornography is immoral, then objectifying women under the guise of modesty is also immoral. Whatever the cultural and contextual parameters of modesty, defining and policing parameters devolves into something like a frustrated Fradd fuming about whores or the detailed fixation of a celibate priest. Just as pornography is wrong because it objectifies the human person, so judging a woman’s “proper externals” is also wrong because it objectifies the human person.

^[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al_-rU65gmk&list=PLnftOVqh-jlaBHKhrP9jQdlhxds9_Z2Hz&index=4&t=390s

^[2] https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/audiences/1980/documents/hf_jp-ii_aud_19800102.html

^[3] Morson, Jenn. “Alumnae Question Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Commitment to Title IX.” National Catholic Reporter, 16 Apr 2018. https://www.ncronline.org/news/alumnae-question-franciscan-university-steubenvilles-committment-title-ix

^[4] Boehm, Msgr. James A. “How to Form A Cult.” The Steubenville Register, 4 June 1993, p. 3.

^[5] Ottenweller Report, p. 41. https://www.scribd.com/document/367863206/The-Ottenweller-Report-1991

^[7] Catechism of the Catholic Church, para. 2521

^[8] Wojtyla, Karol. Love and Responsibility. Trans. by H.T. Willetts. Ignatius Press, 1993. p. 170-171

^[9] Krason, Stephen M. “What Sexual Harassment ‘Crisis’?” Crisis Magazine. 4 Jan 2018, https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/sexual-harassment-crisis

^[10] Revesz, Rachel. “Full transcript: Donald Trump’s lewd remarks about women on Days of Our Lives set in 2005.” Independent, 17 Nov 2017. https://www.independent.co.uk.news/world/americas/read-donald-trumps-lewd-remarks-about-women-on-days-of-our-lives-set-2005-groping-star-a7351381.html

^[11] Ottenweller Report, p. 52. https://www.scribd.com/document/367863206/The-Ottenweller-Report-1991

“Abuses against minors are neither rumours nor gossip: they are crimes,” said Mexican journalist, Valentina Alazraki, in a meeting on “The Protection of Minors in the Church” in 2019.^[1] Alazraki, who has been reporting on papal activities since 1974, was asked to speak during a session called “Transparency”, and encouraged cooperation between bishops and journalists to collect and disseminate “information based on truth in order to obtain justice”. This meeting took place the year after the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report was released, which revealed a staggering number of predatory priests who, in some parishes, not only groomed and abused but also trafficked minors. That same year, Cardinal McCarrick’s abuse of minors and seminarians also surfaced.

Alazraki said something that hit home for me as a Catholic in Steubenville, Ohio, where Fr. David Morrier, a TOR friar from Franciscan University, pled guilty to sexual battery in 2022: communication is a “fundamental duty” and in failing to communicate one becomes “complicit with the abusers”. With every wave of sexual abuse revelations in the Catholic Church, in the stories of survivors that surface, it becomes clear that a lack of communication and severe censorship of information is a pillar of systemic abuse.

When victims come forward to report abuse by clergy, without fail they are told by someone along the way—their abuser, their own family, other clergy, members of their community— not to tell anyone else. And in a religious context, there is a religious component. The Eighth Commandment— You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor— is used to manipulate the survivor’s right to report abuse. Spreading false or unsubstantiated allegations would do much harm, but this is why investigations are so critical. Bearing false witness, which is also described as gossip, slander, and calumny in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is warped by dysfunctional systems to refer to bearing any information that is critical, negative, or confrontational. Journalist Valentina Alazraki rightly addresses it: “Abuses against minors are neither rumours nor gossip: they are crimes”. The threat of gossip can be weaponized to silence victims and whole communities.

A fear of committing gossip, slander, and calumny is a part of systemic abuse at Franciscan University and the Catholic culture within its influence. It is an element at play in the proverbial naked bike ride. I’m not the only one who notices the nude cyclists. Much boundary crossing behavior is normalized, yet even when an individual feels discomfort or recognizes problematic behavior, the tendency to self-censor negativity, controversy, or criticism for fear of breaking the Eighth Commandment means that vital information is neither shared nor discussed. This can also be referred to as “causing scandal”.

While the Catechism instructs the faithful to “put away all malice and guile”, it also instructs the faithful to discern “what ought to be expressed and ought to be kept secret” in the interest of “sincerity or candor” (CCC 2475, 2468-9). I thought the offenses of friars would be important information to be expressed and not kept secret, but I was surprised at how many—even employees of Franciscan University—were unaware of the Morrier case, of accusations against another TOR friar, Fr. Gregory Plow, and that the lawsuit documents have been leaked. Often these important and seismic events were not communicated to and among employees, let alone students and alumni, under the premise of avoiding slander.

There is a more disturbing side to the slander fallacy in Steubenville’s Catholic culture. Like many victims of sexual abuse, according to the police investigation of Fr. David Morrier, “Joan”, the plaintiff, was told by one of her abuser’s brother-friars to stop gossiping when she tried to report the abuse. University Chaplain, Fr. Shawn Roberson, TOR allegedly said to Joan, “I’m going to stop you right there. I’m sure if I go home tonight and ask Fr. Morrier about this, which I intend to do, he will have a different story, so instead of sitting here gossiping, which is a sin, why don’t we focus on why we are here and that is you and your problems.”^[2] Gossip is intentionally malicious and harmful. Gossip is not—and in fact is the opposite of— telling the truth about someone.

Roberson used an accusation of gossip to deflect both his own accountability and Morrier’s accountability. Such an accusation would only carry weight in a culture where gossip had been established as a grave sin (which it certainly is) and where gossip had been misrepresented as anything negative, controversial, or critical (which gossip is not). Had the University Chaplain and TOR friar been less focused on preserving the reputation of the friars and the University, he would have responded very differently to Joan that day. Instead, he weaponized the threat of sin against her. As for Joan, she would already have been groomed by this slander fallacy to receive the gravity of such an accusation. It would have been enough to silence her. And it did.

The slander fallacy had long since been established at Franciscan University by the time Joan arrived on campus in 2006. It came from the charismatic covenant community, Servants of Christ the King, of which Fr. Michael Scanlan was the senior coordinator and primary pastoral leader, and has also been credited with Franciscan University’s Catholic renaissance. On-campus culture was purposely shaped by the same values from the Catholic Charismatic Renewal that were governing charismatic covenant communities at that time.

Charismatic covenant communities were governed by policy handbooks written by the founders of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Servants of Christ the King was under the jurisdiction of Sword of the Spirit, which was led by Steve Clark who founded the Word of God community with Ralph Martin. The charismatic covenant communities were attempts at not just organizing people within the Catholic Charismatic Renewal; these communities were on a mission to revolutionize the Church and the world with a radical way of life. Members underwent a process similar to religious life with years of training that worked like a postulancy before taking an oath to the community. Many of these communities eventually underwent investigations by their local bishops and either disbanded or reformed.

Overreaching control that took away members’ agency and even disrupted their rights as Catholics was a common complaint. Cult-like characteristics were identified in these communities by cult experts, and one of those characteristics was a control and manipulation of language, commonly referred to as thought-terminating cliches. Bishop Ottenweller, who investigated Servants of Christ the King in Steubenville, Ohio, described thought-terminating cliches as “prematurely abstract, highly categorical, relentlessly judging”^[3].

When, according to the lawsuit, Fr. Shawn Roberson told Joan to stop gossiping when she tried to tell him about Morrier’s abuse of her, “gossip” was used as a thought-terminating cliché. Any kind of criticism or negativity was redefined within the community to equal gossip or slander, even if true. From the very beginning of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal—which formed the spirituality and communal life at Franciscan— criticism, negativity, and controversy were battled, and very effectively, by citing the Eighth Commandment.

In 1975, Dr. William Storey, a professor of theology at Notre Dame University and one of the founders of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement, wrote his local bishop in South Bend to encourage care, caution, and a theological investigation into a movement that he feared had veered off course. Not only did he have theological concerns, but he cited abuses of authority, especially from a community called True House. (I discuss this more in-depth in this essay.) Storey’s concerns were published in the National Catholic Reporter, Cincinnati Enquirer and Newsweek. While the bishop agreed that he, too, had concerns about the movement, the other leaders of the CCR like Kevin Ranaghan, Steve Clark, and Cardinal Suenens publicly replied to Storey’s concerns with incredulity.

Cardinal Suenens, the CCR movement’s support and connection among the Roman curia, called Storey’s publicized concerns “attacks” and “plotting” intended to create “a general bad impression of the charismatic renewal in the States”^[4]. Kevin Ranaghan, in a statement released by the CCR committee, insisted Storey’s concerns were “ill-founded and seem to be based on misinformation and impression rather than on fact”^[5]. Neither Suenens nor Ranaghan addressed the content of Storey’s concerns expressed in his letter to the bishop, which included personal testimonies of CCR members. Both were defensive, prepared to dismiss personal experiences, and interpret criticism as a malicious attack.

Steve Clark, who would go on to write the manual that guided Servants of Christ the King, wrote in his reflections^[6] on Storey’s publicized concerns that accusations “create mistrust and controversy” which can be used as a “weapon”. For the community, he instructs “don’t gossip” and “don’t listen to gossip” since “controversy destroys love”. Again, he did not address the content of Storey’s concerns but responded to the criticism as an attack.

Interestingly, Dr. Storey preceded the responses of Suenens, Ranaghan, and Clark with a description of the movement’s rejection of criticism. By 1975, less than ten years after the movement began, rejection of criticism was already a cultural hallmark. In an interview with AD Correspondence, Storey explained how within the movement there was:

“a deliberate policy on the part of the leadership to suppress criticism and dissent… based on the notion that community is built by constantly dwelling on the positive, the enthusiastic, and by suppressing and concealing any dissent or difference of opinion”.^[7]

This policy would continue to help control communities under the CCR umbrella. Gossip was interpreted as any talk that was not positive or enthusiastic.

In 1983, Catholic Charismatics, a systematic study of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, was published after the authors studied fifteen representative CCR prayer groups. Generally deemed a success by the authors, they also acknowledged the movement’s aversion to criticism. From the Team Manual, the authors learned that “anything that threatens unity is viewed as fertile ground for the working of the devil”. Leaders in the CCR movement viewed a sign of unity as “evidence that Christ is truly present”. Therefore, for the movement to appear divinely inspired and guided, it was vital to “avoid controversies and arguments”.^[8] The reputation of the movement was a higher priority than the reality of unity within.

Bord and Faulkner, the authors of Catholic Charismatics, include an anecdote that shows a darker side to the CCR leaders’ thirst for unity and aversion to dissent. They write about a prayer meeting where someone with multiple sclerosis “voiced doubts about a supposed cure he had undergone” and “was immediately silenced by a tongue speaker who, with the leader, said that the MS victim’s problems were the work of the devil”. This is not unlike Fr. Michael Scanlan and Fr. David Morrier discerning that Joan’s lack of sudden and absolute healing from their intercession must be the work of the devil as opposed to a lack of genuine care and expertise on their parts.

In 1977, at the Covenant Meeting (which I describe in this essay), as the Steubenville prayer meeting was led through Fr. Michael Scanlan’s prophecy to come under the leadership of Sword of the Spirit as a covenant community, a question was immediately posed to the group: “Do you now make an agreement not to speak slander, gossip or calumny against the brothers and sisters?” In the teachings which Servants of Christ the King members would receive, “slander, gossip or calumny against the brothers and sisters” would also be posed as any criticism or questioning. Right away, unity for the budding community in Steubenville, Ohio hinges on an agreement not to question or criticize.

As Bishop Ottenweller discovered during his investigation^[9] of the community in 1990, “’Slander’ is one of the worst sins in SOCK [Servants of Christ the King], especially against the leaders. But in that group, slander is defined as ‘speaking against’, and thus any criticism becomes slander, and it can result in severe reprimand or expulsion and shunning.” He goes on to explain:

“If one questions the beliefs or leaders of the group, one is made to feel there is something inherently wrong with the questioner. It is always turned around and the critic is questioned rather than the questions answered directly.”

By the year of Ottenweller’s report, avoiding criticisms by questioning the critic had been normal and accepted behavior among leaders within the CCR movement for at least fifteen years.

Covenant community members throughout the CCR had been hearing prophecies like this one for years:

“I tell you beforehand there will come those against you… [those] who will open their mouths to criticize you, who will open their mouths to slander you, who open their mouths to even curse you”.^[10]

Prophecies like this prepared community members to receive any doubts or criticisms about their way of life as attacks from the devil and as affirmation they were doing God’s work.

Just a few years before this prophecy in 1978, Kevin Ranaghan responded to a series of (mostly positive) articles by journalist Rick Casey about the CCR with this statement: “History teaches us to expect, however, that prophets with unpopular words can expect an avalanche of stones.”^[11] That’s some hubris, referring to himself as a prophet (though this was common among the leaders of the CCR). More to the point, Ranaghan responded defensively to having received criticism, as opposed to the content of the criticism. He received the criticism as both calumny against him and affirmation of God’s favor.

Receiving criticism as a form of martyrdom-lite is not unique to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. I worked for a Catholic non-profit for several years and they responded in kind to any difficulties, push-back, and criticism. Any negativity was interpreted as an attack from the devil as opposed to an opportunity for reflection and improvement. It isolated the company; when employees were not allowed to voice concerns, they abandoned the employer because of its unhealthy work environment.

A similar phenomenon has occurred in Steubenville’s niche Catholic community. Dissent is treated with suspicion. The acceptable Catholic character is vaguely defined, but one knows when they’ve stepped out of the bubble. Catholics who dissent from what is considered “Catholic” here— which includes beliefs tacked on to Catholic doctrine, usually politically motivated or inspired by celebrity clerics or theologians— grow more isolated. Criticism or dissent is seen as a personal affront, a slap in the face, an attack from the devil. To maintain social unity, the insiders—while still being nice— slowly isolate the outsider. Eventually, the outsiders move away or leave the Church altogether.

This is not a rumor; the numbers back it up. A recent study by the Catholic Church showed that, despite its reputation as a Catholic town, the number of Catholics in the Steubenville diocese is decreasing at a faster rate than the general population in the Ohio River Valley. The report, published by Bishop Lohse, states, “It is troubling to note that the diocese’s Catholic population decreased at a much higher percentage (- 46.5%) than did the general population (- 13.4%)” between 1980 and 2022.

There are surely many factors at play in the general decrease— the economy and a lack of industry is a major factor—but anecdotally, I know of several people who have moved away because they could not fit into the niche Catholic character here, and several more who still live here but have left the Church because they felt rejected and isolated by the Catholic community. If one believes in a bulwark or bubble model, rejecting and isolating others isn’t a concern, it’s the model; the declining numbers of Catholics within Steubenville and the Church broadly is not as much of a concern as fortifying those within the stronghold.

What I find fascinating is how half of the Catechism’s explanation of “Respect for the Truth”— which gossip, slander, and calumny fall under— condemns behavior that prohibits individuals from knowing the truth, behaviors that the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Franciscan University, and the culture under its influence, have engaged in to protect itself. The Catechism states that “men could not live with one another if there were not mutual confidence that they were being truthful to one another” (CCC 2469). I have found this very challenging in Steubenville: how can I trust a community that chooses to protect its vision of itself by concealing facts that might protect others? I wonder if others, and perhaps from the numbers Bishop Lohse reported, have encountered the same struggle.

Calumny, which is described as “remarks contrary to the truth” can harm “the reputation of others” by giving “occasion for false judgements concerning them” (CCC 2477). However, it is not calumny if individuals are discussing someone who has harmed their own reputation by committing heinous sins, crimes, by being convicted in court of said crimes, or by lying about someone else’s crimes. In fact, that “ought to be expressed” in the interest of “guarding against duplicity, dissimulation, and hypocrisy” (CCC 2468).

Perhaps most striking, and most applicable to the defenders of Franciscan University, is what the Catechism has to say about complaisance:

“Every word or attitude is forbidden which by flattery, adulation, or complaisance encourages and confirms another in malicious acts and perverse conduct. Adulation is a grave fault if it makes one an accomplice in another’s vices or grave sins. Neither the desire to be of service nor friendship justifies duplicitous speech.” (CCC 2480)

To the detriment of its own integrity, Franciscan University has maintained a band of staunch supporters who insist on the University’s innocence. Many of them are alumni, trained by campus spirituality to refrain from gossip, slander, and calumny against the University’s mythos, its mission, or its friars. As we witnessed in 2018, when alumni shared their negative experiences of reporting sexual assault to University administration, they were literally erased. When an alumni journalist challenges the University’s missteps, she becomes a target of vitriolic attacks and unjust accusations.

But this is the playbook. This is a part of the system Fr. Michael Scanlan established through Sword of the Spirit manuals, written by Steve Clark who, along with the founders of the CCR movement, viewed criticism as “fatal”.^[12] Religious language was altered. Gossip, slander, and calumny would now encompass any negative, critical, and even unenthusiastic speech—talk which could drive a community towards the kind of difficult conversations that refine and clarify ideas.

Originally, discouragement of contentious talk was intended to encourage unity and to create “a positive, reinforcing atmosphere”^[13], especially early on when the CCR movement was focused on ecumenism and drawing people together from various Christian backgrounds. The CCR became adept at promoting itself, ensuring its public persona was “carefully orchestrated”^[14] and Franciscan University followed suit. As journalist John Allen, Jr. wrote in 2000:

“The public relations apparatus at the institution has worked overtime to make sure the world knows of its significance. Faxes fly to news outlets about every new student gathering, every visit of a curial official or US prelate, every utterance favorable to the university, every time the faculty takes a new oath of allegiance to Rome”.^[15]

Self-promotion can easily drift into boasting which, like gossip, is “an offense against truth”, especially when valid criticisms are concealed (CCC 2480).

Eventually, just as happened in the CCR, “direct experiences or doubts contradicting the dogma” of Franciscan University would be dismissed as “’personal problems… immediately associated with guilt” which, for many, results “in a more desperate embrace of the group doctrine”.^[16] Such an environment discourages honesty, openness, and genuine vulnerability. In a community where members risk breaking the Eighth Commandment simply by vocalizing criticism certainly won’t feel comfortable expressing outrage about their beloved institution’s calumny against friars’ victims and lies about institutional cover-up.

While Servants of Christ the King is all but defunct, the slander fallacy persists, ironically, to protect Franciscan University’s sins against truth. In the interest of taking small steps towards dismantling systemic abuse, correcting the slander fallacy will give victims the freedom and confidence to report abusive behavior.

Abusers destroy their own reputations by abusing others; survivors, far from sinning against the Eighth Commandment, serve God and the Church by their courageous honesty. Scandal is not caused by discussing what has already become scandal. Institutions and communities help protect others through fearless transparency, by bringing scandal into the light.

^[1] Bordoni, Linda. “Protection of Minors: a journalist offers some advice.” Vatican News, 23 Feb 2019. https://vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2019-02/protection-minors-church-meeting-alazraki-transparency-vatiab.html

^[2] Lawsuit Draft, #69

^[3] Ottenweller Report, p. 58 (quotes Robert Lifton’s Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism); https://www.scribd.com/document/367863206/The-Ottenweller-Report-1991

^[4] Casey, Rick. “Whither Charismatics?” National Catholic Reporter, 15 Aug 1975. Vol. 11, Num 37. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

^[5] Ranaghan, Kevin. Statement on behalf of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Service Committee, 30 May 1975. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

^[6]Clark, Steven. “Steve Clark on Criticism.” Personal Notes, 13 July 1975. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

^[7] Reedy, John, C.S.C. “Charismatics—Serious Problems.” AD Correspondence, 24 May 1975. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

^[8] https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

^[9] Ottenweller Report, p. 60

^[10] Prophecy dated 22 Jan 1978; https://www.scibd.com/doc/ 300189881/Circa-1978-Community-of-God-s-Love-Covenant-Servants-Wkd#page=12

^[11] Ranaghan, Kevin. National Catholic Register, 17 Oct 1975. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

^[12] Clark, Steven. “Steve Clark on Criticism.” Personal Notes, 13 July 1975. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

^[13] https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

^[14] Ibid.

^[15] Allen, John Jr. “Steubenville merits close scrutiny.” National Catholic Reporter, 11 Feb 2000. https://scribd.com/103839744/Strife-at-Steubenville-Cracks-In-The-House-Scanlan-Built-NCR-Feb-2000

^[16] Ottenweller Report, p. 60

I scribbled it on a yellow legal pad. That’s probably where it will stay. I don’t know where one submits poetry about female rock stars. “Rock star” doesn’t really describe her, though. She seemed so refreshingly pedestrian with her pixie cut and Doc Marten boots, like another girl I would have sat next to on the bus.

The lines of the poem came to me while I was washing dishes. Usually, I listen to a podcast or “book on tape” (yes, I still call it that), but the words were too noisy pressed against my ears. I already had too many words in my head that would not let me rest and it made a cyclone of harsh syllables. I needed lyrical words that rolled and hop-jumped over puddles; I needed a steady, misty rain that could be interrupted by thunder and lightning and could disappear just as quickly.

So yeah, Dolores O’Riordan. Even her name is fabric rippling on a line, now in the shade, now in the sun.

Her clear-toned do-do-do-do can whisk me away to my fourteen-year-old self lying on my bed in the dark with the warm, electric glow of a lava lamp casting cloud-shaped shadows onto the ceiling. Her voice still grounds me, as it did then, into a reality that doesn’t make sense but anchors itself to things that are true.

That room lit by a lava lamp is a living collision of childhood and adolescence: the dolls my grandparents brought me from their trips all over the world glow eerily on top of the dresser my father made for me when I was born; the three walls around my bed are covered in ghosts that betray my sense of displacement. I swoon over James Dean’s flirty cigarette and Humphrey Bogart’s wry smile; I wish I was long and spindly like Audrey Hepburn or as effortlessly cool as Katherine Hepburn.

The only thing that anchors me to the present is music. Around my bed are posters of bands like Led Zeppelin and Pearl Jam, but magazine cut-outs of female singers like Tori Amos, Joan Osborne, Janis Joplin, and Fiona Apple dominate the sheetrock landscape.

Sometimes I need the soulful scratch in Joan Osborne’s voice as she sings about Ray Charles, or the gritty cry of Joplin’s bluesy hunger for “a man to love”. Sometimes I need the poetic self-loathing of Fiona Apple or the existential whimsy of Amos crooning in my ear, “When you gonna love you as much as I do?” She has a way of extracting the hot tears from behind my eyes that need release.

But no one both transports and anchors me more than Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries. Dolores sings as though her heart has been pierced as many times as Our Lady of Sorrows, who most surely is her namesake. She controls her voice, allowing it to range between calculated and unafraid.

There’s an innocence to her lyrics that, as a young teenager, helped me pine for something I thought I was losing. There was a restrained primal longing behind Fiona Apple’s gently sung, “You can use my skin/ to put secrets in” but Dolores was unabashedly girlish and relatable with a thwarted, “I wanted to be the mother of your child/ and now it’s just farewell” before belting out, “be with you/be with you/baby I can’t be with you”. Then she releases, “You’re not here!” with abandon and snaps “here” into three painful syllables.

And damn, the opening riffs to Zombie, full stop. It sounds more gentle to me now, but the first time I heard that song on the radio, I felt prepared for battle. I didn’t know where I was going or what I would be fighting for, but I was ready to follow Dolores. Her own suffering as an Irish girl during the Troubles extended naturally into empathy for other war-torn countries. She gave me permission to weep over the genocide in Bosnia, about the killing of any and all innocents—hell, even over the absence of long-dead poets.

I felt a kinship with Dolores. She and I both grew up atop water-logged, emerald-green earth. She and I both grew up under a veil of ever-moving yet never-changing clouds. She wore Doc Martens; I wore Doc Martens. And by golly if I didn’t want a couch just like the one on the cover of the Cranberries’ second album. Dolores and I both grew older, married, had children. Addiction rattled both our lives, mine by proxy and hers as an interior tempest.

When I heard that she was found dead, submerged and intoxicated in a hotel bathtub, I strangely felt as though I had lost an old friend. I felt like we had failed her. We who? I don’t know, maybe my generation? She was our poet-philosopher bard and died alone, the manifestation of her name, swords piercing her heart. She was probably just as insufferably self-involved as the mentally ill addicts in my own life, but I love them too. I know well those wounded, childlike hearts and as much as I want to smack them around, I also want to hold them tightly, to sing Tori Amos in their ear: “When you gonna love you as much as I do?”

I like to imagine that Dolores wasn’t alone when she died. I like to imagine Our Lady of Sorrows holding Dolores in the bathtub, singing that Amos line in her ear, welcoming her into everlasting peace on the same notes Dolores used to sing me away from realities I did not know how to face at fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, twenty-one, and forty-two.

Dolores, the Sorrowful One, put words to sorrows I could not name. She sang about evil without despairing; there was hope in her lyrics, which were at times shockingly simplistic (to all those people doing lines/ don’t do it, don’t do it). She kept me company in the angst and displacement of the borderland between childhood and adulthood.

So I wrote her some words on a yellow legal pad, an offering in her afterlife.

Maybe there is a certain hubris in believing it can be dismantled, or maybe it is hope incarnate. Most of the time I feel powerless living in its shadow. I am not alone in that.

This is not the first time in my life that I have lived in an environment where pain is palpable, where people grow weary of pretending that everything is okay. Facades are exhausting to maintain.

For the first twenty years of my life, I shared a home with addiction. I lived alongside it, cleaned up its messes, and surrendered to its tyranny. When I began attending Al-Anon, a program for friends and family of addicts rooted in the fundamentals of Alcoholics Anonymous, I remember the first time I heard the first step, “We admit that we are powerless.” My first reaction was anger. No shit, I said inaudibly under my breath. It was a long time before I went back. Every time I returned to a meeting, sometimes with years in between visits, I would become less angry when I heard that same step. We admit that we are powerless. By then, I was weary with anger and really did feel powerless. I was ready to hear the next step.

Admitting powerlessness over addiction was an act of surrender, but it took me a while to understand that this was not a surrender to addiction, but a surrender of any illusion I had of control. I could not control the addict or the disease of addiction, but I did have control over how I responded. I had agency. I had choices.

This very simple truth was exhilarating. And it was so very Catholic: I cannot and should not try to control others, but I can and should take responsibility for myself. This is the habit of self-reflection that precedes the sacrament of confession.

Around the same time that I attended my first Al-Anon meeting, while preparing for a scene study in an acting class, I read The Lark, a play about Joan of Arc by French playwright, Jean Anouilh. In the play, she is asked by the Dauphin, who has hidden in fear from the English, “Didn’t anybody tell you that the English also say their prayers to God? Every man thinks God is on his side.” Joan tells him that God does not care about taking sides, or which side is more powerful; it is about courage in faith. Anouilh portrays Joan as someone who knows that it would be better to believe in one’s God-given dignity enough to fight, even if that leads to death, than to cower at the feet of someone, or an institution, who does not believe in the dignity of her person.

That’s how “Joan” got her name. She did not cower at the feet of Franciscan University bullies who tried to convince her of an alternate reality: that she was a victim of satanic ritual abuse, that she was lying, that Fr. Morrier loved her and never meant to hurt her. Anything but the truth. The Third Order Regulars and administration of Franciscan University had been trained to do this through Fr. Michael Scanlan’s charismatic covenant community where Bishop Ottenweller found “past events are altered, rewritten, or ignored to make them consistent with doctrine… Character and identity are reshaped, not in accordance with one’s nature or potentialities, but rather to fit the rigid contours of the doctrinal mold”.^[1]

Joan fought in faith and God stood with her.

The tyranny of systemic abuse tries to take away peoples’ agency and conceal their dignity by reshaping “character and identity” to fit into the abuser’s narrative. Its success depends upon cowardice. I don’t mean cowardice as an insult. As Anouilh’s Joan says, “Only stupid people are not afraid.” It is indescribably difficult to break that cycle, to become attuned to one’s God-given dignity and stand with courage for the truth. It starts with accountability for oneself: we have to admit we are powerless but have control over our behavior and choices.

If I can take responsibility for myself, my choices, and my actions, then an institution certainly can. Accountability is key. Systemic abuse relies on short memories. Religious systemic abuse relies on short memories as well as blind devotion. Bullies should never be allowed to rest; the truth should always stare them down. And many have done their part to make sure Franciscan University cannot claim ignorance.

Books could be written from the sheer number of documents that the series, A Proverbial Naked Bike Ride Through Steubenville, Ohio, rests on. It’s truly staggering how well documented the Catholic Charismatic Renewal is, most especially the development of covenant communities like True House and Servants of Christ the King. I am grateful to the hunters and gatherers, journalists, and documentarians who keep stirring the pot; as soon as it settles, all the information and experience risks sinking to the bottom, out of sight and out of mind.

Franciscan University, like the Catholic Church, should not be allowed to forget the crimes it sanctioned or to hide its lies and deceptions. I do not want them to have a chance to alter or rewrite past events to make them fit into their own skewed mythos, just as they erased alumnae’s stories of assault from their Facebook page in 2018. Fr. Sean O. Sheridan, as then-president of the University, attempted to address it, then stepped down as president to make way for Fr. Dave Pivonka.

Franciscan University’s redemption is not unlike successful recovery for addicts, who record an inventory of wrongdoing, make amends, and embrace accountability. It means altering nearly everything—environment, principles, and especially one’s community. Franciscan University’s half-hearted half-steps and sentimentalized press releases look to me like the addict who says sorry without changing their life. They surround themselves with sycophants who support them in their excuses and hide behind their bulwark.

Which means it will happen again.

Fr. David Morrier’s probation will end in March of 2027. And he still has his priestly faculties. While he will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, he is still allowed to practice the sacraments. His registry does not protect adults from his influence. I don’t have a good reason to trust the Franciscan Friars of the Third Order Regular to protect others from him. He could, potentially, still offer spiritual direction, hear confessions, and say Mass. Even though there are clear and ample reasons for Morrier’s laicization, his case hovers in limbo somewhere in the Eternal City.

While I can write to the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith to encourage Vatican officials to laicize Morrier, I don’t have control over their decision. Church officials in England oversaw Joan’s execution then declared her innocent thirty years later. The Church’s timing is not always favorable.

I focus on what I can control and the choices I have. I pick my friends and I pick my fights. As I said in the Epilogue, I balance my own rage with a remembrance of God’s mercy, which I have experienced in my own life and so must allow others. I exist in a town whose big secret I know. I walk alongside and pass in the street people whose names appear in the police report and lawsuit, and there are many others whose names were redacted. While I crave justice, I must also love mercy. That’s a daily thing.

Besides discerning which battles to fight within my own community and doing what I can to make sure Franciscan University is not allowed to forget, there are ways to push back on elements of systemic abuse in this niche Catholic culture, elements which I know exist elsewhere.

As I read through the leaked documents from the lawsuit as well as the documentation of both the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and Fr. Michael Scanlan’s covenant community, Servants of Christ the King, I noticed two fallacies that have supported systemic abuse within Franciscan University and the Catholic culture under its influence. These fallacies are rooted in a misuse of Catholic teaching that grooms a culture to protect abuse of authority and support a lack of accountability.

I have also been pondering Pope Leo’s message to charismatics alongside other papal responses to the movement, especially in light of the efforts made by former CCR members in South Bend to caution the Vatican in 1975. Additionally, I have been examining how traditionalism also has a home in Catholic Steubenville. Though it is different—nearly opposite— from charismatic worship, the similarities between the two are the weaknesses of each.

In the next several weeks, I will post essays about (links to follow):

· The Modesty Fallacy, which redefines modesty to displace sexual accountability from men to women.

· The Slander Fallacy, which redefines slander as any criticism, allowing the institution to deflect accountability.

· The Papal Response to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal from Pope Paul VI to Pope Leo XIV.

· A System of Externals, the connection between the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement and more recent traditionalist movement both in Steubenville and in the Church broadly.

There are a lot of experts out there who are creating and disseminating impressive and helpful material about systemic and spiritual abuse. Please check them out. As a reminder, I am not a theologian, philosopher, sociologist, or psychologist, or really anything professionally impressive. But I have seen and experienced systemic abuse in various forms. What I write is an amalgamation of research and personal experience driven by hope. Take it with a grain of salt.

But I do believe that systemic abuse can be dismantled in small steps made by small people. I have to believe that. The question is less of a what-now and more of a what-next. Identifying cultural elements that sustain systemic abuse is an important first step.

_{For more resources, check out Paul Fahey at Third Space. He is a licensed professional counselor and catechist who specializes in spiritual abuse. He is offering a workshop on spiritual abuse in September 2026. Also check out to Sisters of the Little Way, especially their podcast Descent Into Light.}

^[1] Ottenweller Report, p. 60

If you’ve been following the release of these essays, then it would only be right to ask: how are you doing? It’s heavy, heart-breaking, and harrowing stuff.

With each wave of revelation over the past four years since I moved to Steubenville—Morrier’s guilty plea and conviction, allegations against Fr. Gregory Plow, the dismissal of allegations against Fr. Gregory Plow, a deep dive into the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Servants of Christ the King, and Bishop Ottenweller’s investigation—I felt a new wave of disgust, shock, sorrow, and grief.

I waited a long time to read the leaked documents because there is another piece to this story: Joan is my friend.

We met at a soccer game through a mutual friend (arguably one of the best human beings on the planet). Joan was there to watch her friend’s kids who were on the same team as my younger kids. I knew who she was, but I did not know details. I would not know details until I read the leaked documents. On that day at the soccer field, we were just two people sitting next to each other, shivering in cheap folding chairs.

“How has it been for you, moving here?” she asked me. “How are your kids? Settling in okay?”

I was surprised. I don’t know what I was expecting. But I spilled my guts about how hard it was to fit in, how guarded people seemed, how I wasn’t expecting such a cultural shock—and the ticks! By that point, my toddler had already received medication twice for infected tick bites. I let loose on Joan because she showed compassion.

If anyone ever had an excuse to be selfish—if anyone ever had an excuse to put themselves first— it would be Joan, who for years played second fiddle in her own life. But that’s not her. She is kind and thoughtful of others, deeply caring, tender hearted, generous, and has a great sense of humor. She has real grit and sass, too—she would have to. “Joan” has endured more than anyone I have ever met.

Because Joan is my friend, I did not read the leaked documents for a long time. No one has to know the details of my abuse. I have only ever told two people—my therapist and my husband—and I will keep it that way. I get to have control over those details. But Joan does not. The details of her abuse are out there for public consumption.

As I was preparing to write this series, I finally read the police report, the lawsuit draft, the exorcism report, handwritten notes from counseling sessions, emails and letters between members in the administration. Afterwards, I was filled with an overwhelming, grief-stricken fury. The first line of The Iliad kept running through my head: sing the rage.

Anger is a just response. But vengeance belongs to the Lord. Christ already sounded that warning and it is a hefty one: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”[1] I can’t say it any better or clearer than that.

God’s mercy is fathomless to the repentant. I can’t judge whether or not the guilty parties in Joan’s case—and you know who you are—are repentant or not. That isn’t my job. But I can analyze the fruit. When I see that TOR friars still call down a “second Pentecost” in front of hundreds of teens driven into hysteria on the very ground where a fellow friar raped a student in God’s name, I don’t see a recognition of fault. I see pride. When I still hear whisperings of mishandled Title IX reports, I don’t hear contrition. I hear obstinance. When I know female students at the local Catholic high school hesitate to report harassment because they assume they will not be believed (“boys will be boys” and “there’s no evidence”), I see how the local Catholic culture drinks the dribble oozing from the city on the hill.

And I want to sing the rage.

Yet the psalmist sings of God’s mercies. As long as we have breath, we have opportunities to heal, for reparation, for conversion, for change. What does that look like?

For one, the Friars of St. Francis of the Third Order Regular, Province of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus need to be held accountable to a degree they have not yet been. Only a bishop can ecclesiastically hold an order accountable. The status of the Steubenville diocese is currently in limbo with no resident bishop, though the TOR mother-house is located in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnston whose bishop is Most Rev. Mark Leonard Bartchak. To Bishop Bartchak and whomever next shepherds Steubenville, I would request this: investigate the Franciscan Friars of the Third Order Regular of the Province of the Most Sacred Heart. If needed, demand reform. I beg you to do this for the longevity of Franciscan University, the safety of her students, integrity of her faculty, and the health of Steubenville. There is a toxicity within the order that attracts and harbors unhealthy individuals who have used vulnerability within charismatic spirituality to abuse the faithful.

In relation to its size as an order, the Franciscan Friars of the Third Order Regular sport a startling percentage of abuse allegations that have been ignored, deflected, concealed, and blamed on victims. Many of those offenses were brought to light in the Historical Review[2], which is not shared on the site of the Franciscan Friars of the Third Order Regular Province of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. (Besides those listed in the Historical Review, see also: Fr. Benedict Jurchak[3], TOR).

Here’s a befuddling fact, though: St. Francis University, the other school run by the Province of the Most Sacred Heart, does not make the same boasts as Franciscan University and does not sponsor charismatic spirituality. When Fr. Sean O. Sheridan became the president of Franciscan University in 2013, he discouraged deliverance ministry, citing that the practice is not Catholic. Thus, there seems to be some acknowledgement within the order that charismatic spirituality hinges precariously onto Catholicism.

The legacy of Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR and Franciscan University’s roots in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal need to be carefully re-examined. This essay series has attempted to explain the rot at the root. The charismatic movement has undergone reform under the care of bishops over the past few decades, but Fr. Michael Scanlan, it appears, did not heed the reform offered by Bishop Ottenweller in 1991. When Servants of Christ the King disbanded as such and reformed as the Community of God’s Love, Fr. Michael Scanlan slunk away and continued in his role as president of the University, where some elements of systemic abuse—already identified in the charismatic community he pastored—continued under the guise of a vibrant, orthodox Catholic university.

Had Scanlan received the correction of Bishop Ottenweller in 1991, the abusive roots within Franciscan University’s culture may have been extracted. When Joan arrived in 2006, the ground was already fertile with a culture primed for abuse: personal physical and emotional boundaries were broken down by charismatic practices in which predatory friars were allowed “opportunity risk”[5] by targeting young women for spiritual direction, especially “messed-up girls”[6]; friars were allowed an unwarranted amount of access to young people’s personal lives which went unquestioned, even in uncomfortable situations, because of the friars’ celebrity status on campus; “positive peer pressure”[7] designed to hold students accountable to one another also encouraged an environment of accusation and judgement, allowing space for ostracization and shame if a student challenged the modus operandi. Had Scanlan accepted correction from Ottenweller’s observations of Servants of Christ the King, then perhaps those same elements would not have reappeared in Steubenville’s police investigation.

In the community of Servants of Christ the King, there was more than one occurrence of child abuse. One was handled in a shockingly similar way to how Joseph Loizzo, Director of the Wellness Center at Franciscan University at the time Joan attended, handled the abuse by Morrier. Ottenweller writes, “The child’s parents went to a Pastoral Leader who was a school psychologist (and thus required under Ohio statute to report such abuse in a timely manner). This individual said that by ‘playing it down’ to the children and not expressing strong feeling[s] about the incident, the children would be assisted in ‘getting over it’. Thus both state statute and commonly accepted norms of therapy were violated and there was no accountability anywhere.”[8]

The practice of “playing it down” was also present in alumnae’s reports of how allegations of sexual harassment and assault were mishandled by the University. In these cases, as well as Joan’s, “there was no accountability anywhere” as had occurred in the charismatic community led by Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR.

Bishop Ottenweller found that, in the Servants of Christ the King, “the member must deny reality by reinterpreting experiences in terms of the group’s theories and philosophies.”[9] At Franciscan University, the group theory is that TOR friars are holy men above reproach. Therefore, when a student comes forward with reports of abuse or even inappropriate behavior, the student must be mistaken or a liar. At Franciscan University, the group theory is that sexual assault and harassment will be less prevalent on a campus that requires students and faculty to follow Catholic sexual teaching. Therefore, if a student comes forward with an allegation of harassment or assault against another student, this betrays the school’s perception of itself, which turns the school against the reporter. Let’s revisit some of the past retorts given to young women on Franciscan University’s campus when they reported assault or harassment, either by a TOR friar or fellow student:

· “Your behavior was compromising. Go to confession.”

· “Call your parents or I’ll call myself.”

· “Why were you drinking?”

· “What did your dress look like?”

· “Oh him? I know him, he’s such a nice guy!”

· “It was your fault for getting drunk.”

· “Practice emotional chastity.”

· “Instead of sitting here gossiping, which is a sin…”

· “I’ll pray for you.”

· “Had he known it was hurting you, he never would have done it. He cares about you. He loves you.”

These retorts from Franciscan University administration and TORs are reminiscent of another discovery made by Bishop Ottenweller in his investigation of Scanlan’s charismatic community. Ottenweller found that “members are told the real problem is that they think there is a problem.”[10] In other words, members’ perceptions of reality were questioned by men who had been given authority over them by God, which was revealed through prophecy. “Rather than have the question answered, the critic is questioned.” Just like the time Joan, after reporting Morrier’s abuse to Fr. Shawn Roberson, TOR, was allegedly told, “This is about you and your problems.”[11]

One of the most significant and problematic cultural elements that subsisted at Franciscan University directly from the Catholic Charismatic Renewal—and would directly affect Joan in the wake of Morrier’s conviction—was what Bishop Ottenweller called the “us vs. them dichotomy.”

I have heard Steubenville referred to as a “bubble” by some Catholics here. It is said with affection and purpose. What they call a “bubble”, Fr. Michael Scanlan and other Catholic Charismatic Renewal leaders called a “bulwark”. A worldview that perceives an enemy necessitates a protective vanguard—a bubble, a bulwark.

As discussed in Part Four, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal at its inception instilled not only a fear of the world, but a distrust of the Church, and used “prophecy”—words from the mouth of God—to give credence to that message. Ralph Martin, a leader in the CCR movement and now president of Renewal Ministries, prophesied at the CCR Conference in Rome in 1975 that “days of darkness are coming on the world, days of tribulation” and even the “structures you see around you will not be standing.”[12] Steve Clark, founder and former head of Sword of the Spirit (the charismatic organization that oversaw Servants of Christ the King) wrote in a policy handbook for charismatic communities, “Many churches are in a state of serious decline and decay.”[13] Fr. Michael Scanlan warned there was “imminent calamity unless our people convert” and so they had been called to “strengthen the Christian people by being a bulwark, stemming the tide of evil in the churches.”[14]

Handbooks, training, and leadership helped instruct members of charismatic communities how to protect themselves from the world, restricting media consumption and overwhelming them with service to the community. They would also receive instruction on how to communicate their identity and purpose to “people outside.”

In handwritten notes[15] from a “teaching” for members of Servants of Christ the King, dated April 12, 1982, a member writes in perfect cursive, “Satan is preparing more of an attack and God is planning a special attack.” But this “war terminology” is for the community’s purposes only and “not to be used outside the training program.” The notes continue: “We pledge loyalty to our commanders and those over us in situations” and “we will keep our plans and movements hidden from our enemy and his agents.” But this “war effort” was to be kept secret from “people outside the community and even new people in community.” It would be important to communicate “what people can most understand, mainly… God’s love.” Most importantly, it must be stressed that “we’re normal people in a group that’s normal.” This explicit distinction between the reality of life on the inside as opposed to what is presented to the outside proves true the warning from a former True House member to his local bishop, “Extraordinary forms of coercion are not so evident. One must monitor and investigate the daily life of these [charismatic covenant] groups.”[16] What was presented to others—even Church hierarchy and Pope Paul VI at his audience with the CCR in 1975—were half-truths.

Bishop Ottenweller of Steubenville would directly address the abuse of authority that came from the “commanders,” which included Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR. The bishop would also address the community’s efforts to “keep plans and movements hidden” from the enemy (Satan) and “his agents.” As it turned out, the “plans and movements” of the community had also been kept hidden from the bishop, even though Scanlan had promised to keep the bishop fully informed.

Bishop Ottenweller did not mince his words in the report. He writes the community’s efforts to shut out the world and make an enemy of it is not congruous with Catholic teaching. He quotes the Foundations course used for training: “The world is our enemy as followers of Christ… It is also in us,” and refers to this worldview as a “hope-defeating teaching.”[17] He rightly points out that it results in a “narrowing of perspective.” A lack of contact and involvement with persons of differing beliefs limits perspective and restricts points of view.[18] This would be antithetical in a Church that is intended to become universal.

Professor (now emeritus) of philosophy, Dr. John F. Crosby, would recognize the us vs. them dichotomy, though in a different guise, several years later after the Ottenweller Report. In an article published in University Concourse, a journal written for and by the Franciscan University community, Crosby points out how the University is applauded for adhering to Pope John Paul II’s suggestions for how a university should maintain its Catholic identity in the encyclical, Ex Corde Ecclesiae. Yet, he explains, the University still has room to grow if it is to realize the fullness of the encyclical’s vision. Crosby quotes Ex Corde Ecclesiae as stating that a university is a “privileged place for a fruitful dialogue between the Gospel and culture.”[19] Crosby goes on to quote Pope John Paul II from Ex Corde Ecclesiae and warns the readers that “a faith that refuses to encounter with the culture is a ‘decapitated faith’.” Crosby acknowledges that universities should take care not to “get assimilated” and lose their Christian identity. Yet, “everything worth doing is dangerous” and he suggests that “the danger of a certain atrophy” is what comes from refusing to reach out, encounter, and dialogue with current culture. He writes that Pope John Paul II “would have us listen to the surrounding culture, fallen as it is, and try to understand its aspirations and hear its questions.”

A kind of atrophy did settle at Franciscan University. It is an atrophy that shies away from discourse. It is an atrophy that uses words like “woke”, “liberal” and “gay” to qualify an idea, person, or event as dangerous and immoral, resorting to lazy logical fallacies instead of utilizing sound rhetoric to analyze and engage. It is an atrophy of victimhood, of gathering the most terrifying stories from the news to hold the world at bay as an enemy, instead of a field hospital in need of their hands and feet. It is an atrophy of engagement, where they hear the questions the world is asking and scoff or panic instead of seeking to understand why the question is being asked at this present moment in time and how the Church can respond with her wealth of wisdom.

The Catholic Church has the tools—and continues to build new ones as she continues to engage and dialogue—to encounter these questions, issues, ideas, and people. The world is not “totally amoral”[20] as President of Franciscan University, Fr. Dave Pivonka, would have us believe. The world responds to its deepest yearnings; it responds, often with fledging efforts, to pain and loneliness from a morality sometimes foreign and antithetical to the Gospel. That is not amorality. It is brokenness that creates a bouquet of half-formed truths. God did not will us as Christians to be set apart and above the world, but to infiltrate it with love, beauty, truth, and goodness precisely for those half-truths to blossom into a fullness of understanding.

Franciscan University, in the spirit of the charismatic community that reformed it, continues to teach, as Pivonka stated in the Winter 2022 edition of Franciscan Magazine, “Confusion and corruption have permeated Christ’s Body on earth, and basic building blocks of Christian culture are crumbling.”[21] Pivonka’s “hope-defeating” words, to borrow an apt phrase from Bishop Ottenweller, echo a line in the Ottenweller Report thirty years earlier: “Those not in the group are either potential members, or thought to be bound up in evil, not enlightened, not saved, and positively dangerous spiritually to those in the group.”[22] Pivonka clearly does not include Franciscan University and his fellow TORs in the portion of “Christ’s Body on earth” that is permeated with “confusion and corruption.” There is a clear distinction between us and them.

If Franciscan University had seen itself as a part of the Church and her mission at dialogue with the world—as opposed to set apart—then perhaps it would have seen itself as a part of the Church’s suffering through the abuse scandals, and therefore a part of her healing. It would have heeded the advice of the USCCB and the particulars of the Dallas Charter; it would understand that, even at universities which espouse a Catholic sexual ethic, assault and harassment are ways in which the “system is rigged against women”[23]; it would have taken Title IX seriously[24]; it would have benefited from studies within the Church into the abusive elements of clericalism; it would have been a part of the more recent conversation about adult victims of clerical abuse. But that wealth of study, discussion, and resources were rejected as a part of the “corruption and confusion” in the Church and in the world.

Scanlan’s bulwark design not only kept out insight that could have helped Joan and other victims; it also hemmed her in. Recall how Joseph Loizzo, the Director of the Wellness Center at that time, who was also a member of the Community of God’s Love, convinced Joan to keep the report of sexual abuse in therapy. Recall how Loizzo and the Provincial of the TORs at the time, Fr. Richard Davis manipulated her into a settlement to keep her quiet, as the investigation alleges.

Once Joan went to the police after repeated calls from Detective Jon Sowers who acted on a tip he received, this act was seen as a betrayal of the Franciscan community. She would be treated as an outsider: vilified and discredited, as the lawsuit alleges. During a brief time between Morrier’s guilty plea and his conviction, a couple who was connected to the Community of God’s Love offered to host Morrier at their home when he needed to be temporarily housed. This was a loaded gesture: the couple’s home happened to be just yards away from Joan’s house.

But Joan was not alone. Her dearest friend rallied support around Steubenville and elsewhere of people—many alumni—who expressed a desire to help Joan, and collectively they arranged for Joan to stay in a hotel while Morrier awaited his sentence.

A bulwark, or bubble, becomes toxic quickly in its efforts to establish a demarcation of those on the inside and those on the outside. It’s tragically common for abuse survivors to be ostracized because the truth destroys the illusion. Sisters Danielle Victoria and Theresa Aletheia of Sisters of the Little Way offer this insight: when a person or event threatens the social cohesion of a community, or their perceived reputation, the community will maintain “a clean image at a devastating cost.”[25] Instead of blaming the abusers and seeking justice, the survivors become scapegoats.

Bubbles and bulwarks are not unlike the allegory of Plato’s cave. Inside the cave, dwellers see only one perspective, and even what they see are only shadows of reality. When a cave dweller is freed and exposed to the sun, their eyes are injured by the light. Learning and understanding the truth is literally painful. The pain may drive them back into the cave; they may not like what they see; they may prefer shadows.

Exposing abuse rolls the stone away from the mouth of the cave. Addressing abuse summons the sun. The shadows are exposed as distortions; the trusted are no longer trustworthy. The truth is painful.

When the truth about Fr. David Morrier and Franciscan University was revealed, the bubble burst. The bulwark crumbled. The stone rolled away from the cave’s entrance. It was painful. A contingency of Franciscan supporters, especially in Steubenville, reared from exposure to light. Some still do.

*

There is another piece to the dissonance we experienced as the proverbial naked bike ride of exposed abuse rolled past in a blur of shock and outrage: all the while, my daughter was attending Franciscan University. Since she was living at home, we had the luxury of suggesting she not attend liturgy on campus, to never go to a friar for confession, and to generally avoid the “spiritual life” there. That wasn’t the college experience I imagined for her.

She considered transferring, but the financial cost was too great. Besides, she was studying under a wonderful line-up of professors in Franciscan University’s science department. Many of the professors are known and respected in their fields. The science faculty (like many departments) is full of kind and intelligent men and women who are faithful to the wholeness of Church teaching, not just the parts that fit a particular political ideology (which one may find in other departments). My daughter stayed for the professors. Not the University.

Some of our dearest friends work at Franciscan University; the culture of abuse and cover-up is not their legacy. In fact, there are many good people at Franciscan University who are aware of the University’s failures, the dysfunctions within the culture, and even elements of systemic abuse. They care deeply about their students. They maintain focus on their area of discipline and lend support where and how they are able. Some of them have tried to change systems and are stone walled. They focus on what they can control.

Nothing will change at Franciscan University—for certain and for good—unless the administration is willing to dismantle systemic abuse. It will not be able to do so until it is willing to recognize systemic abuse. And it will not recognize systemic abuse while it clings more desperately to its mythos than truth.

The truth is Franciscan University and the Third Order Regulars have caused scandal. Repeatedly. So has the Catholic Church. And just as the Catholic Church has done, so Franciscan University has adversely affected the faith-lives of Catholics, most notably its own students. And just as the Catholic Church is making attempts at reparations and reform, so Franciscan University must devote itself to that endeavor.

As the investigative podcast from The Catholic Project, an organization sponsored by Catholic University of America, points out, “When the Church mishandles abuse allegations, it does lasting damage to survivors and their families. It undermines the credibility of the institution and creates an environment of distrust that prevents genuine reform.”[26] As far as I know, there has never been a formal survey among Franciscan University alumni to determine how many are still practicing Catholics, and of those who have left the Church, determining the reason as to why. But through anecdotal evidence, it’s plain that while some graduates leave Franciscan University as enthusiastic and mission-driven Catholics, many also struggle to reckon with the failings of the Church and their alma mater.

Licensed mental health counselor Regina Boyd, in an interview with Sisters of the Little Way, describes how confusing it can be to have profound, spiritual experiences in an environment that also used that same spiritual language “with the malintent to manipulate and control.”[27] It is very natural to then question one’s relationship with that person, institution, and even God, as they wrestle with what to discard and what to keep.

I have seen and heard the callous response of some Franciscan University defenders to alumni who have responded with pain and outrage at their alma mater’s mishandling of sexual abuse allegations. In the same way that the Catholic Charismatic Renewal passed off their critics as hostile, hateful, and even demonic, Franciscan University’s defenders shrug off angry alumni reactions as part of a deconstruction fad, or worse—an effort to take down the University and the Church (which is so absurd, I hesitate to even write it). Fierce defenders rally behind the walls they have built and treat critics as the siege for which their ideology prepared them, instead of responding in mercy and love.

This is exactly what has happened to victims of the Franciscan Friars of the Third Order Regular at Franciscan University. The administration and community responded by excusing themselves, dismissing allegations, and erasing public testimonies “because if we admit that abuse is bigger than the perpetrator, then it means other people missed the signs or looked away or were complicit.” And for a community whose organization and identity is shaped by the TORs, a religious order responsible for the abusers, “it can feel like losing everything.”[28] When it feels as though everything is at stake, it may not appear to be much of a cost to pass a victim off as crazy (“this is about you and your problems”) or a liar (“I’m certain if I asked him, he’d have a completely different side of the story”) or a seductress (“Are you taking responsibility for what you did to make this happen?”).[29]

When the rest of a community watches as a victim is blamed, vilified, and dismissed, individuals learn that it’s not worth reporting. Honesty and a chance at justice is not worth the cost of ostracization. Abuse continues, unreported; when it is reported, victims are punished through social isolation or vilification. That is a culture of abuse. And it is woven into the fabric of Franciscan University.

I fear we Catholics crunch the numbers and shrug—one out of thousands? There were many members of True House, the prototype charismatic household in the early days of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, and nine of them were subjected to Jim Byrne’s violent and abusive “breakthrough sessions.” Is the expenditure of outrage and the seeking of justice worth just nine souls? Is it worth the outrage, self-reflection, and open repentance for only one, like Joan?

To answer that question, we have an answer from Christ himself, a shepherd who will leave the flock to find the one: “it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.”[30] Within the Body of Christ, we live in a precarious unity with the abuser and the abused. We are both culpable and injured, and bear on our own shoulders a responsibility to participate in reconciliation.

I pray Steubenville, Ohio and Franciscan University can listen and heed these words from Sisters Theresa Aletheia and Danielle Victoria, two survivors of clerical abuse:

Survivors are not a threat. And pain does not cancel out our credibility. It’s easy to burden survivors with expectations about how they should sound or come across. We expect survivors to present themselves in a way that makes us comfortable. But that expectation can become a way we avoid confronting the truth they reveal. Honesty is not a weakness; it’s a strength. Many survivors hold unique insights into how abuse happens and how it can be stopped, and their presence in the Church is not a disruption; it’s a gift.[31]

If Franciscan University’s friars need an example of priests committed to assist in healing the faithful from scandal and abuse, they should look west to that ridiculed and jeered “left” coast.

The archdiocese of Portland, Oregon—my soul’s re-birthplace—understands what a gift survivors are. Because of the past scandals and the painful fallout, the Portland archdiocese views itself as a balm to wounded people. And the secret sauce? Priests are not revered in Portland. I have priest-friends who have been ridiculed, jeered, and even publicly slapped. It’s difficult for clericalism to become much of an issue when the general public equates cassocks with pedophilia. Therefore, priests work especially hard to be a light in the darkness, which requires humility and patience, and a heart ready to listen.

The present-day Portland archbishop and priests were not involved in the sex abuse cover-up of the past. But they understand that they are the face of that betrayal. Instead of deflecting responsibility, they embrace it. They carry it like a cross. They do this because they know it’s the only way to help the Church heal. I have also seen this in the diocesan priests I have come to know in Steubenville. In fact, it was because of diocesan priests that one of Franciscan University’s TOR victims received care and guidance through the legal process.

Local Catholic writers chronicle the struggle of Steubenville, about buildings which are collapsing as retaining walls crumble. It is both baffling and remarkable to watch a mix of long-time residents and newbies invest in Steubenville’s restoration. Not all of them want a Catholic bulwark. Some are informed by Catholic social teachings and are motivated by the poverty that plagues many in this community. Locals strive through policy change and low-income housing initiatives, remembering the town for its once vibrant community and wanting to rebuild for the next generations. They appeal for its restoration because they love the town. And to love something is to will its good.

One thing is certain: this town is full of survivors. They have been betrayed and deceived by institutions—corporate and religious. They have been robbed. They have been emotionally, spiritually, sexually manipulated and abused. I’m not sure they know they are survivors, but the pain of this community is palpable. There are cracks in the foundation, and to truly revitalize the community, abusive systems need to be dismantled.

As Pope Leo XIV recently said in his address to the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors:

Prevention is never just a set of protocols or procedures. It is about helping to form, throughout the Church, a culture of care, in which the protection of minors and persons in vulnerable situations is not seen as an obligation imposed from outside, but as a natural expression of faith. It calls therefore for a process of conversion where the sufferings of others are heard and move us to take action.[32]

If Franciscan University, and Steubenville, wants to be a light in the darkness—to Live the Truth— it needs to embrace a “a culture of care” which is not only a matter of protocol and polices, but “a natural expression of faith.” Dismantling old systems can feel dangerous. But anything worth doing is dangerous.

*

I have realized something about myself since we moved to Steubenville, Ohio: I am a Portland weirdo. In Portland, as a convert, I was a weirdo. I guess I’m just a weirdo everywhere. I am thankful the Church’s doors did not close to me because of my past, my ideology, or my desires. My conversion has been gradual and ongoing, and I still have questions, doubts, and fears. Until I moved to Steubenville, I felt as though the Church held a place for my gradual conversion. This is the first time in my Catholic life that I wonder if the Church can hold me in her heart. I cling to my past experience, the one that tells me Steubenville—and for certain Franciscan University— is not the sum of the Catholic Church.

I’m not sure social cohesion and assimilation are in the cards for me, though I will give what I can without compromise. While I come from the land of granola and honey where people protest in frog suits as well as their birthday suits, I have no intention of initiating a naked bike ride in protest of fossil fuels. In fact, fossil fuels have grown on me in the Ohio River Valley. But I do like a good fight. How we as a Church—as a family, a town, a community—address sexual abuse and the cultures that support it—these are battles worth fighting. Weird, left-coast, naked Portland taught me that.

{For the rest of the series: Part One→Part Two→Part Three→Part Four→Part Five→Interlude→Part Six→Part Seven}

[1] Matthew 18:6

[2] https://safety.franciscan.edu

[3] Fisher, Damien. “TOR reassigned and defended priest after sexual assault.” Simcha Fisher, 4 May 2022. https://www.simchafisher.com/2022/05/04/tor-reassigned-and-defended-priest-after-sexual-assault/

[4] “Former TOR Franciscan leaders charged for oversight of abusive friar.” EWTN News, 16 Mar 2016. https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/us/former-tor-franciscan-leaders-charged-for-oversight-of-abusive-friar

[5] The Catholic Project. Crisis: Clergy Abuse in the Catholic Church, Episode 3; “What Caused the Crisis?” 23 Sept 2020. https://catholicproject.catholic.edu/podcast/

[6] Police Report, p. 7

[7] https://www.scribd.com/doc/103839744/Strife-at-Steubenville-Cracks-In-The-House-Scanlan-Built-NCR-Feb-2000

[8] Ottenweller Report, p. 50

[9] Ottenweller Report, p. 62

[10] Ottenweller Report, p. 62

[11] Lawsuit Draft, #69

[12] Herbeck, Peter. “Reflections on Ralph Martin’s 1975 Prophecy.” Renewal Ministries, 18 Jun 2020. https://www.renealministries.net/reflections-on-ralph-martins-1975-prophecy/

[13] “Sword of the Spirit Policy Notebook 0001.” Uploaded by John Flaherty. https://www.scribd.com/document/19142540/Sword-of-the-Spirit-Policy-Notebook-0001

[14] “Days of Darkness: Fr. Michael Scanlan.” Uploaded by John Flaherty, 05 Apr 2011, https://www.scribd.com/document/52356465/Days-of-Darkness-13-Minute-Audio-tape-of-Fr-Michael-Scanlan-TOR

[15] https://www.scribd.com/document/98666774/SOCK-1982-Communicating-to-People-Outside-the-Community

[16] Hittinger, Francis R., Letter to Jean Cardinal Villot, 7 Apr 1975, typescript. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

[17] Ottenweller Report, p. 67

[18] Ottenweller Report, p. 35

[19] https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jp-ii_apc_15081990_ex-corde-ecclesiae.html

[20] Pivonka, Fr. David. “Live the Truth.” Franciscan Magazine. Autumn 2024. https://magazine.franciscan.edu/articles/live-the-truth/

[21] Chapman, Emily Stimpson. “Raising Up A ‘New Generation of Builders’.” Franciscan Magazine, Winter 2022. https://www.calameo.com/read/000056854d364fa1ad5d8

[22] Ottenweller Report, p. 68

[23] Pivonka, Fr. Dave. “The body matters. That’s why, as university president, I am concerned for my female athletes.” USAToday, 28 Apr 2022. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2022/04/28/transgender-athletes-conversations-university-president/7217994001/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p

[24] Morson, Jenn. “Alumnae Question Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Commitment to Title IX.” National Catholic Reporter, 16 Apr 2018. https://www.ncronline.org/news/alumnae-question-franciscan-university-steubenvilles-committment-title-ix

[25] Sisters of the Little Way. Descent into Light, Episode 5: “The Displaced Weight of Abuse.” 29 Oct 2025, https://www.sistersofthelittleway.com/p/v-the-displaced-weight-of-abuse

[26] The Catholic Project. Crisis: Clergy Abuse in the Catholic Church, Episode 10: “Bishops’ Accountability,” 23 Dec 2020. https://catholicproject.catholic.edu/podcast/

[27] Sisters of the Little Way. Descent into Light, Episode 3: “The Courage to Be Angry.” 15 Oct 2025, https://www.sistersofthelittleway.com/p/iii-the-courage-to-be-angry

[28] Sisters of the Little Way. Descent into Light, Episode 4: “Bargaining with the Storm.” 22 Oct 2025, https://www.sistersofthelittleway.com/p/iv-bargaining-with-the-storm

[29] https://www.bishop-accountability.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/documents-BA-Steubenville-Morrier-Victim-Statement-2022-03-11.pdf

[30] Matthew 18:14

[31] Sisters of the Little Way. Descent into Light, Episode 7: “Exposed to the Light.” 12 Nov 2025, https://www.sistersofthelittleway.com/p/vii-exposed-to-the-light

[32] Message of the Holy Father to the participants at the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors [24-28 March 2025] (20 March 2025)

In this essay, we will return to the narrative of “Joan” at Franciscan University, and the abuse she suffered at the hands of Fr. David Morrier, TOR. This is stitched together from anonymously leaked documents of the investigation which includes notes from the police report, a lawsuit draft, an exorcism report, and correspondence between involved parties. It documents the alleged progression of Morrier’s treatment of Joan from spiritual direction to manipulative imposition of memories of Satanic Ritual Abuse, and eventually, to sexual battery.

In 2024, Fr. Dave Pivonka, TOR, President of Franciscan University, introduced a new motto for the University: “Live the Truth.” In his explanation of the new motto[1], he uses a quote from Princess Elsa’s song “Let It Go” in Disney’s Frozen to demonstrate the moral relativism of modern day: “no right, no wrong, no rules for me.” Pivonka draws a parallel to “our culture,” which he says seeks to live its own truth. His tone follows in the tradition of his predecessor, Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR who often pointed out the “tide of evil”[2] in the world and offered Franciscan University as the antidote. Likewise, Pivonka believes that the University “faces the crucial challenge of engaging and transforming a world adrift.” This is, frankly, a brilliant selling point and has worked for the University for decades. But it’s nothing new; it is the mission of Christians everywhere and the entire Catholic Church.

But, as President of Franciscan University, what exactly is Fr. Dave Pivonka’s definition of Truth? As the leaked documents from the investigation into the rape of a student by a TOR friar on Franciscan University’s campus suggest, it is apparently permissible for objective truth to be massaged to protect the University’s image and reputation.

Several days after Fr. David Morrier, TOR pled guilty to sexual battery, JD Flynn published an article in The Pillar, a Catholic periodical, that questioned Franciscan University’s purported timeline of events. The University originally claimed on March 11, 2022 that their “Title IX Coordinator was first notified of the sexual abuse allegations in 2015, after which the University met with the victim, advised her of her right to an investigation and resolution under the University’s Title IX policy, and offered to assist her in reporting to police.”[3] This is careful and misleading wording as it was not the first time University administration had been notified of sexual abuse allegations against Fr. David Morrier.

As Flynn points out, Joan’s statement read on that same day in court stated she began reporting in 2013. He also points out that the Steubenville Herald-Star claims Morrier was banned from campus in 2014. Flynn rightly remarks, “The timeline discrepancy is not insignificant.”[4]

The released documents from the police investigation would affirm the discrepancies in Franciscan University’s timeline. In fact, members of the administration—and significant, influential members— were notified in 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, and then, 2015. And no one called the police.

The lawsuit draft alleges that Joan first reported that she was being raped by Morrier to Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR in November of 2010, right after Scanlan helped Morrier orchestrate and perform a series of exorcisms on Joan with members of the Community of God’s Love in attendance (of which there is extensive documentation).[5] In response, he put his hand on Joan’s shoulder and told her that Morrier was a “broken man,” and therefore Joan needed to practice “emotional chastity” in her relationship with Morrier.[6] He did not offer help or assistance and did not call the police.

In 2011, the lawsuit draft alleges that Joan reported the “nature and extent of the deliverance sessions and exorcisms,” to Fr. Dave Pivonka, TOR, to which he replied, “I’ll pray for you.”[7] He did not offer help or assistance.

In 2013, after a failed suicide attempt, the investigation alleges Joan met with Fr. Shawn Roberson, TOR, then University Chaplain, and as she began to report Morrier’s abuse, he interrupted her to say, “I’m sure if I go home tonight, and ask Fr. Morrier about this, which I intend to do, he will have a different story, so instead of sitting here gossiping, which is a sin, why don’t we focus on why we are here and that is you and your problems.”[8] He did not offer help or assistance, and did not call the police. Like so many alleged responses to students’ allegations of sexual assault on campus, Joan was blamed.

On November 7, 2013, Joseph Loizzo, then Director of the Wellness Center and Joan’s counselor for several years, wrote a letter[9] to Fr. Richard Davis, TOR, then head of the order, in which he reports Morrier’s abuse. Loizzo starts by stating that he had been concerned about Joan for years but felt bound to confidentiality. He acknowledged that Joan grew more distressed as the exorcisms by Morrier continued, but “Fr. Dave being a priest probably knew better than I did about the extent of preternatural involvement” which is why Loizzo “didn’t pursue my doubts and concerns about this ministry.” He concludes that “these sessions with her were a type of spiritual abuse in which Fr. Dave controlled and coerced her into believing that she was possessed fully when she really was not at all.” Loizzo reveals that Joan told Morrier what “he wanted to hear” because “he wouldn’t listen at all to her when she tried to describe the patterns of abuse that were in reality present in her childhood and adolescence.” Morrier, instead, spun Joan’s trauma “into a tale about demons, witchcraft, and occult practices.”

Loizzo then reveals that it seemed to him that Morrier “went to every conference on exorcism that he could find and would come back with more justifications of his assessment.” He pleads with Davis to hear Joan’s story “so that no future student will ever be subjected to such conduct in the future.”

Fr. Richard Davis met with Joan on November 15, 2013, the lawsuit draft alleges. Davis responded with a “sorry” and assured Joan that Morrier would be getting psychiatric treatment.[10] However, six months later, Joan was surprised to learn that Morrier had been assigned to a Texas parish as a Franciscan priest. By Morrier’s reassignment after allegations of spiritual and physical abuse surfaced, I can only assume the TORs, Province of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, either did not believe Joan or were not concerned for the safety of laypeople.

By the spring of 2014, Joan revealed to Joseph Loizzo that Morrier had not only spiritually and emotionally abused her, but had sexually abused her as well. The lawsuit alleges that he told her to “keep that information in therapy not only because it could harm Franciscan University and the Franciscan Order,” but also because it could ruin her.[11] Unbeknownst to Joan, Loizzo and Davis began drafting a settlement agreement. In an email from Joseph Loizzo to Fr. Richard Davis, David Schmiessing, and President Fr. Sean O. Sheridan, Loizzo reiterates how Joan had been “psychologically/emotionally, spiritually, and sexually abused by [Morrier] over a period of several years.” He closes the email stating that the money indicated for the settlement is a small price to pay “for helping her while keeping this entirely confidential. If she goes to court,” he continues, “the total amount will be far more money and the negative publicity for us will be considerable.”[12]

Needless to say, Loizzo too did not call the police.

Fr. Richard Davis set up a meeting with Joan for August 20, 2015 at 3:00 pm at the Friary on Franciscan’s campus, at which Loizzo was not allowed to be present.[13] The lawsuit alleges that, in the meeting, Joan was asked to sign the agreement, which stated that Franciscan University would give her a sum of money, and she would, thereafter, not be allowed to contact police. When she began to read through the agreement, Fr. Davis flippantly encouraged her not to worry, that he didn’t even know what it all meant. He then told her that Loizzo, the Franciscan University community, and TORs, all presumed she was lying about Morrier, implying that that the agreement was intended to shut her up, and not an admission of guilt. He also told her, “Fr. Dave never meant to hurt you. Had he known it was hurting you, he never would have done it. He cares about you. He loves you.”[14]

I hope you take a pause here. Just sit with that for a moment: “Had he known it was hurting you.” Recall that the investigation alleges that Joan was screaming and struggling to such an extent during the deliverance sessions, that she required restrainers— men from Steubenville’s Catholic community—and at one time hit her head so badly that she sustained a concussion.

“He loves you.” What better way to destroy someone’s conception of love, particularly in a situation that conflates the priestly ministry, confession, counseling, modes of healing, and representation of God’s love with violent sexual abuse.

Not long after the police contacted Joan, Franciscan University hired a new president: Fr. Dave Pivonka, TOR, their first alumni to serve as president. He, as the investigation alleges, already knew Joan and had knowledge of Morrier’s abuse.

In December of 2021, about nine months after Fr. David Morrier was indicted for sexual battery and about three months before he pled guilty, Fr. Dave Pivonka revealed he had secretly been raising money in honor of the University’s 75^th anniversary. He called it a “Rebuild My Church” capital campaign, riffing on God’s words to St. Francis of Assisi nearly a thousand years before. Seventy-five million dollars in honor of seventy-five years: bricks and mortar renovations and additions, scholarships and financial aid, as well as outreach and evangelization. Not surprisingly, in the Winter 2022 edition of Franciscan Magazine, Pivonka echoes the doomsday message of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal as a selling point for pledges: “Confusion and corruption have permeated Christ’s Body on earth, and basic building blocks of Christian culture are crumbling.”[15]

The documents which would surface just months after this piece was published prove Pivonka’s words: “confusion and corruption have permeated Christ’s body on earth”—and nowhere so heinously at that very moment than Franciscan University.

While I was on a tour of campus as construction began, I was surprised to see photos of Pivonka, staring off into the distance, integrated into the signs explaining renovations and new construction. No other university I knew of relied so heavily on a celebrity persona—and of a Franciscan brother at that—as integral to the identity of the school. Fr. Michael Scanlan began that tradition of personality-driven ministry at Franciscan University. And it was effective.

By Pivonka’s own account, when he takes an ideological stand, someone will send him money. In 2022, he published an op-ed in USA Today claiming that his “heart broke” for female athletes who might have to compete with transgender athletes. He wrote, “Tragically, it becomes another example of how the system is rigged against women because they were born women.”[16] Just a few years earlier Franciscan University had its hand pressed to the fire by alumnae’s reports of mishandled sexual assault allegations, and just weeks earlier a brother-friar had pled guilty to sexual battery, yet Pivonka chose to make public statements on a hot-button political issue that was not present at his school rather than looking at the ways “the system is rigged” against women at his institution.

By 2022, sexual assault on Franciscan’s campus, and abuses within deliverance ministry, had been proven by then to be a gendered problem, quite decidedly against women. Apparently, women’s bodies only matter when they serve the correct ideological agenda. Instead of being reprimanded or punished for his blatant hypocrisy, he proudly reported later on Matt Fradd’s Youtube show that following the publication of the USA Today op-ed, as well as other ideological stands, someone sent him a check, with a note that read, “Fr. Dave, you continue to do things that make me proud.”[17]

The great absence of calls for transparency from President Fr. Dave Pivonka in Catholic culture and media, not to mention his image around campus, is indicative of clericalism, a cause the Catholic Church, in its investigations into itself, has already identified as a vital part of systemic abuse. Oddly enough, an apt description of clericalism could be taken from Princess Elsa in Frozen, the one Pivonka quoted as proof of society’s amorality: “no right, no wrong, no rules for me.” Dr. Susan Timony, associate professor of pastoral practice at Catholic University defines clericalism as “when priests themselves feel like they’re somehow different and more privileged than the other people of God.”[18] They give themselves their own rules and expectations by which to live.

Dr. Timony points out that clericalism is a two-way street: members of the Church allow clerics this privilege by perceiving them as set apart and by tacitly granting them permission to live by their own rules. Recall how Joan’s counselor, Joseph Loizzo, in his letter to then TOR Provincial, Fr. Richard Davis, wrote, “For my part, I thought that Fr. Dave [Morrier] being a priest probably knew better than I did.”[19] Recall an alumni’s reflection in Crisis Magazine when she wondered why many of her friends had misgivings about Morrier but never said anything.[20] In the 2018 thread on Franciscan University’s Facebook page when alumnae shared stories of sexual assault on campus, the dismissal of their claims—and later the erasure— perpetuated the patronizing tone of clericalism.

Dr. Timony adds that priests should want to earn trust, whereas clericalism assumes trust. The TORs exemplify this model of clericalism, both assuming trust and taking advantage of the laypeople who are reflexively willing to give it to them.

There is another element of clericalism at play at Franciscan University among the TORs, something Dr. Paul Scalia, vicar for clergy for the diocese of Arlington, VA calls “a lack of fraternal correction.”[21] This good-old-boy network continues by “looking out for one another and turning a blind eye to one another’s faults or crimes or misdeeds.” This is evident in Fr. Michael Scanlan’s response to Joan (“practice emotional chastity”), in Fr. Shawn Roberson’s response to Joan (gossip is a sin), Fr. Dave Pivonka’s response (“I’ll pray for you,” as opposed to insisting on responsibility), and Fr. Richard Davis’s response (“[Morrier] cares for you. He loves you.”). All these men are brother-friars of Fr. David Morrier; all belong to the same order. And all of them protected Morrier.

Franciscan University had no excuse to protect a rapist. Franciscan University has no excuse to have lied about protecting a rapist. If Franciscan University is genuinely committed to living the Truth, they need to reckon with their misrepresentation of the timeline which the investigation alleges:

The investigation alleges that individuals at the University (including Fr. Michael Scanlan) had, in fact, been notified of Morrier’s abuse as early as 2010.

The investigation alleges that the administration was collectively notified in 2013 and did not report it to police.

The investigation alleges that the Provincial of the Third Order Regulars, Fr. Richard Davis, was told in 2013 and did not report it to the police.

The investigation alleges that Fr. Sean O. Sheridan, as University president, was notified in 2014, which means that in his opening homily of the 2018 academic year in which he apologizes for any harm done by the Franciscan “family,” he had concealed knowledge of a fellow TOR’s abuse for four years. He, too, did not report it to the police.

Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR, spiritual father of Franciscan University and renowned leader of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, also did not report his protégé, Fr. David Morrier, to the police. Presumably, he took it to his grave.

The University’s new motto, “Live the Truth”, was announced two years after Fr. David Morrier, Pivonka’s brother-friar, pled guilty to sexual battery. Pivonka had redirected the attention from Morrier’s case by announcing the Rebuild My Church capital campaign. Like a slight of hand, Franciscan’s supporters, already trained to trust a TOR, obediently shifted their attention. Nothing to see here.

“Live the Truth” was announced soon after the investigation documents were leaked by an anonymous source within Franciscan University, alleging the University had lied to the public. The motto was announced just one year after allegations of inappropriate behavior—which mirrored some of the grooming behaviors Fr. David Morrier used on Joan—surfaced against Fr. Gregory Plow, TOR who is still at the University.

In Pivonka’s explanation of the University’s new motto, he subsequently admits to never finishing Frozen. If he had, he would have learned that one of the messages of the story is that Princess Elsa eventually learns that, for her too, there is indeed right and wrong, especially in relationships with others; her individuality and relativism do not solve her problems. She learns that true freedom is not found in a solitary ice castle, but in an exchange of love. She learns that her powers are not a curse after all, but a gift, and can be used to protect the ones she loves. She need no longer be controlled by fear for, along with the gift, she possesses the strength and discernment to wield her power and can use it to create beauty and defend the vulnerable.

Ironically, like Princess Elsa, Franciscan University’s spirituality has been dominated by fear. They assume that warning Catholics of impending doom and a crumbling world keeps their admissions up, their conferences populated, and their TOR friars as spiritual authorities in a Church that (they claim) cannot be trusted. If they really lived their own spirituality—if they really believed that demonic forces were a threat—they would have exorcised the hell out of campus after Morrier left. They would have doused the place with holy water, burned the foundations of buildings where he walked, where he heard confessions, where he counseled young women, where he “exorcised” Joan, and especially where he raped her in God’s name. The University’s apparent rush to move past Morrier’s transgressions suggests the threat of demonic forces is less of a genuine belief and more of a power play. As discussed in Part Six, the spirituality on campus is more moral entrepreneurship than conviction.

If you were to drive by Franciscan University’s campus right now in the summer of 2026, you would see metal fences surrounding parts of campus, bulldozers moving earth and workers laying concrete as they use the millions of dollars donated and pledged to the University to give it a new, shiny veneer. But the foundations laid by Fr. Michael Scanlan and his abusive branch of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal are still there. The University is focused on their own image as opposed to rooting out cultural systems of abuse.

What does it mean to “live the Truth”? Pivonka, in his explanation of the University’s new motto, counters the “shifting sands” of society with “Jesus… THE truth.” I couldn’t agree more. But Jesus is not a list of theological maxims. Jesus is God—and Love—Incarnate. He rose from the dead with his scars of degradation, humiliation, and abuse— healed but not erased. If Franciscan University and the TORs really were in the business of healing, this should have been the message Joan was given. She suffered degradation and humiliation. She suffered violation of her privacy, dignity, and trust in human beings. And then it was magnified a hundredfold at the hands of a priest, and members of the Catholic charismatic community, who convinced her that she had been a victim of Satanic Ritual Abuse. The administration would not believe her; they dismissed her claims, told her she was lying, and, when she was at her weakest and most vulnerable in 2013 after years of sexual battery, led her into a settlement to keep her quiet.

It would not be Franciscan University or the Community of God’s Love (formerly Servants of Christ the King) or TOR friars who helped Joan combat real evil. It would be that “corrupt” and “confused” Church—the Steubenville diocese—and institutions of a “totally amoral” society, those pesky enemies Pivonka wants us to fear. Steubenville parish priests, the Steubenville police, lawyers, judges, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and journalists employed God-given empathy and thirst for justice and came to Joan’s aid. They would be heroes because they would see the hero in Joan. In her they identified a courageous and incredible young woman who survived an unfathomable degree of suffering at Franciscan University at the hands of Third Order Regular friars and charismatic community members.

Indeed, Fr. Dave Pivonka, TOR friars, and Franciscan University: Live the Truth. At long last.

The Epilogue is up next and will conclude this series.

{Part One→Part Two→Part Three→Part Four→Part Five→Interlude→Part Six}

[1] Pivonka, Fr. David. “Live the Truth.” Franciscan Magazine. Autumn 2024. https://magazine.franciscan.edu/articles/live-the-truth/

[2] Days of Darkness: Fr. Michael Scanlan.” Uploaded by John Flaherty, 05 Apr 2011, https://www.scribd.com/document/52356465/Days-of-Darkness-13-Minute-Audio-tape-of-Fr-Michael-Scanlan-TOR

[3] https://franciscan.edu/franciscan-university-statement-on-father-morrier-2/

[4] Flynn, JD. “After Morrier conviction, will Vatican investigate allegation’s handling?” The Pillar, 17 Mar 2022. https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/after-morrier-conviction-questions

[5]

Believer

Centralized Location for Documentation of Father David Morrier

CN: sexual, spiritual, and physical abuse…

Read more

3 years ago · 9 likes · Jenn Morson

[6] Lawsuit Draft, #67

[7] Lawsuit Draft, #68

[8] Lawsuit Draft, #69

[9] Loizzo, Joseph. Letter to Fr. Richard Davis, TOR. 7 Nov 2013. https://jennmorsonsubstack.com/p/centralized-location-for-documentation

[10] Lawsuit Draft, #74

[11] Lawsuit Draft, #75

[12] Loizzo, Joseph. Email correspondence with Fr. Richard Davis, David Schmiessing, Fr. Sean O. Sheridan. 12 Aug 2015. https://jennmorsonsubstack.com/p/centralized-location-for-documentation

[13] Davis, Fr. Richard. Email correspondence with Joseph Loizzo. 14 Aug 2015. https://jennmorsonsubstack.com/p/centralized-location-for-documentation

[14] Lawsuit Draft, #87

[15] Chapman, Emily Stimpson. “Raising Up A ‘New Generation of Builders’.” Franciscan Magazine, Winter 2022. https://www.calameo.com/read/000056854d364fa1ad5d8

[16] Pivonka, Fr. Dave. “The body matters. That’s why, as university president, I am concerned for my female athletes.” USAToday, 28 Apr 2022. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2022/04/28/transgender-athletes-conversations-university-president/7217994001/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p

[17] “Battling Wokeism in Higher Education (Franciscan President Fr. Dave Pivonka, TOR).” Matt Fradd, YouTube. 29 Sept 2022.

[18] The Catholic Project. Crisis: Clergy Abuse in the Catholic Church, Episode 3; “What Caused the Crisis?” 23 Sept 2020. https://catholicproject.catholic.edu/podcast/

[19] Loizzo, Joseph. Letter to Fr. Richard Davis, TOR. 7 Nov 2013. https://jennmorsonsubstack.com/p/centralized-location-for-documentation

[20] Hansen, Elizabeth. “Franciscan University and Friars Face a Reckoning.” Crisis Magazine. 14 Apr 2021. https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/franciscan-university-and-its-friars-face-a-reckoning

[21] The Catholic Project. Crisis: Clergy Abuse in the Catholic Church, Episode 3; “What Caused the Crisis?” 23 Sept 2020. https://catholicproject.catholic.edu/podcast/

Please be advised this article discusses details of sexual assault.

In late summer of 2006, a seventeen-year-old girl arrived on the campus of Franciscan University. She arrived with a difficult past; she had been sexually abused and trafficked as a child. She had also been loved and nurtured by her grandparents and a Catholic community. She had already struggled with addiction and suicidal ideation. She brought it all with her as she moved into her dorm and settled in for her first semester of college.

We are going to call her Joan.

Joan would not have known that the Franciscan University “family” had nurtured a culture of abuse. Joan would not have been aware of abuses within the Catholic Charismatic Renewal or Servants of Christ the King which, by 2006, were concealed as embarrassments or anomalies. Joan would not have known that the University’s Chancellor and spiritual shepherd, Fr. Michael Scanlan—whom students followed around to collect hairs from his habit as relics of a living saint—had taken Joan’s future abuser under his wing.

The only culture Joan would have been aware of was Franciscan University’s history as a faithful Catholic college. It advertised itself as a city on a hill, the center of Pope John Paul II’s “new evangelization,” an ideological beacon of light in a world that was essentially run by the devil. While the TORs and Franciscan administration engaged their ideological enemies from behind the walls of the proverbial bulwark Scanlan had commissioned, students within were warned of Satan and demonic forces not only lurking in secular culture, but living as shadows in their own lives, however protected they may have assumed themselves to be. Evil could show its face through not just temptation, but sometimes in the guise of physical maladies and psychological struggles.

Not to worry though. Franciscan University had the antidote to the evil without and the evil within. These fruits of the charismatic movement—Theophostic prayer and healing, discernment of spirits, and exorcisms—were available through the Friars of St. Francis of the Third Order Regular who lived and served on campus, students whom they trained, and members of the Community of God’s Love, formerly known as Servants of Christ the King.

By the time Joan arrived at Franciscan University in 2006, much of the administration—both Third Order Regular friars and laypeople—were so consumed with warding off evil from the outside that they had failed to identify the evil within their midst. As a former member said of the abusive charismatic household, True House, “Extraordinary forms of coercion are not so evident. One must monitor and investigate the daily life of these [charismatic covenant] groups.”[1] That would prove to be true of the University, which had been formed through the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. From the outside, especially through a lens of admiration and awe, systemic abuse was “not so evident.” It would take an investigation to root it out.

Twelve years later—almost to the day—after her arrival on Franciscan University’s campus, Joan would be contacted by Steubenville’s police department. As the investigation alleges, someone tipped the police about a possible case of sexual assault on Franciscan University’s campus of a TOR friar against a student. Joan, unsure she was allowed to speak to the police following a previously signed settlement with Fr. Richard Davis, TOR in 2013, had avoided the repeated phone calls from Steubenville’s police department. Finally, in late summer of 2018, Joan went in for an interview.

The police headquarters in Steubenville is hard to miss. The building is almost an eyesore—a multi-level brick edifice on the Ohio River off Route 7. Detective Jon Sowers would interview Joan several times, according to the police report. He would also interview nearly fifty indirect witnesses and pore over hundreds of pages of related documents.

The story you are about to read is compiled from documents leaked by an anonymous source, someone who identified themselves to journalists as having been implicated in the lawsuit. I do not fully understand why this person chose to release the documents. Maybe to atone for their sins. But they put Joan at risk when they released the documents unredacted with Joan’s personal information available for the public—and her adversaries in Steubenville. Journalist Jenn Morson painstakingly combed through each page to redact sensitive information. The documents can be found here and include the draft of a lawsuit, notes from the police report, and correspondence between Director of the Wellness Center, Joseph Loizzo, Provincial Fr. Richard Davis, TOR, Vice President of Student Life, David Schmiesing, and University Chancellor, Fr. Michael Scanlan.

These documents did not make it to a court room. Morrier pled guilty to one count of sexual battery, and Joan did not want to risk a trial by jury in Steubenville, Ohio. Now that I know the community better, I cannot blame her. One Franciscan supporter on the jury could have kept Morrier free and declared innocent.

Do not mistake me: while these allegations were not tried in a criminal court, the evidence provided through the collection of leaked documents, as well as Franciscan University’s ties to an abusive thread of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and the University’s historical dismissal of sexual assault and harassment allegations, I believe this account to be true.

*

Christ the King Chapel stood out in 2006 as a remnant of bygone brutalist architecture in a swirl of concrete— perhaps made to look like a whoosh of the Holy Spirit or the sail of a boat— atop which was fastened a simple, metal cross. The cement slab façade would have been iconic to Joan and representative of the University’s Catholic renaissance under Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR. Catholic sacramental life was hopping then as much as it is now: not only did students fill the chapel for Sunday Mass, but for daily Mass as well; frequent Confession was not only available but encouraged.

When Joan first went to Confession with Fr. David Morrier in the fall of 2006, he handed her a pamphlet, as was his custom. Printed on different colors of paper, these pamphlets—which gave him the nickname “Pamphlet Priest”[2]—corresponded to sins confessed. Joan disagreed with the content of the pamphlet and emailed him. In their first meeting, the lawsuit alleges that Morrier suggested Joan take part in Theophostic[3] prayer for her troubles, which was run by members of the Community of God’s Love (formerly Servants of Christ the King). Joan claims she attended once and did not return because of its intensity. The facilitators refused to halt the session as she requested.

As the lawsuit alleges, Morrier began spiritual direction with Joan in 2007 and, at the time, provided spiritual direction for other young women as well. The lawsuit claims that Morrier, “with Scanlan’s full acquiescence, knowledge, and support” utilized Deliverance Ministry to “solicit mostly troubled young female students.”[4] Even Joan acknowledges that Morrier had a reputation for helping “messed-up”[5] girls. He quickly began to exercise control over Joan’s life and prohibited her from receiving sacraments from any other priest.[6]

When Joan’s grandparents—her primary familial support system—died in 2008, she began seeing Joseph Loizzo, then Director of the Wellness Center and licensed therapist. He diagnosed her with PTSD, bereavement and alcohol dependency.

After surviving sexual assault off-campus in 2008, Fr. David Morrier and Joseph Loizzo, agreed there was “a demonic component” to Joan’s mental health issues and convinced her to allow Morrier and Loizzo to share information regarding her treatment, as the police report states. Joan alleges that, at this time, Morrier began crossing boundaries of personal space by holding her hands and giving her two-armed, lingering hugs.

The investigation alleges that, in early 2009, the deliverance sessions began. At first, these sessions were private, but then it became a group activity. The lawsuit alleges that Scanlan had established a unit of individuals to participate in deliverance sessions, including “identifiable members of the Community of God’s Love… certain Franciscan officials, employees, as well as other Catholic members of the Steubenville community not affiliated with the university.”[7]

The deliverance ministry team that gathered around Joan included a student who was determined to have the gift of discerning spirits. While the words discernment and even the phrase “discerning spirits” is biblical, in the charismatic tradition, this “gift” was the supposed ability to identify and distinguish evil spirits. Detective Sowers found that “discerner” was often used synonymously with seer or oracle, as someone who could decipher past events. As a Steubenville deacon would testify in an interview with police, the gift of discerning spirits was seen as a symbol of status within charismatic groups.

In one session, the investigation alleges, this “discerner of spirits” claimed Joan’s great-grandmother was a victim of Satanic Ritual Abuse, or SRA. By 2010, Morrier convinced Joan she was a victim of satanic ritual abuse precisely because she did not remember being a victim of said abuse. He told her that her issues—nightmares, insomnia, flashbacks, loneliness, cutting, drugs and alcohol (which are all signs of PTSD as the investigation points out)—had been brought on by demons because she had been talking about having been abused.

The lawsuit alleges that just a few years earlier, Fr. Michael Scanlan, at the expense of the university, sent Fr. David Morrier to a seminar entitled “Mind Control—An Introduction: A Seminar for Those in Healing Professions Including Psychiatrists and Psychologists.” It worked from the premise that “a cabal of Satanists, who had infiltrated all levels of government and society, used mind control and indoctrination to ‘program’ individuals to participate in the spread of Satanism and by which Satanists procured victims for ritual sexual abuse and sacrifice.” According to materials from the seminar, individuals could be “caught in a web of satanic control.”[8] Therapists could uncover this and “de-program” said individuals. The seminar materials included a mind control manual, presumably by which to de-program the afflicted.

In Joan, it seems Morrier had found an ideal subject on whom to practice his newfound training.

*

Praying the demons away has been a vital part of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal from its inception. Fr. Ken McGuire, priest and anthropologist, wrote in his study of True House, “Praying for healing of memories and for deliverance was used at various times in the community…asking for any demons or evil spirits to depart.”[9] This type of ceremony mirrors baptism, during which the priest or deacon says minor prayers of exorcism. However, the “healing of memories” through exorcism prayers is a borrowed idea from Pentecostalism.

John Hittinger, a former member of True House, states that Jim Byrne and other charismatic leaders, were influenced by Derek Prince, a Pentecostal preacher and missionary who taught that illness and psychological problems could be caused by demons, and people could be freed from these demonic forces through deliverance ministry. In True House, Hittinger says, because of this “focus on demons… someone would collect information on your background, note your weaknesses” and then organized a “violent kind of intervention.” The person in need of exorcism (determined by their willfulness, lack of cooperation, or dissension) would be kidnapped at night and taken to a room with a fireplace. A “chapter of faults” would be read as the leaders tried to uncover the source of the person’s (what they deemed) bad behavior. Personal belongings that were determined to have a demonic hold over the person would be burned in the fireplace. They were prayed over with exorcism prayers. Hittinger, who had undergone one of these “breakthrough sessions,” described it as a “breakdown” where subjects felt “violated” and left with “a wound that doesn’t close.”[10]

The idea that demonic forces were at play in the world and that they could have a hold over someone, even a baptized Christian—and, like the mind control seminar would purport, that the world was secretly run by a cabal of Satanists— was building momentum in North America. The Catholic Charismatic Renewal, which ramped up through the late ‘60s and picked up steam through the ‘70s and ‘80’s, was a part of a broader Pentecostal movement. The cultural upheaval of the ‘60s—psychedelic drugs, war and protests, “free love”—created a moral panic.

Moral panics are normal reactions to “social change or social disruption that causes conflict or anxiety,” says Mary DeYoung, social-psychologist from Grand Valley State University. These “repressive movements” seek to restore “old cultural habits,” or what is often referred to as ‘the good old days’, which the social change threatens to upend.[11]

In 1969, when teenage girls who had run away from the suburbs to join Charles Manson murdered seven people at his bidding, the threat of Satanism shifted front-and-center as the probable cause of the world’s unrest. Pentecostal spirituality provided a powerful antidote: emotive charismatic worship that left worshippers with a sense of triumph and hope, prayers that promised to drive demons out, and a suspicion of anything ‘worldly’—books, music, television, people—that might transport demonic forces.

In 1970, Hal Lindsey, evangelical writer and talk show host, published The Late Great Planet Earth which took biblical end time prophecies and applied them to present-day. In 1991, on a program called Apocalypse Planet Earth, Lindsey would say, “Satan came in with his plan. Now we have the most amazing resurgence of Satanism and the occult that has ever been seen in the world,”[12] though by the 1990s, many of the claims about occult presences across North America had either been debunked or unsubstantiated. Though occult activity is most certainly real, and always has been, there’s no verifiable evidence that there had been “an amazing resurgence.”

This hyper-awareness of occult activity would lead a Catholic psychiatrist in Victoria, B.C. to believe he had helped draw out repressed memories from one of his patients, Michelle Smith, that revealed she had been subjected to occult activity as a child. In 1980, Larry Pazder would coin the term “satanic ritual abuse” in the best-seller he co-authored with his client—and, later, second wife—Michelle Remembers.

As Sarah Marshall, investigative podcaster, says, “Michelle Remembers is a scary book to read, but not for the reason it thinks it is.”[13] While it tells horrific details of not only abuse but occult practices, it would set off a firestorm of paranoia about Satanic RitualAabuse, or SRA. Media ate it up: Pazder and Smith were guests on talk shows and appeared in popular publications like People Magazine. Before Michelle Remembers was published, and before they left their spouses to marry each other, Pazder and Smith were granted an audience with Pope Paul VI through the support of their local bishop, thus receiving tacit endorsement of her story.

While Pazder’s ex-wife would spend the rest of her life debunking Smith’s story, alleging Padzer had aspired to fame as a psychiatrist after watching the film Sybil (in which a psychiatrist helps a survivor of extreme abuse work through Dissociated Identity Disorder) police, social workers, and allied professionals began attending conferences to learn how to identify signs of SRA. Soon, cases were popping up throughout North America—Martensville in Saskatchewan, Oak Hill in Texas, Faith Chapel in California— alleging SRA committed by daycare workers and policemen. Some of the convicted would spend decades in prison, only to be later exonerated. As these cases were reexamined, investigators found that parents, police, and social workers were asking leading questions and planting the ideas of SRA in interviews, which muddled investigations into what could have been legitimate sexual abuse claims.

Mary DeYoung charitably labels this phenomenon as a classic morality tale. Larry Pazder, investigators, social workers, talk show hosts, journalists—and perhaps even the leaders of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal—wanted to see themselves as the good guys fighting evil. Every moral panic needs “moral entrepreneurs” to spread the antidote for the cultural upheaval, says DeYoung.[14] These “experts” were sought after, revered, interviewed, gained notoriety, and made money.

While the Satanic Panic began to die down in secular culture and even within Christian circles, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal hung onto the threat of demonic forces at work in the world and individuals. Baptist minister, Dr. Ed Smith, would develop “Theophostic counseling,” a method charismatic communities adopted as a more systematic form of Byrne’s “breakthrough” sessions. At Franciscan University, the term was changed to “Theophostic prayer” for liability reasons, as the police report states.[15]

Dr. Catherine Gould, a psychiatrist who DeYoung calls a “moral entrepreneur” of the Satanic Panic[16], published a paper in 1991 along with two colleagues that discusses forms of cult programming. Signs that a patient has been programed by a cult include self-harm by cutting, suicidal ideation, finding the therapist threatening or incompetent, “screen memories” which detract from true memories of SRA, night terrors, social withdrawal and isolation.[17]

Coincidentally, these are also signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, a common diagnosis for sexual abuse survivors.

Psychiatrist Larry Pazder originally treated Michelle Smith because she was struggling after a miscarriage. Christianity Today’s investigative podcast on the satanic panic points out that Smith was “someone whose life was disrupted by trauma, then disrupted again” by Pazder who hoped “to play the role of healer.” Host Mike Cosper says: “It wasn’t enough for Michelle Smith to be experiencing emotional and psychological stress from a miscarriage. She, or Dr. Pazder, had to find something larger, something more acute, more painful than the ordinary experience of being human.”[18]

In the 1980 People Magazine cover story of Michelle Remembers, there was a photograph of Michelle Smith lying on a couch with her top off. Larry Pazder lies behind her, his arms “therapeutically” wrapped around her. Sarah Marshall, investigative podcaster, says that, from the tapes which recorded Pazder’s treatment of Smith, “the therapy itself began to resemble torture… mostly of Michelle screaming, crying, and incoherent.”[19]

This would sound eerily familiar as I read the investigation’s description of Morrier’s alleged treatment of Joan once he began suggesting she was possessed by demons. He began to cross physical boundaries and insist her memories were off while planting images and details of the occult. Her experience of abuse at the hands of her father and strange men when she was a child? Most likely “screen memories” for the true cause of her mental illness: Satanic Ritual Abuse.

*

By 2010, Joan, as the investigation alleges, was terrorized by the revelation that she was possessed by thirty-six demons, something a “discerner” had discovered during a deliverance session. Morrier started feeding Joan details of satanic rituals during deliverance sessions; he tells her she is filled with spiritual personalities and is blocking out memories of pentagrams.

While her counselor, Joseph Loizzo, did not participate in the deliverance sessions, he told Joan that her symptoms were consistent with symptoms of satanic ritual abuse, which he alleged to have treated in past patients. Though, he would later claim in a letter to Fr. Richard Davis, TOR and David Schmiesing, Vice President of Student Life, that he would “always regret” not following through on an “instinct to confront Fr. Morrier for the harm that I saw being done to her by the coercion and controlling type of spiritual direction and exorcism treatment he was using with her.”[20]

By August of 2010, as the investigation alleges, Loizzo evaluated Joan using the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) which assesses an individual’s overall psychological, social, and occupational functioning. A score of 100 represents no symptoms. Joan received a GAF score of 40, signifying major psychological impairment. Instead of drawing a connection between the intense deliverance sessions and Joan’s deteriorating mental state, the exorcisms intensified.

Both Fr. Michael Scanlan and Fr. David Morrier began performing exorcisms on Joan, as the investigation alleges, which included countercult rituals. She was taken to Pittsburgh where she was exorcised while members from the Community of God’s Love looked on. In the old practicum room of Finnegan Fieldhouse, the group sessions, which the lawsuit draft referred to as “obscene and sexually oriented,”[21] continued. She fought back when men under the official title of “restrainer” (most often members of the Community of God’s Love) held her arms and legs as she was doused with holy water. A crucifix was slipped under her shirt and pressed against her bare skin. She was forced to strip to her undershirt and underwear so the onlookers could see her scars, which Morrier insisted were brought on by possession. She was told that if during the sessions she were to cry out, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” it would act as a safe-word for the group to stop, until it was determined that demons could goad her into saying it, which left her with absolutely no control.

As the investigation alleges, when each of these sessions ended, Joan returned to her dorm room to use drugs, drink, self-harm—anything to dissociate. Joan’s nightmares worsened. As Dr. Catherine Gould stated in her paper about symptoms of cult-programming, Joan’s behavior would have been interpreted as affirmations of SRA. Roommates and friends corroborated the deterioration of Joan’s state. Police interviewed a long-term roommate who said that Joan’s meetings with Morrier would last for a minimum of two hours and she would return “appearing pale, skittish, and quiet.”[22]

Morrier’s tyrannical control over Joan’s life also intensified. As the investigation alleges, he wanted to know everything, even information about her menstrual cycle. Just as Jim Byrne, the leader of True House, burned personal items of members in “breakthrough sessions” to sever demonic ties, so Morrier determined that a red jewelry box— a cherished heirloom of Joan’s beloved and deceased grandmother, one of the only safe people from her childhood— was possessed. The investigation alleges that Morrier threw it into the Ohio River.

As the deliverance sessions increased in intensity, so did Morrier’s physical contact with Joan. As the investigation alleges, Morrier had Joan read his journal, something she described to police as “fantasies of a horny teenager.”[23] He blamed her for the fantasies (as he had blamed her a couple years before for his tongue cancer diagnosis), and told her God wanted her to know that she was hurting him.

As the investigation alleges, Morrier asked her for more details about past sexual experiences in the confessional while he masturbated and then would refuse to absolve her. Morrier repeatedly broke the seal of Confession (which is cause for laicization) by allegedly repeating the details of Joan’s confessions to the deliverance ministry team. Here, in the police report, there is a note: “It is apparent to investigators… that these sessions are designed to induce panic response.”[24]

Then, in October of 2010, as the investigation alleges, Morrier began his private sessions with Joan by covering the windows and turning on a white noise machine. He then asked Joan to strip naked, and eventually raped her “in God’s name as a way of healing her abuses and showing God’s love to her.”[25] Morrier began to include in the SRA narrative a fictional “Fr. Robert” who was responsible for the rapes; when she was forced to describe Morrier’s raping her during deliverance sessions (to cut “soul ties” formed by intercourse), she was instructed to tell the deliverance ministry team that it was this “Fr. Robert,” who was a member of the Satanic coven which abused her.[26]

Morrier would, as the investigation alleges, continue to rape Joan for the next two years, one or more times a week.[27] In the middle of those two years, in the fall of 2011, Joan was impregnated by Morrier. The lawsuit draft alleges that Morrier replied to the pregnancy with disbelief that God would punish him with a child; it would “ruin his life” so “take care of it.” Joan obeyed and ended the pregnancy in the Winter of 2012.[28] This, too, would become a part of the SRA narrative, though it would be attributed to “Fr. Robert.”[29]

In October of 2012, a self-professed demonologist named Kyle Clement, longtime assistant to Fr. Chad Ripperger, was employed by Fr. David Morrier as a “discerner,” and determined that Joan was in danger of abduction by a satanic coven that wished to sacrifice her, as the investigation alleges. Joan was placed against her will in homes around Steubenville for approximately one week, until it was determined that the danger had passed.[30] Joan’s requests to be released from the homes were ignored.

Police interviews within the investigation allege the involvement of several shady characters like Steven Oglevie, a former Nazarene preacher and self-proclaimed expert of SRA, who ran the “Mind Control” seminar in 2007 attended by Morrier at the encouragement of Fr. Michael Scanlan. Police found in public records a lawsuit from Canada filed by a woman who alleges Oglevie encouraged her to develop false memories of SRA.

Fr. Clement Machado, SOLT was allegedly involved as a self-proclaimed “Vatican-trained exorcist.” The police investigation discovered that the United States Bishops warned dioceses that Machado was conducting exorcisms without permission in 2016.

Joe Westover, though he possesses no known licenses, allegedly posed as a “life counselor,” and had counseled others from Franciscan University, even Morrier. Westover was allegedly paid by Franciscan University for Fr. David Morrier, TOR to attend Oglevie’s “Mind Control” seminar in Pittsburgh.

Fr. Kurt Kemo also appeared in the investigation. He allegedly received the “exorcism file” on Joan by Morrier and subsequently signed the declaration that would allow Fr. Clement Machado to perform an exorcism on Joan. Bishop Conlon affirmed that he had not given Kemo the right to give permission in his stead. Kemo would plead guilty in 2021 to six counts of theft from the Steubenville diocese.[31]

It was Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR who allegedly wrote a letter to Kemo (and not the bishop, which would have been customary) asking him to approve Machado’s exorcism. The Exorcism Report[32] is full of Fr. Michael Scanlan—as a facilitator of the exorcisms, as a participant, as an authority. At one point, Joan undergoes one exorcism per week for several weeks according to the Exorcism Report.

From the interviews, it would become clear that faculty within Franciscan University’s administration were aware that Fr. David Morrier was disturbed. The police investigation alleges that David Schmiesing, who was Vice President of Student Life while Morrier was abusing Joan, told police he was “aware Fr. Morrier had some mental health issues, but was unsure as to the specific condition he suffered from.”[33] Another interviewee, whose name was redacted, allegedly described Morrier as “seriously mentally ill.”

These revelations beg the question, why was Morrier allowed in ministry—especially through the modes of spiritual direction and deliverance ministry— by the Third Order Regulars if he was known to be mentally ill?

The culture of Franciscan University, which had been formed through the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and under the guidance of Fr. Michael Scanlan, as well as other Third Order Regular friars, had been primed for charlatans like Oglevie, Machado, Clement, Westover, and others. The term “moral entrepreneur” could be applied to these men who benefited from the panic induced by the threat of Satanic Ritual Abuse. The receptors of their teachings were made ready through the prophecies from leaders in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, like Bruce Yocum’s call to war, Ralph Martin’s “days of tribulation,” and Scanlan’s “days of darkness,” which are vague threats of impending doom.

In the University’s morality tale of their triumph over evil in the world, the ones in authority—administration and Third Order Regular friars—were the heroes, the living saints, discerners of spirits, directors of spiritual lives, confessors and spiritual fathers. They had not simply earned this reputation; they advertised themselves as such. As Joan’s counselor, Joseph Loizzo, would write in a letter[34] to Fr. Richard Davis, TOR, then-head of the order, Loizzo had misgivings about Morrier’s treatment of Joan, but figured Morrier “being a priest probably knew better than I.” This is the rotten fruit of a well-established clericalism at Franciscan University: that the friars would be so highly revered that abuse could continue, unchallenged.

By 2006 when Joan arrived on campus, Franciscan University had a well-established culture of systemic abuse, which gave free reign to a sick man like Morrier. And, contrary to what the University would claim, those with the most power and in the highest seats of administration allegedly knew that one of their students was being raped by a friar. While Franciscan University had convinced students, alumni, faculty, staff, and thousands of supporters to beware of evil outside of their protective bulwark, evil was within. The call was coming from inside the house.

Part Seven will compare Franciscan University’s purported timeline of knowledge of the abuse with what the police investigation uncovered.

This essay is a part of a larger series. →Part One→Part Two→Part Three→Part Four→Part Five→Interlude

[1] Hittinger, Francis R., Letter to Jean Cardinal Villot, 7 Apr 1975, typescript. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

[2] Hansen, Elizabeth. “Franciscan University and Friars Face a Reckoning.” Crisis Magazine. 14 Apr 2021. https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/franciscan-university-and-its-friars-face-a-reckoning

[3] A method of “inner healing” developed by Dr. Ed Smith, a Baptist minister. The Police Report describes it as “reliving of traumatic experiences with the spirit of God’s love…” (p. 7).

[4] Lawsuit Draft, #22

[5] Police Report, p. 7

[6] Lawsuit Draft, #38

[7] Lawsuit Draft, #104

[8] Lawsuit Draft, p. 9 (all quotes from same page)

[9] “True House: An Oral History.” Covenant Community Productions. 31 Dec 2025. YouTube.

[10] “True House: An Oral History.” Covenant Community Productions. 31 Dec 2025. YouTube.

[11] Marshall, Sarah. The Devil You Know. CBC. “Bad Times, Good TV,” 10 Nov 2025.

[12] Marshall, Sarah. The Devil You Know. CBC. “Bad Times, Good TV,” 10 Nov 2025.

[13] Marshall, Sarah. The Devil You Know. CBC. “Marylyn Remembers,” 27 Oct 2025.

[14] Marshall, Sarah. The Devil You Know. CBC. “Bad Times, Good TV,” 10 Nov 2025

[15] Police Report, p. 7

[16] Marshall, Sarah. The Devil You Know. CBC. “Bad Times, Good TV,” 10 Nov 2025

[17] Neswald, David W., M.A. M.F.C.C. in collaboration with Catherine Gould, Ph.D. and Vicki Graham-Costain, Ph.D. “Common mind control programs in survivors of Satanic Ritual Abuse.” The California Therapist, Sept./Oct. 1991, 47-50

[18] Christianity Today. Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, “” 11 Mar 2025. https://www.christianitytoday.com/podcasts/devil-and-the-deep-blue-sea/

[19] Marshall, Sarah. The Devil You Know. CBC. “Marylyn Remembers,” 27 Oct 2025.

[20] Loizzo, Joseph. Letter to Fr. Richard Davis, TOR and David Schmiessing. 12 Aug 2015. https://jennmorsonsubstack.com/p/centralized-location-for-documentation

[21] Lawsuit Draft, #119

[22] Police Report, p. 15

[23] Police Report, p. 11

[24] Police Report, p. 11

[25] Loizzo, Joseph. Notes. Nov 2013. https://jennmorsonsubstack.com/p/centralized-location-for-documentation

[26] Lawsuit Draft, #61

[27] Lawsuit Draft, #59

[28] Loizzo, Joseph. Notes. Nov 2013. https://jennmorsonsubstack.com/p/centralized-location-for-documentation

[29] Lawsuit Draft, #63

[30] Lawsuit Draft, #122

[31] Giannamore, Paul. “Monsignor pleads guilty in theft from diocese case, will spend time in jail.” WTOV9FOX, 28 Apr 2021. https://wtov9.com/news/local/monsignor-pleads-guilty-in-theft-from-diocese-case-will-spend-time-in-jail

[32]https://jennmorsonsubstack.com/p/centralized-location-for-documentation

[33] Police Report, p. 19

[34] Loizzo, Joseph. Letter to Fr. Richard Davis, TOR. 7 Nov 2013. https://jennmorsonsubstack.com/p/centralized-location-for-documentation

One of the ways that high control religious leaders, like those in the abusive covenant charismatic communities in South Bend and Steubenville, create a cohesion of identity and purpose is by labeling all questions, concerns, and dissent as gossip, divisiveness, or demonic attack.

During their multi-year formation, Servants of Christ the King community members were taught to “shun criticisms” from outsiders to create a unity of mind and purpose within the group (though criticism, it seems, was ample from community leadership). Complaints, or dissension, were seen as causes of “disunity.”[1] Dissenters, or those who simply struggled, were scapegoated to maintain the desired image. If they could not manage the rule of life, it was the fault of their own shortcomings, not those of the community.

Even though the Servants of Christ the King are no longer directly involved in the operations of Franciscan University, this same cultural impulse to blame, dismiss, and deflect criticism is still present in University culture, as made evident in 2018 when a string of shared articles on social media led to comments, conversations, and revelations among Franciscan alumni and faculty. In lieu of a compassionate and responsive administration, social media would provide a platform for alumni to share their experiences, even though the University would still attempt to silence, dismiss, and quite literally delete personal testimonies before their reputation was threatened just enough to listen.

2018: Winter

“The sexual harassment frenzy of the last months—and it can only be called a frenzy—is disturbing in many ways, and decent and right-minded people need to speak up about it. It’s only the latest poison from the Sexual Revolution and the regime of moral relativism.”[2]

Thus began an article by Stephen M. Krason published in Crisis Magazine within the first week of the year. Krason was, at the time, a Professor of Political Science and Legal Studies and associate director of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville. The year two-thousand-eighteen of Our Lord would shape up to be a momentous year for Franciscan University on precisely that front—sexual harassment. Krason kicked it off with a real humdinger.

Krason, referring to allegations brought up against political figures at that time, introduces a worthwhile point: the difficulty of evidence. While he sounds dismissive in his description of “allegations often backed up by nothing more than the fact that a woman, often out of the blue, made them,” he claims out-of-the-blue allegations “are held to equal proof.” Surprisingly as a professor of Legal Studies, he provides no evidence for his claim, and indeed, it is rarely the case that allegations are held to equal proof. As 2018 would prove on the political stage, allegations “out of the blue” did not stop Brett Kavanaugh from election to the Supreme Court.

There are disturbing suggestions in Krason’s article. He refers to Justice Roy Moore of Alabama who, in 2017, was faced with several accusations of assault, as well as accusations of inappropriate behavior from women while they were teenagers. Krason shrugs at “a thirty-something man seeking the affections of teenaged girls” as “hardly an issue in the culture of that time and place.” I had to piece that one together. Is he saying it was perfectly acceptable for an adult man, in the 1970s and 1980s, in Alabama or Southern United States generally, to prey upon teenage girls? This suggestion alone should have given Franciscan University pause in sharing the article on the University’s social media profile. The implication that the University agrees that in certain times and places it is “hardly an issue” for adult men to prey upon teenage girls, then a good portion of their faculty would be justified in preying upon a good portion of their students.

Krason claims that, when it comes to sexual assault, “memories dim about things in the distant past, misimpressions about them often abound.” He refers to “this frenzy” as “a lack of charity” and links a culture “suddenly rife with sexual harassment” as one that has also overturned Christianity. He calls it uncharitable to “read a nefarious intention into what may be an innocent comment or action.”

He then blames feminism on “pushing an expansive definition of rape that goes well beyond what has always been understood,” and scoffs at the idea that sexual harassment might now include a young man pestering a young woman for a date “if she keeps saying no,” something he calls “gentle persistence.” (At this point, as I read the article, I wonder what exactly he is trying to define, redefine, or undefine.) Then he suggests self-interest since some of these women had, after all, “agreed to provide sexual favors” and “tolerated harassment,” which, for him, begs the question: “Were their careers more important to them than sexual virtue?”

Then we come to It: the phrase that launched a thousand ships against Franciscan University. Krason writes, “As has now become apparent in the supposed campus rape crisis, it is not unheard of that a young woman who has been involved in a consensual sexual affair that has gone sour will allege that she was raped as a way to get back at the man.”

The supposed campus rape crisis.

This is the man Franciscan University hired to advise students in legal studies. This is the man who, at the time, was responsible for helping students navigate ethics in public life. And Franciscan University shared this article on their Facebook page—proudly, without a hint of irony. It would have surprised me in 2018. It does not surprise me now. Having lived in Steubenville, I have heard almost every one of these points repeated by some Catholics here (a small but loud and powerful contingent).

It was not simply a matter of Franciscan University showcasing a publication of one of its professors; in sharing the article publicly, the audience could only assume the University supported the content. This wasn’t just a kooky and outrageous take from a tenured professor. These ideas were—and I would argue still are, though all I have is anecdotal evidence—held, believed and taught within the University by some professors and by some in administration.

Which is why the University was not expecting the backlash from alumni who bravely began to share their own stories of assault on Franciscan’s campus, and the University’s—I’ll borrow Krason’s term here—uncharitable betrayal and failure to address reports.

Rachel Denhollander, an activist and attorney (and survivor of convicted criminal Larry Nasser from the USA Gymnastics team), says that it’s common for people to respond to assault or abuse allegations with a—again, borrowing Krason’s term—nefarious assumption that the accuser is after money or attention. However, she says, statistics show that 92-98% of allegations are true. In other words, according to statistics, it’s best to take allegations seriously. Even so, out of every case reported to police in a given year, on average only around 5-9 result in criminal conviction.[3]

To Krason’s point, evidence is difficult to collect in cases of rape and assault, and unfortunately, even when it is, the rapist or abuser is not often charged with a crime. I personally know several women who went to the hospital directly after being raped, underwent a “rape kit,” submitted the evidence to a police department, only for nothing to happen. Denhollander reports that even in cases where the rapist recorded the rape to then use as pornography, rapists have gone free.

{I have to pause here and commend the Steubenville Police Department for their follow-through in both the 2012 football rape case and the Morrier case.}

I do not know from where Krason gathered his uncited and presumptive information about assault, but it’s just wrong, aside from the creepy comments about men pursuing teenage girls, labeling a boy not taking no for an answer as “gentle persistence,” and the general guffaw about sexual assault.

So strong was the backlash, Franciscan University eventually removed the post which shared Krason’s article, and along with it, the alumni response, which included personal stories about how poorly the University responded to sexual assault. The University then posted an apology for sharing the “not fully vetted” article, under which alumni continued to share personal stories. That thread was also deleted.[4]

2018: Spring

A few months after the publication of Krason’s article, Catholic journalist and Franciscan University alumna, Jenn Morson, shared on her professional Facebook profile[5] an article which, she admits publicly, was difficult to research and publish. She writes, “Most people leave college and stay close with only a few people, but with FUS [Franciscan University of Steubenville] it’s a family for life.” Yet it had come to her attention in the wake of #metoo, through private discussion groups in person and online—including the thread that followed Franciscan University’s post of Krason’s article—that “Catholic women discovered stories of assault, harassment and abuse were common, though rarely widely shared.”

Morson’s article entitled, “Alumnae question Franciscan University of Steubenville’s commitment to Title IX,” discusses University employees’ comments about Title IX, insight and comments from a representative of ALIVE, Inc. (which provides a 24-hour sexual assault crisis hotline, emergency shelter, hospital support for rape victims and legal advocacy for people in Jefferson County, Ohio), as well as Krason’s article. Most importantly, Morson includes personal stories from Franciscan University alumnae who testify to the University’s lack of follow-through on sexual assault and harassment allegations, to say nothing of the University’s show of insensitivity and disbelief.

Morson also wrote, “My hope is that FUS will address these issues and come out the better for it.” Indeed, it is possible that her journalistic integrity helped to inspire president Fr. Sean O. Sheridan’s commissioning of the third-party Historical Review later that year.

While most comments on Morson’s page concerning her article were positive—messages like “excellent and well-balanced piece” and a lot of “I’m not surprised”—notably, from the Steubenville Catholic crowd, there were accusatory and negative comments.

One long comment accuses Morson of biased reporting. The commenter alludes to another Catholic writer, Emily Stimpson Chapman, having already claimed Morson’s article biased and one-sided, though does not say where and how Chapman made this claim. The commenter suggests that Chapman’s article, “A Safe Home,”[6] which was published in the Spring 2018 issue of Franciscan Magazine, should be read, claiming, “Emily did much more extensive interviewing on campus to find out what is going on in this area than is presented in this article.”

So, I read it.

While “A Safe Home” sums up how the University has addressed Title IX with their unique Catholic perspective, Chapman’s article does not contain more extensive interviews than Morson’s, and most notably, omits personal testimonies from alumnae or current students to prove how effectively the University’s policies have been implemented. It seems Morson’s greatest fault was not biased reporting, but her inclusion of evidence. As the commenter asks, “Did you hear no stories of women who expressed gratitude for how the University handled their cases?” for both Chapman and Morson, the exclusion of such testimonies seems to provide the answer: no, they did not. Based off of their articles, neither found an alumna who appreciated the way Franciscan University handled their allegation of harassment or assault.

Criticism is a welcome response to journalism and jumpstarts discourse, which is evident in Morson’s response to the comment. However, it is significant that a Steubenville resident responded defensively to Morson’s article. In another comment on the same thread, a Franciscan grad shares her personal experience with sexual assault on campus, and another Steubenville resident replies, “When did you go to FUS? That is so completely unlike my experience,” implying that if she had not shared that experience, then it must not be true.

It is understandable to defend what one loves. That is right and just. But to defend an institution, or a person, as innocent when evidence is provided to suggest otherwise, lies outside of justice; it suggests a social conditioning wherein loyalty is valued above all else. There is a chronic lack of empathy among staunch Franciscan supporters which has emerged in recent years when the school has been justly accused of wrongs. It is assumed the accuser hates the school, that they want to “destroy the institution.”[7] For example, Jenn Morson was accused of receiving bribes from George Soros,[8] the boogeyman of the far Right. It was unimaginable to this small but strong community of Steubenville’s Franciscan supporters that Morson, as an alumna, was concerned about how her alma mater had treated students. It was more plausible to them that she was bribed, biased, or malicious rather than justly exposing a wrong (which is, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a spiritual work of mercy).

What is even more disheartening—and what is, in actuality, malicious and biased—are the commenters’ implicit suggestion that perhaps these women are not telling the truth, or withholding information. Perhaps one alumna misunderstood when the all-male review board asked her why she was drinking and what her dress looked like.[9] If a fellow alum was not assaulted on Franciscan’s campus—if that was “so completely unlike” their experience—is it also impossible to express compassion and exercise empathy for someone to whom it did happen?

This lack of empathy is a characteristic Bishop Ottenweller recognized in Servants of Christ the King, the charismatic covenant community which resided in Steubenville and helped rebuild Franciscan University. In the 1991 report, Ottenweller refers to “a lack of compassion and love for those in need.”[10] People who leave the group “are at fault for bringing problems to light,”[11] or seen as “wounded people” who are “’problems’ themselves.”[12] Even though a survey of the community was conducted two years before Ottenweller’s investigation—the findings of which also arose during the bishop’s visitation—“the leadership… did not see or draw out implications from it.”[13] While members’ complaints were heard, “no response” followed.[14] One testimony stated that criticisms were dismissed: “No responsibility is owned in the Community.”

2018: Summer

Outside Steubenville’s walls, the Catholic Church was called to further accountability once the news broke that Cardinal McCarrick had serially abused minors and seminarians for decades. I have to wonder if Professor Krason revisited the question he posed about women in his article earlier that year: “Were their careers more important to them than sexual virtue?”[15] Would Krason ask the same of the seminarians fondled and spooned by Cardinal McCarrick? Were these seminarians, like the nefarious women in Krason’s article, just getting back at McCarrick after a consensual affair soured? (Of course, and absolutely, not.)

As I have mentioned before in this essay series, the concept of consent was widely discussed and debated in 2018 as more adult victims of harassment and assault spoke out about their coercive experiences with abusers in positions of power.

In August of 2018, then-president of Franciscan University, Fr. Sean O. Sheridan, commissioned a third-party review of Title IX dealings at the University. Morson wrote two more articles for National Catholic Reporter chronicling Sheridan’s announcement of the review and the University’s statement on their commitment to Tite IX and student safety. In Morson’s October article, she includes more testimonies of alumni’s experiences, citing various University responses ranging from dismissal to victim-blaming, which echo Krason’s suspicious attitude about assault allegations in his opinion piece for Crisis Magazine.

2018: Autumn

In October, Franciscan University reported on their website that, through a separate third-party investigation by Jackson Lewis, P.C., it was allegedly discovered that there was “no evidence to support the allegations made against University personnel in the article,” presumably the article by Jenn Morson in National Catholic Reporter. They do not specify which allegations or personnel they’re referring to; the tone is dismissive. Again, Professor Krason’s assumption that “out of the blue” allegations hold equal proof is shown to be false: alumnae’s stories of how the University mishandled reports did not, in the end, prove anything to the University.

However, in 2019, the Historical Review was published on Franciscan University’s website under a section entitled “Integrity & Truth,” which I discussed in Part Three of this series. It’s quite thorough and provides a list of clerics who have substantiated reports of “unwelcome sexual contact.”[16] The rest of 2019 was consumed with a scandal at the University involving a work of fiction assigned to a special study group by a Literature professor, the content of which was questioned and anonymously sent to now-defunct Church Militant for its non-authoritative judgement and exposure. The fallout may have led to President Sheridan’s resignation.

As Fr. Dave Pivonka took on his new role as president, the world shuttered its windows for the COVID pandemic and hunkered down on social media. And as the world awoke again, Franciscan University would be faced with charges against one of its own Third Order Regulars: Fr. David Morrier.

Back in August of 2018, while Fr. Sheridan delivered his apology about sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, and begged forgiveness for anyone who had been hurt by the Franciscan University family, a detective at the Steubenville Police Department was trying to contact a young woman about a tip he had received concerning a possible case of sexual assault against her by a TOR friar. While the Franciscan University community debated about viruses and vaccines, Detective Jon Sowers was consumed with an investigation into Fr. David Morrier, the Franciscan Friars of the Third Order Regular, the Community of God’s Love (formerly Servants of Christ the King), Fr. Michael Scanlan, and others.

Four Years Later

After Fr. David Morrier pled guilty in March of 2022, that small but strong and powerful Steubenville community of Franciscan supporters took to social media to defend their beloved institution and TOR friars.

A professor at Franciscan University immediately questioned the sum of debt named in the plaintiff’s victim statement, which she accumulated over a decade at Franciscan University. Others joined in. Eventually, the professor deleted his comments. One Steubenville citizen, and wife of a University professor, claimed the plaintiff had brought previous lawsuits to court, which was a lie. One commenter outright called the allegations libelous even though Morrier had already pled guilty.

Posts by someone named “Benjamin Roe” (who had no profile picture and whose profile no longer exists) appeared and disappeared, claiming the plaintiff was lying, questioning why she did not fight back when Morrier raped her, and accused her of destroying a priest’s reputation. This same “Benjamin Roe” sent a personal message[17] to someone he assumed was a supporter and friend of the plaintiff. In this long and threatening message, Roe accuses the plaintiff of lies, manipulation, and destroying reputations “of holy, devout men.” He seethes, “Her damage is nothing more than a result of her own vile and disgusting sins… She’s not worth defending. She’s not worth supporting.”

These vitriolic attacks were dwarfed by an overwhelming outrage expressed against Franciscan University by alumni—as well as some Steubenville citizens—and a few University professors. Some expressed wanting to send back their degree; some discussed writing or calling the alumni office, only to leave a message or, by email, a cut-and-paste response.

Alumni anger partially rose out of a lack of communication from the University after the 2021 indictment; the news of charges against Fr. David Morrier, a priest who had interacted with thousands of students over the years, were only shared through the grapevine; Franciscan University failed to alert alumni.

Catholic writer and Franciscan University alumna, Elizabeth Hansen, published a reflection one year prior to Morrier’s guilty plea entitled “Franciscan University and Its Friars Face a Reckoning,”[18] in which she recalls Morrier’s time as Director of Household Life during her time as a student. She writes that he was “a familiar presence” and known most for his “counseling, spiritual direction, and ministry of ‘healing prayer’.” She recalls how she and her classmates at the time thought he was strange—“a little socially awkward”—but in retrospect, as they shared their reactions to the allegations, more than one of her peer group “found him creepy,” “got a vibe,” and “never went back to confession with him.” Hansen muses, “Why didn’t we say anything, we wonder? What if voicing discomfort back then meant a victim would have felt safe confiding in her sisters?”

Hansen’s haunting question was answered, in part, by the stories in Jenn Morson’s 2018 articles of alumni who had followed the proper channels in reporting assault and were blamed, dismissed, or placated with lackluster solutions. Hansen’s question was answered by the University community’s response to alumni’s personal experiences; in an environment where a victim’s veracity might be questioned, who would want to expose themselves? As survivor Rachel Denhollander points out, coming forward with rape or assault is “inviting an audience to the worst experience”[19] of one’s life. Hansen’s question was answered by the victim statement, which included the barrage of dismissive and cruel responses when she attempted to report Morrier’s abuse, the University community’s response to her, and further legitimized by the leaked documents in 2022 that revealed details of the police investigation. Hansen, and fellow students, should not blame themselves for not “voicing discomfort”; the University is the responsible party. Franciscan University should have nurtured a culture where everything from discomfort to sexual assault could be reported, openly discussed, and compassionately handled.

In The Catholic Charismatics, an in-depth study of fifteen representative Catholic Charismatic prayer groups, the authors note that, “A striking aspect… of group life among Catholic Charismatic Renewal people is an extreme reluctance to discuss anything that might introduce conflict. In fact, anything that threatens unity is viewed as fertile ground for the working of the devil.”[20] In manuals, the “avoidance of conflict” was explicitly taught, as Ottenweller found in the Steubenville charismatic community. The few who were speaking out in defense of the plaintiff were often bullied into silence, like the apparent tactic from the private message sent by “Benjamin Roe.” I can only make assumptions as to why University employees posted, then subsequently deleted, comments.

As members of the charismatic community, Servants of Christ the King, had learned, so University students learned “anything that threatens unity is viewed as fertile ground for the working of the devil.” Students were taught to revere and respect the TORs, who represent themselves as renowned spiritual directors and confessors, who speak at conferences and appear on YouTube shows, podcasts, and EWTN. When students did come forward, they were warned, as Krason suggests, not to meddle with reputations of friars, professors, and fellow students.

The leaked lawsuit draft proved that investigators had been paying attention to the reaction on social media and elsewhere from Franciscan University employees, supporters, and TOR friars. It would allege defamation after Morrier’s guilty plea on March 11, 2022, that specific members of the Franciscan University community made:

“public statements to the Community of God’s Love, and the greater Steubenville Ohio community, to the effect that [plaintiff] has made up or fabricated the story about her years of sexual and psychological abuse by Defendant Morrier; that she is just seeking ‘money’ for her years of abuse by falsely claiming student debt… that she is more ‘dangerous’ to the community than Morrier ever was.”[21]

Rather than accept responsibility, their tactic was to attack and destroy the character of the victim.

Though the lawsuit documents were released without the plaintiff’s knowledge or consent, the documents would prove the depth of the investigation. The revelations would lend credence to the personal testimonies of alumni which Morson had included in her articles, and not the University’s claims about its “compliance with sexual misconduct policy,” or even its claims in Chapman’s article that its approach to Title IX was especially “Catholic.” The police investigation would allege a thoroughly documented cover-up.

Part Six compiles the leaked documents—lawsuit, investigation, supplemental materials—into a narrative.

This is an interlude in a series. For the rest: Part One→Part Two→Part Three→Part Four→Part Five.

[1] Ottenweller Report, p. 52

[2] Krason, Stephen M. “What Sexual Harassment ‘Crisis’?” Crisis Magazine. 4 Jan 2018, https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/sexual-harassment-crisis

[3] Christianity Today. Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, “BONUS: Survivors & Abuse Continued—Rachel Denhollander on Faith and Accountability.” 13 Nov 2025. https://www.christianitytoday.com/podcasts/devil-and-the-deep-blue-sea/

[4] Morson, Jenn. “Alumnae Question Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Commitment to Title IX.” National Catholic Reporter, 16 Apr 2018. https://www.ncronline.org/news/alumnae-question-franciscan-university-steubenvilles-committment-title-ix

[5] https://www.facebook.com/JennMorsonWriter. 16 April 2018.

[6] Chapman, Emily Stimpson. “A Safe Home.” Franciscan Magazine. Spring 2018. https://www.calameo.com/read/0000568545c12dadf4acb

[7] Morson, Jenn. “’You don’t want to destroy Franciscan, do you?’” Believer, Substack. 8 Oct 2023. https://jennmorson.substack.com/p/you-dont-want-to-destroy-franciscan

[8] Fisher, Simcha. “Catholics can’t afford careless anti-Semitism.” SimchaFisher.com, 3 Dec 2018. https://www.simchafisher.com/tag/jenn-morson/

[9] Morson, Jenn. “Alumnae Question Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Commitment to Title IX.” National Catholic Reporter, 16 Apr 2018. https://www.ncronline.org/news/alumnae-question-franciscan-university-steubenvilles-committment-title-ix

[10] “Bishop Ottenweller’s Visitation Report.” Letter from Bishop Ottenweller to Coordinators of Servants of Christ the King, 10 Jan 1991. Uploaded by John Flaherty 17 May 2011, https://www.scribd.com/document/55661455/Bishop-Ottenweller-s-Correspondance-with-Servants-of-Christ-the-King-1991-92

[11] “The Ottenweller Report 1991.” Uploaded by John Flaherty, 25 Dec 2017. https://www.scribd.com/document/367863206/The-Ottenweller-Report-1991, p. 42

[12] Ottenweller Report, p. 44

[13] Ottenweller Report, p. 43

[14] Ottenweller Report, p. 49

[15] Krason, Stephen M. “What Sexual Harassment ‘Crisis’?” Crisis Magazine. 4 Jan 2018, https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/sexual-harassment-crisis

[16] https://integrityandtruth.franciscan.edu/updates/

[17] Roe, Benajmin. “You need to reflect on your support…” Personal message through Facebook Messenger. 12 Jan 2023, 11:54 a.m.

[18] Hansen, Elizabeth. “Franciscan University and Friars Face a Reckoning.” Crisis Magazine. 14 Apr 2021. https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/franciscan-university-and-its-friars-face-a-reckoning

[19] Christianity Today. Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, “BONUS: Survivors & Abuse Continued—Rachel Denhollander on Faith and Accountability.” 13 Nov 2025. https://www.christianitytoday.com/podcasts/devil-and-the-deep-blue-sea/

[20] Bord, Richard J. and Joseph E. Faulkner. The Catholic Charismatics, as quoted in “True House: An Oral History,” documentary,

[21] “LawsuitMorrierFranciscanUniversity.” P. 74. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/alv5idlzxklmmop1rh8y7/LawsuitMorrierFranciscanUniversity.pdf?e=1&fbclid=IwAR0ZIiKjF9jvJezdcbJiVSsZhUy5WAjYAbCF8_6UP7llAi36mGLpQykGw_U&rlkey=l7x9m67639raxcbko7yehltq9&dl=0

In the year 2000, as Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR prepared to transition from his position as President of Franciscan University to its chancellor, the National Catholic Reporter published a piece about the University and Scanlan’s legacy in which Scanlan is described as “upbeat and vigorous, aggressive about restoring a vision of Catholic culture”[1] at a once notorious party school.1 As president, he had indeed transformed the college into a faithfully Catholic university, but not without the devotion and sacrifice of Servants of Christ the King, the charismatic community and parish which Bishop Ottenweller had investigated nearly a decade earlier.

John Flaherty, a former member of Servants of Christ the King, writes in the preamble to community-related documents, that “the community was a blank check when it came to donating time and money to ‘renewal’ efforts at Franciscan University.”[2] Yet, by 2000 Scanlan had edited their influence out of his autobiography. In the 1986 edition of Let the Fire Fall, Scanlan explains the contributions of Servant of Christ the King on p. 166:

Most of the people who work in campus ministry and student life are members of the Servants of Christ the King, a group of three hundred Christians in the Steubenville area who have made a covenant commitment to live their Christian lives together… The community contributes invaluable service to the university. Members of the community moderate every household on campus; their responsibilities include giving direction, teaching, counseling, and acting as general overseers. The community also provides the recruitment pool for entrance level administrators, provides the staff for the conference office, and is a great asset in recruiting faculty…”

In the 1997 edition of the same book, this section was omitted. Recall the Covenant Meeting from Part Four of this series and with what affection Scanlan addresses Servants of Christ the King in God’s voice: my people, my children, my birthright. After Bishop Ottenweller’s investigation, Scanlan quietly resigned and, a few years later, deleted any mention of them from his autobiography.

In an interview with National Catholic Reporter in 2000, when asked about Bishop Ottenweller’s report (which was released the year Scanlan initiated Franciscan’s Austrian study-abroad program) Scanlan insists he “really was not aware” of abuses within the covenant community. However, Fr. Walter Debold of Seton Hall University, who was a member of Bishop Ottenweller’s investigative team, said that although he believes Scanlan thought “he was doing good things for the church,” it was clear that Scanlan “was aware of all the methodology.”[3]

Fr. Michael Scanlan’s history in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal would uphold Debold’s claim. Not only had he spent time in the People of Hope Community in Newark[4] before forming Servants of Christ the King; he also spent time at True House, a covenant household prototype that would dissolve in scandal.

True House was started and run by Jim Byrne, one of the original members of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal at Notre Dame University in 1967. Byrne would become increasingly controlling over residents of True House. When members of his household seemed resistant to total submission to the way of life, he would conduct what he referred to as “breakthrough sessions,” when members were taken from their beds in the middle of the night, forced to make a general confession, then subjected to exorcism prayers. By 1973, Byrne left True House after facing allegations of sexually predatory behavior. However, reasons for his departure were concealed within leadership as True House disbanded.[5]

In 1975, testimonials[6] from former True House members were collected by Bishop Pursley (the bishop of South Bend/Fort Wayne at that time) and sent to Cardinal Villot at the Vatican, urging the cardinal’s attention and action. One testimonial stated that “if unbridled enthusiasm were the only crime of the renewal committees” he would not need to write the letter (Flynn). The testimonials raise some of the same concerns that Bishop Ottenweller would address sixteen years later during his in-depth report on Steubenville’s Servants of Christ the King, which helped develop and nurture the culture of Franciscan University.

As I read through the True House testimonials from 1975, as well as a dissertation by a Paulist priest and anthropologist, Fr. Kenneth McGuire, who lived alongside members of True House and examined their way of life, I noticed many of the same threads from Bishop Ottenweller’s report.

The pastoral team in True House had, like Servants of Christ the King, three main coordinators, and created similar power dynamics. Just as Ottenweller noted how members in Steubenville were asked to live “in complete submission to their leaders,”[7] so True House testimonies revealed “totalitarian tendencies” where “if a person would dare question their authority… he was verbally and publicly assaulted by the coordinators.”[8]

There was within True House the same us vs. them dichotomy present in Servants of Christ the King, and indeed much of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Fr. McGuire observed that members in True House “were convinced that God was giving them his promise” and that it “was being fulfilled through them.”[9] This is very similar to what Servants of Christ the King in Steubenville were taught to believe about themselves. As Fr. Michael Scanlan told members, speaking as God in prophecy, “My children… I have brought you to myself… to build my Kingdom fully on earth.”[10] Scanlan also tells the community that they are called to “strengthen the Christian people by being a bulwark, stemming the tide of evil in the Churches.”[11] These messages, which give the members a sense of having been chosen for a special mission, are enforced by encouraging judgement and accusations against any person or system that is not among the chosen.

One True House testimonial reported that members were “forbidden to read any books, papers or magazines, except those ‘pertaining to the spiritual life.”[12] One woman’s testimony describes how leadership in the community claimed her friend was “Satanic” because he was not supportive of her charismatic activities.[13] Similarly, in Ottenweller’s report, he noted how, within Servants of Christ the King, the world was “divided into the virtually impure and the pure” and anything deemed ‘of the world’ was “an enemy to the people of God.” The community was “the only safe haven” along with groups like it. Ottenweller quoted the Foundations course, which instructed Servants of Christ the King members on community life, to give evidence of the pessimistic and fearful view of the world: “Our society and culture are separated from God and hostile to him… The world is our enemy as followers of Christ.”[14]

By establishing absolute authority and creating a narrative that set covenant communities apart as a chosen people, fear of the outside world and demonic forces created a dependence on the community, its leadership, and structure. One True House testimonial describes how the community leaders made others out to be more “precarious and depraved” than reality, then “prescribed their community as the only viable means of spiritual and emotional rehabilitation.”[15] The leaders’ accusations of those on the outside motivated members within to appear as pure as possible in the eyes of the leaders in order to avoid accusation. Likewise, Ottenweller illustrated how, if a member was forced out because of disputes with leaders, he or she would be described as “a covenant breaker or serious sinner.” By placing pastoral leadership in the seat of judgement, “the members’ worth and hope for salvation is tied with the group.”[16]

Each of the testimonies delivered to the Vatican from former members of True House concluded with reasons they believe the Catholic Charismatic Renewal should be scrutinized to protect the wellbeing and rights of Catholics. One warned, “There has, unfortunately, been little to prohibit anyone desirous of power from seizing a charismatic community as an opportunity to gratify this desire of becoming a ‘Good Shepherd’.”[17] Another suggests a more dire possibility:

I fear the aim of the Charismatics is to remake the Church in their own image: a Church of covenant communities presided over by charismatic leaders, a Church whose members would be subject to uncalled-for scrutiny of minor beliefs and attitudes, a Church which no longer humbly relies on the normal means of grace.[18]

While these concerns and fears were initially set aside by the Church hierarchy, eventually enough complaints and allegations of abuse filtered out from covenant communities that the Church did begin to respond. But none would be as thorough as Bishop Ottenweller’s of Servants of Christ the King in Steubenville, Ohio. For a movement that criticized the Catholic Church as well as her bishops, it greatly benefitted—and was preserved—by the wisdom and charity of her corrective hand.

It was startling to discover that Scanlan still sought to form a covenant community after True House dissolved— even after he spent time there and witnessed its inner-workings. Though, as the former members of True House feared, the abuses within their community would be passed off as an anomaly, an experiment gone badly, and the Catholic Charismatic Renewal would continue to form covenant communities, believing they had learned valuable lessons from True House’s failures. Scanlan would form households on Franciscan’s campus, the model of which still exists today, though time and testimonies from alumni seem to have tempered the once overly strict and demanding codes of conduct. I believe Scanlan referred to it as “positive peer pressure” in the 1986 edition of his autobiography, Let the Fire Fall. Others might call it psychological pressure and fear of expulsion.

I never met Fr. Michael Scanlan; all I have to make of him are documents, his recorded prophecies, homilies, and personal stories. I have heard him described as a charming and kind priest who appeared to genuinely care for people. One account goes so far as to claim “his eyes sparkled with the Holy Spirit.”[19] He seems to have been well-liked and respected throughout the country, led pilgrimages to the Holy Land and elsewhere, spoke at conferences, on television, and radio. One alumna praised his “vision for renewing, enlivening and deepening the faith of students.”[20] Another described the weak Catholic identity of Franciscan University when Scanlan became president and how he “re-affirmed the College’s commitment to its Christian heritage.”[21]

Yet, alongside these true accounts are also true accounts of his denial and dismissal of abuse allegations concerning his fellow Third Order Regular friars.

In an open letter published in 2018, a victim of Fr. Sam Tiesi wrote that Fr. Michael Scanlan allegedly explained that Fr. Tiesi abused her because “‘Sam loved me too much’ and that the abuse was just an expression of his ‘love’ that went too far.” According to her account, Scanlan also told her that she was “at fault for telling this secret” and therefore should recant her story.[22] In her victim statement, Morrier’s victim lists a barrage of replies she heard from his brother-friars as well as university administration and Student Life. This tradition of ignoring, and even blaming victims continued, as made evident by the responses to Fr. Gregory Plow’s accuser.

When I consider these women, I recall the confession and apology of a lay leader who served alongside Scanlan in Servants of Christ the King: “We spent a lot of time trying to convince other people that their experience wasn’t valid.”[23] University administration and TOR friars appear to have spent a lot of time convincing young women their experience was not valid.

I want to believe in Fr. Michael Scanlan’s goodwill. I want to believe that his primary goal was to revitalize a dying college and breathe new life into its Catholic identity. Indeed, in his inaugural address as president in 1974, he stated that the college was “like a lamp under a bushel basket” and it needed “to be placed on the lampstand.”[24] This, he accomplished. By the year 2000, Allen reported in his National Catholic Reporter piece that “more than 700” graduates were scattered throughout the United States working “in parishes and dioceses as youth ministers, teachers and directors of religious education.”[25]

But Allen also notes in the same article that, by the year 2000, “even the harshest internal critics usually exempt Scanlan from blame for the people or policies to which they object.” Even after slinking away from a broken charismatic community he helped form and run, and even after deleting the community’s memory from his autobiography, Scanlan is given the benefit of the doubt. Fr. Samuel Fernandez, theologian and professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, has studied abuse within the Catholic Church and points out the investigative podcast, Descent Into Light, that even bad boundaries can create an environment of abuse: “Sometimes people who spiritually abuse others are well-meaning; they’re kind, pastoral. Sometimes they believe they’re really helping.”[26] For University and Scanlan supporters who are willing to recognize weaknesses and even abuse within Franciscan University’s culture, this seems to be the prevailing image: kind, pastoral, and well-meaning.

Is it possible, though, that Scanlan also saw an opportunity to elevate his own reputation using the resources of “the faithful, the devoted, the ones who want to serve, who trust deeply, who are willing to sacrifice for something greater than themselves”?[27] This possibility is suggested through his apparent unwillingness to take responsibility for the abuses within Servants of Christ the King, and the community’s subsequent erasure from his own story. Perhaps both are true; perhaps he was kind, pastoral, and well-meaning, but also sought to preserve his own reputation, and was willing to sacrifice the well-being of others to do so.

Whatever Scanlan’s motivation, a culture of abuse and cover-up would subsist at Franciscan University. And to be fair, this culture was a pandemic that spread through other covenant communities and the Catholic Church at large. It’s noteworthy that the findings of the Catholic Church’s investigation of itself are congruous with a comment made in one of the testimonials about True House: “The problem was one of how authority in the community allowed the situation to go unchecked for so long.”[28]

After reading through the history of Servants of Christ the King, it is a wonder that the TORs allowed Fr. Michael Scanlan to continue as university president when an organization partially run by him had been investigated for abuse and lack of transparency in many facets, including financial. Scanlan, as a part of the leadership of Servants of Christ the King, repeatedly placed the reputation of the community and its social cohesion above the safety and welfare of its members. In a personal letter to a former community member, Bishop Ottenweller wrote, “I never again want to be a part of any system that does injury to the most sacred right of a human being.”[29]

It is tragic that parts of this system continued at Franciscan University. The sordid details of abuse around charismatic practice were revealed when confidential documents within the case against Fr. David Morrier were leaked in 2022 to journalists.

Jenn Morson, a Catholic journalist and Franciscan alumna who, by 2022, had exposed the University’s mishandling of sexual abuse allegations, fearing other journalists would release the documents which contained the victim’s name and personal information, published the documents with protective redactions (and indeed the now defunct Church Militant published the documents un-redacted). According to Morson, the person who released the documents wanted to remain anonymous and identified themselves as someone “implicated in the lawsuit.”[30] These documents included a draft of the lawsuit, the police investigation, emails and hand-written notes.

The police investigation revealed that the detective recognized Fr. David Morrier as the protégé of Fr. Michael Scanlan, such was their relationship and communication. The lawsuit alleges that in 2007, Scanlan sent Morrier to a training in Pittsburgh where he obtained a Mind Control Manual, with a note to report back to Scanlan. The lawsuit alleges that Scanlan was involved in the exorcisms performed on the victim. The lawsuit alleges that the victim revealed Morrier’s abuse and rape in 2011 to Fr. Michael Scanlan, shortly before he retired to the mother house in Loretto.[31]

The leaked documents offer a description of Franciscan University’s underbelly that is not unlike descriptions of True House: controlling behavior, making enemies of outsiders and dissenters, unsanctioned exorcisms. This may come as no surprise to witnesses of True House, who allege “frequent” visits from Fr. Michael Scanlan to the charismatic household.[32] I suspect most students and faculty of Franciscan University never see this dark and rotten underbelly, but they might catch the scent from time to time. While advertising itself as a safe cultural haven in a chaotic world, the safety of students—emotional, physical, sexual, and even spiritual—has been less important than the University’s reputation. Perhaps, in this way, Fr. Michael Scanlan was prophetic: the university needed to build a bulwark that could withstand a siege from an evil system of its own making.

Part Six of this series will discuss what happens to those within the Franciscan community who choose to expose the underbelly, including the victim-survivor of Fr. David Morrier. But first, an Interlude which sets the stage for Franciscan University’s mishandling of sexual harassment and assault allegations.

{→Part One→Part Two→Part Three→Part Four}

[1] Allen, John L., Jr. “What Kind of Model is Steubenville?” National Catholic Reporter.11 Feb 2000, https://natcathorg/NCR_Online/archives2/2000a/021100/021100a.htm

[2] https://www.scribd.com/doc/103839744/Strife-at-Steubenville-Cracks-In-The-House-Scanlan-Built-NCR-Feb-2000

[3] Allen, John L., Jr. “What Kind of Model is Steubenville?” National Catholic Reporter.11 Feb 2000, https://natcathorg/NCR_Online/archives2/2000a/021100/021100a.htm

[4] It should be said that there is an allegation of child sexual abuse against Fr. Michael Scanlan from his time with the People of Hope, a charismatic community in Newark.

[5] “True House: An Oral History.” Covenant Community Productions. 31 Dec 2025. YouTube.

[6] Pursley, Reverend Leo A.; Flynn, Patrick T.; Tolosko, Laura Jean; Graczak, John J.; Hittinger, John; Hittinger, Francis R.; Ford, J. Massyngberde, Dr. Letter to Jean Cardinal Villot, 7 Apr 1975, typescript. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

[7] “The Ottenweller Report 1991.” Uploaded by John Flaherty, 25 Dec 2017, p. 47. https://www.scribd.com/document/367863206/The-Ottenweller-Report-1991

[8] Pursley, Reverend Leo A.; Hittinger, Francis R.; Tolosko, Laura Jean. Letter to Jean Cardinal Villot, 7 Apr 1975, typescript. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

[9] McGuire, C.S.P., Kenneth Harlan. People, Prayer and Promise: An Anthropological Analysis of A Catholic Charismatic Community, 1976. The Ohio State University, Anthropology. p. 61. https://truehousecommunity.com/files/True%20House20dissertation%20(1976).pdf

[10] https://www.scribd.com/doc/300189881/Circa-1978-Community-of-God-s-Love-Covenant-Servants-Wkd

[11] “Days of Darkness: Fr. Michael Scanlan.” Uploaded by John Flaherty, 05 Apr 2011, https://www.scribd.com/document/52356465/Days-of-Darkness-13-Minute-Audio-tape-of-Fr-Michael-Scanlan-TOR

[12] Pursley, Reverend Leo A.; Flynn, Patrick T . Letter to Jean Cardinal Villot, 7 Apr 1975, typescript. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

[13] Pursley, Reverend Leo A.; Tolosko, Laura Jean. Letter to Jean Cardinal Villot, 7 Apr 1975, typescript. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

[15] Pursley, Reverend Leo A.; Tolosko, Laura Jean. Letter to Jean Cardinal Villot, 7 Apr 1975, typescript. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

[16] The Ottenweller Report 1991.” Uploaded by John Flaherty, 25 Dec 2017, p. 62. https://www.scribd.com/document/367863206/The-Ottenweller-Report-1991

[17] Pursley, Reverend Leo A.; Tolosko, Laura Jean. Letter to Jean Cardinal Villot, 7 Apr 1975, typescript. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

[18] Pursley, Reverend Leo A.; Graczak, John J. Letter to Jean Cardinal Villot, 7 Apr 1975, typescript. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

[19] “Fr Mike Scanlan, our spiritual father.” Messy Family Project, Ep. 63, 18 Jan 2017. https://messyfamilyproject.org/mfp-063-fr-mike-scanlan-our-spiritual-father/

[20] Van Schaijik, Kathleen. “Fr. Michael’s Achievement.” University Concourse. Issue V, 4 May 2000. https://theuniversityconcourse.com/article/1959.html

[21] Schmiesing, David. “Confrontation and culture at Franciscan University.” University Concourse. Issue II, 12 Jan 1997. https://theuniversityconcourse.com/article/1713.html

[22] “An Open Letter to Franciscan University of Steubenville.” Patheos, 8 July 2019. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/suspendedinherjar/2019/07/3591

[23] “Doomed from the Start.” Transcript of “Personal Perspectives,” 14 Aug 1991. Uploaded by John Flaherty, 13 Sep 2009, https://www.scribd.com/document/1969528/Doomed-from-the-Start-Tom-Kneier-The-Sword-of-the-Spirit

[24] Bunson, Matthew. “Remembering Father Michael Scanlan, TOR.” National Catholic Register, 8 Jan 2017. https://www.ncregister.com/blog/remembering-father-michael-scanlan-tor

[25] Allen, John L., Jr. “What Kind of Model is Steubenville?” National Catholic Reporter.11 Feb 2000, https://natcathorg/NCR_Online/archives2/2000a/021100/021100a.htm

[26] Sisters of the Little Way. Descent into Light, Episode 4: “Bargaining with the Storm.” 22 Oct 2025, https://www.sistersofthelittleway.com/p/iv-bargaining-with-the-storm

[27] Sisters of the Little Way. Descent into Light, Episode 1: “Sacred Trust Shattered.” 01 Oct 2025, https://www.sistersofthelittleway.com/p/i-sacred-trust-shattered

[28] Pursley, Reverend Leo A.; Hittinger, Francis R. Letter to Jean Cardinal Villot, 7 Apr 1975, typescript. https://truehousecommunity.com/reference-files/

[29] “Shredding the Sword of the Spirit Covenant.” Uploaded by John Flaherty, 01 Sep 2009, https://www.scribd.com/document/19274926/Ottenweller-Shreds-Sword-of-the-Spirit-Covenant-w-Pict

[30] Morson, Jenn. “Screaming Into the Void.” Believer. Substack. 14 June 2024.

Believer

Screaming Into the Void

I’m having one of those evenings. I was just at the stove, making pasta because our oven is broken and well there’s not much that children eat that you can quickly prepare on the stovetop, so noodles it was…

Read more

2 years ago · 24 likes · 6 comments · Jenn Morson

[31] “Police Report FUS Redacted.” https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/vrobqf6q1m3lidusk4pt0/POLICEREPORTFUSREDACTED.pdf?e=2 &fbclid=IwAR3LlDvBQ1AoBvx-gz_z1mO1pBDzvQWuWkUDjAcQ8I6rl1PCg46mpvHxXBs&rlkey=5c5m56ik09f3df20quywx1h0z&dl=0

[32] “True House: An Oral History.” Covenant Community Productions. 31 Dec 2025. YouTube.

My children with all of my strength and with all of my power, I have brought you to myself, and it is not in vain, but is to accomplish my will, to build my Kingdom fully on earth.

These are words spoken by Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR, around 1977 at a gathering[1] in Steubenville, Ohio comprised of families, single men and women, and a religious sister. This charismatic prayer group would eventually call itself Servants of Christ the King.

Now seek my face and receive my vision. Without my vision, you will surely stray. Without my vision, you will surely perish. But you have access to my heart. Come, see my face.

When Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR, uses the words “my” and “I” here, he is not speaking as himself. He is prophesying. He is speaking as though these are words delivered from the Holy Spirit into his person. He is speaking as God.

Come, share my heart… I desire to use you, my people… to pour forth my healing and my saving power through you… My people, I will draw many to you.

For charismatic groups such as this one, prophecy is a sign of the Holy Spirit’s presence. By the time this meeting is taking place, Scanlan has already been established in this group, and in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement, as a spiritual authority and as one who can legitimately prophesy. When he says, “my people” or “my children,” he is speaking as God, but with the voice of a priest this small community of people already trust and call “Father.” By his priesthood, he is an alter Christus—another Christ—and, at this moment, a mouthpiece of God. His audience is attentive.

My people, I would speak a word to you this day that is new… that you have not heard before. My people, you must have ears that are opened to hear the word that I would speak, for it is a word that you are not expecting… It is a word that will bring power in your midst… Put aside your ideas of what you have for me to do for you and let me do what I want to do in your midst today.

In the transcript of this meeting, a note is added by the transcriber: “A spirit of expectancy was very present during Father Michael’s teaching.”

As a voyeur to this meeting, and as someone who has had no relationship or association with Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR, my first reaction to this note was, of course there is a spirit of expectancy, and by his design. He has them on the edge of their seats by endearing them to himself—my people, my children—and promising a special message, meant only for them, that is wholly unexpected. The listeners feel loved; they understand they are special and chosen; their minds and hearts are like softened clay on which his—or, as he presents it, God’s— message can be imprinted.

And then he comes out with it, now as himself and not as God, to interpret the message he has received: “The Lord is calling us to be a parish.”

This meeting, which hereafter I will refer to as the Covenant Meeting, is taking place at Franciscan University, then called College of Steubenville. The parish Scanlan speaks of will not be organized according to geographic boundaries, as Catholic parishes are traditionally organized, but will have a college campus as its center. It will attract potential members from all over the United States to enter into a covenant agreement— a solemn commitment to God, a group of people, and common set of rules and responsibilities under the umbrella organization, Sword of the Spirit, on whose council Scanlan serves. The community will be governed by Sword of the Spirit and will tithe to them.

Scanlan had, by this time, been involved with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal—or CCR— for several years. The CCR movement spread through a network of students and faculty connected through both Notre Dame University and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, where in an ecumenical, Neo-Pentecostal prayer group led by a Presbyterian, two Catholic professors asked to be “baptized in the Holy Spirit” in 1967. This “new Pentecost”, as it came to be called, spread quickly across Notre Dame’s campus and ballooned into a movement of ecstatic Catholics. These Pentecostal-informed Catholics were excited about their faith and energetic about evangelism.

However, the movement drew suspicion from within the Catholic Church at its inception. While Catholics believe that baptism—whether that occurs in infancy or adulthood—imparts the newly baptized with the Holy Spirit, the idea of a separate reception of the Holy Spirit is a Protestant-Pentecostal belief. For Pentecostals, proof of this reception is shown by charismatic gifts, such as being slain in the Spirit (falling backwards, fainting, etc.), prophetic speech, and glossolalia, while for Catholics, no outward signs are required to prove the efficacy of the sacrament. One of the professors in the prayer group at Duquesne, Bill Storey, would later write to the Bishop of South Bend begging him to investigate the faulty theology and abuses within the charismatic movement.

Henri Nouwen, a priest-professor who was known for bridging psychology and pastoral ministry, wrote an article for Notre Dame’s The Scholastic in 1967 analyzing the CCR in its infancy. Nouwen acknowledges that the Church is in a period of “re-evaluation and extreme self-criticism” which seems to “offer more questions than answers.” He notes that the Pentecostal movement appears to offer hope: “Sadness is changed to joy, restlessness to peace, despair to inner content, and separation to togetherness.” Yet he argues that perhaps the charismatic movement is more like electric shock therapy, that while it might feel as though one has been healed from “deep mental suffering, they might, in fact, paralyze their internal human assets to overcome their problem, and when the pains recur later on they might be more discouraged than before.” While he grants the movement vibrancy and inspiration, he is concerned about the precarity of authority within the movement, as well as the mental health of its participants.[2]

Adrian Reimers, who by 1986 was a former member of the charismatic community People of Praise in South Bend, explains why young Catholics were drawn to the charismatic movement in the late 1960s. He recalls how it was a “time of confusion in the Church.” He describes “home masses” of “homilies with beer and pizza for the eucharist.” He goes on to explain that “for most of us the charismatic experience was a welcome proof that all those things that we once believed in—the power and majesty of God, the reality of the Risen Lord, miracles, healing, effective prayer—were still real.”[3]

I heard bits of pieces of this church history in the Pacific Northwest. When the new Mass was released in 1969 after the Second Vatican Council, a mini-iconoclasm followed in the United States. Clergy and laypeople who had been anxious to modernize the Church came out of the woodwork. St. Patrick’s, the church in which I was baptized, white-washed their muraled walls. By the time I returned there in 2021, the parish priest was searching for photographs of the old church in hope of restoring the former murals. A priest in rural Oregon ordered the removal of statues, which a parishioner hid in her home for a decade. In a neighboring town, an ornate monstrance and Stations of the Cross plaques were taken down and hidden by parishioners as well, until the current priest began beautifying the sanctuary once again. Overall, right after Vatican II, liturgies in the United States became casual, even sacrilegious, and in response many Catholics mobilized to ensure the continuation of tradition. In the Portland archdiocese, for example, the Dominican priory became a haven for Catholic families who wanted to remain faithful to Catholic teaching while maintaining a sense of community.

Adrian Reimers explains retrospectively in 1986 that he joined a charismatic community because of how powerful the experience was initially, how he witnessed healings, courageous preaching of the Gospel, and warm, loving relationships. The communities were seen as a work of renewal within the Church. He writes, “We were forming a group of Christians committed to sharing their lives in an explicitly Christian way.”[4]

These were the same factors that attracted people from all over the United States to Steubenville, Ohio. Fr. Michael Scanlan, who had been ordained in 1964, caught wind of the charismatic movement in its infancy and exposed his brother-friars to it as the rector of the St. Francis seminary, before accepting the position as president of the College of Steubenville in 1974. The Covenant Meeting occurred just a few years later. The administrators, or pastoral team, of this new community would include two laymen and one priest—Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR.

From Servants of Christ the King will come professors, administrators, and spiritual advisors for the university. They will be responsible for the revitalization of Franciscan University.

Which is not the story I heard.

As my husband and I prepared to move to Steubenville for a new job in the steel industry, I listened to a handful of podcasts from Franciscan University alumni where I was treated to the mythos of the school which credits Fr. Michael Scanlan with its resurrection. In one podcast,[5] I heard an alum, who refers to Scanlan as his spiritual father, say that when asked how he turned the school around, Scanlan would reply simply, “Prayer.” The alum laughed and said that at times this reply would frustrate its hearers—surely there’s more to rebuilding a university, they would insist. But as I would discover, Scanlan distanced himself, at least through the public eye, from the community he helped build, and which helped build his mythos.

As I combed through documents shared publicly by John Flaherty, a former member of Servants of Christ the King, I could see that the rebuilding of Franciscan University had been a painstaking community effort, one that required intense commitment and sacrifice. I was struck by how beautiful and hopeful some of the alleged prophecies sound. The community is told through prophetic word that they have been chosen and called “by name to celebrate this new covenant.” At one point during the Covenant Meeting, one prophesier proclaims as Christ, “I have asked my Father for you, that you would be my inheritance, that you would be my birthright.”[6] This message, of course, echoes Scripture, but is used at the meeting to direct the members towards a substantial commitment as an intentional community. It would have been easy—exciting, even—to get swept up in this cultural moment within the Church, to believe one is chosen for a special mission from God.

However, thirteen years after the Covenant Meeting, a bishop would identify cultish characteristics within the community, noting especially that leadership, which included Fr. Michael Scanlan, exercised radical control over members’ lives. This over-emphasis and blind trust in authority led to spiritual, emotional, and in some cases, physical abuse.

“People who abuse don’t usually pursue the disengaged,” says Sr. Danielle Victoria, a member of Sisters of the Little Way, a religious order whose mission is those affected by sexual abuse, especially in the Church. “They pursue the faithful, the devoted, the ones who want to serve, who trust deeply, who are willing to sacrifice for something greater than themselves.”[7] This is an accurate description of the people who flocked to Steubenville from all over the United States: faithful, devoted, ready to serve, deeply trusting. According to the community’s tithing records and testimonials, they were indeed willing to sacrifice for something greater than themselves. Yet Sr. Daniella Victoria goes on to explain, “That devotion… can be manipulated. It becomes the perfect entry point for someone seeking control.”

One of the ways that Fr. Michael Scanlan and the lay pastoral leaders established control in the community was by reinforcing the community’s attributes—their faithfulness, devotion, and sacrificial love—and then suggesting they could give more, do more, and sacrifice more precisely because they were called to be a people set apart, or “a bulwark” in Scanlan’s words.[8] This bulwark of people would be a defense against not only the world, but against the Catholic Church as well. A policy handbook for Sword of the Spirit (on whose council Fr. Michael Scanlan served), states, “Many churches are in a state of serious decline and decay” and warned that “God is going to take away his protection.”[9]

Being chosen as a people set apart within a covenant community was followed by the promise of survival and protection as the world continued to descend into chaos. Prophets and leaders instilled fear to knit people together. During the three-day Covenant Meeting at the College of Steubenville, additional prophetic words delivered to the attendees made them feel as though “the Lord’s mantle of protection was extended to us this night… Together as a Body, we knew the Lord’s power and presence with us as we stood against evil, and prayed protection and deliverance.”[10] They were told and believed that they had the power, through Christ, to “unbind, set free, and deliver from bondage” (which in practice was thought to be accomplished through deliverance ministry or theophistic counseling).

Marian apparitions were used to uphold the idea that not only was the world a dangerous place, but an even greater darkness was coming, and members would be safe within the confines of the community. In the late 1980’s, Fr. Michael Scanlan gave a talk to the community using messages from Medjugorje (an apparition that has not been sanctioned by the Catholic Church) to warn the community of “imminent calamity unless our people convert.”[11]

Sister Isabel Betwy, who ran a Medjugorje tour service for Franciscan University, allegedly reported that a seer from Medjugorje promised to contact Sister Bettwy in advance of the “days of darkness” so community members would have time to prepare. Of course, this never happened. In this same meeting, Scanlan reminds the community that their purpose is to share resources for God’s plan, to evangelize, and to “strengthen the Christian people by being a bulwark, stemming the tide of evil in the Churches.” This echoes the policy handbook that explains this impending danger in vague terms: “’Days of darkness’ and ‘hard times’ primarily refer to a time in the church when things will become very difficult.”

Bruce Yocum, a leader in the Word of God community (another charismatic organization) delivered a prophecy in 1982 that voiced God’s alleged call to war. He says, “I [God] will take your ease from you and in exchange for it give you a place in the battle, and with it my everlasting favor.” As God, he instructs the leaders to “train your people for war and battle, for hardship and difficulty.” Yokum goes on to prophesy, “As soon as they are able to bear it, put them under a burden of service.”[12]

The “hardship and difficulty” and “burden of service” would cause the ecstatic sense of purpose within the Servants of Christ the King to strain under disillusionment and fatigue. In 1990, after the bishop of Steubenville at that time, Bishop Ottenweller, received countless complaints over a multi-year period from members within the community—and most notably a group which issued him a thorough letter explaining how their rights as Catholics had been violated—a visitation was initiated, which would result in an investigation.

Bishop Ottenweller would release his findings in 1991, outlining several concerns, including his ignorance of the community’s goings-on, which would have been Scanlan’s responsibility as the community’s clerical liaison. The bishop was concerned about the psychological harm caused by leadership, elitism within the community, an “unhealthy secrecy” about their finances, oppression of women, a “fundamentalist outlook on scripture”, and “a lack of compassion and love for those in need.”[13]

The Servants of Christ the King was one of several charismatic Catholic communities ordered to disband or reform by their local bishops. As I read through summaries of Bishop Ottenweller’s report,[14] I was struck by how he likened some of the community’s practices to that of cults, specifically the degree of control exercised by the clerical and lay pastoral leadership. Other charismatic communities had been broken by similar structures. Ottenweller would, in the end, recommend counseling for the community informed by Dr. Margaret Singer, a prominent clinical psychologist who specialized in cult dynamics.

Bishop Ottenweller used a book by Robert J. Lifton of Yale University titled Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism to inform his report. He noted how the community encouraged isolation from the outside world through the intense control of the “interpretation of what all the members see, hear, read and write.” He determined that the community leaders portrayed general society as “chaotic, anti-Christian, and enemies of both God and the group.”[15] This authoritative judgement of right and wrong led to fear of leaving the group, or worse, being shunned. Ottenweller also identified the community setting itself “apart from ordinary Christians” and seeing itself as the purest form of Christianity. This echoes Adrian Reimers reflection of his own covenant community’s distance from the Church, which he described was like a child retreating “from his Mother’s embrace.”[16]

Ottenweller acknowledges the “mystical manipulation” of prophetic speech, such as the prophecies from the Covenant Meeting, that appear spontaneous, but are in fact, a means to an end. He quotes Lifton’s idea that leaders who engage in mystical manipulation do so because they are “ideological totalists” who see themselves as the “vanguard of a new social development.” Ottenweller identifies the following charismatic practices—sanctioned, encouraged, and practiced by Fr. Michael Scanlan—to fall under mystical manipulation: prophecy, deliverance, prayer meetings, glossolalia (speaking in tongues), and sickness perceived as inspired by demons.[17]

Doctrine is prized over individuals, writes Ottenweller, causing members to deny reality if their experiences do not uphold the group’s ideas. Peace within the community depends upon the degree to which a member submits to the ideology. And this doctrine, Ottenweller points out, is rooted in fundamentalism, which he calls a “virus.” Part of this fundamentalist doctrine is its mistreatment of women. The bishop accuses the community of using marriage to make “a child out of the wife” and “a tyrant out of the husband.”[18] He includes a testimony of a female member who reported that after her husband divulged intimate details about their marriage to his pastoral head, she was reprimanded, then called rebellious when she grew angry. Her husband was told to “keep a tighter control” on her.[19]

Ottenweller asserts that the community’s dogma was gnostic in nature by presenting itself as an “elite knowledge and hidden wisdom” mediated through “divinely chosen and inspired leaders.” This special knowledge costs “a lifetime of involvement,”[20] which was committed through the covenantal promises. This led to hyper-criticism and a drive toward an unachievable perfection.

Ottenweller communicated amply with the leaders of Servants of Christ the King and met with them to discuss his findings. At a special Mass, he tore up a copy of the covenant agreement in a symbolic show of its dissolvement, while also giving space for the community to continue existing, but not as a floating parish and without covenant oaths. He exercised his pastoral care over a community that had become sheep without a shepherd. Although Bishop Ottenweller expressed concern that “the present leaders not resign” should it “cause a confusing and chaotic situation,”[21] Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR, the community’s spiritual father, resigned on May 3, 1991, and turned his attention fully to his appointment as President of Franciscan University, the college which his community had helped rebuild.

Scanlan happened to be in Austria on an evening in August 1991 when the community gathered with one of their lay pastoral leaders and Monsignor Foys, the diocese liaison, to discuss Ottenweller’s report and the future of Servants of Christ the King. The lay pastoral leader offered a heart-felt and detailed apology, admitting that he, and the pastoral team, “spent a lot of time trying to convince other people that their experience wasn’t valid.”[22]

Another lay pastoral leader wrote letters of apology to the community, admitting that he had become a “Pharisee” who had, in his “zeal for the things of the Lord… added on to the gospel.” He says that the community built “a system that focused on externals.” He offers what I would consider actual and true prophecy, describing a system of abuse the Church would come to understand decades later:

In an abusive family system loyalty gets all confused, and abused people often cling to, enable, caretake and protect the abuser… You begin to see things but you shelve them. The scales have to fall from your eyes.[23]

There is no record of an official apology from Fr. Michael Scanlan.

Later that year, Scanlan did appear to take some responsibility for problems within pastoral care in an article he wrote for New Covenant magazine.[24] He admits to experiencing “a radical poverty about my views”, that “many things that I thought would work for others because they worked for me, haven’t been successful for others.” He puts some responsibility on community members when he says that certain advice was “taken as absolutes rather than correction.” He then explains why he resigned from leadership: “I think I might be just as wrong the second time.” He later admits that “clearly there must be change” but leaves the reader wondering what and how, content to remain “more cautious about surging ahead.” The tone of the article is more light-hearted—like an oops and oh well—than the heartbroken apologies of the community’s two lay leaders.

While Scanlan’s article in New Covenant expresses some awareness of wrongdoing, he does not directly address the specific concerns of the bishop, which were informed by complaints from community members. When Bishop Ottenweller addresses problems within the community’s leadership, his wording is decidedly strong and detailed. Scanlan was a part of the “almost omniscient” leadership in which accountability was “severely deficient” since pastoral leaders operated “with Divine Sanction.” Members were told, “If the pastoral leaders were wrong, God would bless it.” Ottenweller reported that this lack of accountability within leadership led to two cases of child abuse within the community.[25]

Bishop Ottenweller would later say to members of the community, “It is an evil system.”[26] Many of the concerns listed in his report about the charismatic community were yet present in the culture at Franciscan University, which was developed and nurtured by the Servants of Christ the King. Most notably, deliverance ministry would continue on campus. Fr. Michael Scanlan and other friars would continue sanctioning and performing “exorcisms” and included students as discerners of spirits in these rites. Existing members of the Servants of Christ the King (later called Community of God’s Love) and Franciscan University students were allegedly present at the exorcisms conducted by Scanlan and Morrier on the young woman who would eventually accuse Morrier of rape.

With all that would come to light thirty years after Bishop Ottenweller’s thorough report of the “evil system” nurtured by Fr. Michael Scanlan within the charismatic community, it would appear Scanlan’s casual tone in his article for New Covenant betrayed a true lack of introspection to a tragic degree, one that would allow systemic abuse to flourish at Franciscan University.

An “almost omniscient” leadership that “spent a lot of time trying to convince other people that their experience wasn’t valid” which would allow abuse to occur and go unpunished, had already begun at the Covenant Meeting all those years previous. The day after Fr. Michael Scanlan delivered his prophecy and interpretation—that the prayer group should become a parish and covenant community—individuals came forward with questions and concerns. But those were not received well. The transcriber notes, “We received a strong word from the Lord… calling us to repentance. We had become fragmented by individual concerns.” Concerns and questions are interpreted here as not just divisive but sinful. “We turned to Him, begging for forgiveness, sincerely repenting from our rebellious actions and rebellious spirits.” The community’s commitment is challenged; they are asked to forge ahead without worrying about the details—an “unqualified commitment,” as one leader labels it.

In response, someone—possibly Scanlan— speaks as God to assure the community that, in the wake of repenting of their (wise) inclination to ask for more details and clarification: You are clean, you are pure now.

This last message—you are clean, you are pure now—is a driving force behind the CCR movement. With a view that the world is crumbling around them—as well as the Catholic Church—the charismatic communities promise to help members stay pure and clean and Catholic. Servants of Christ the King was not the only community to promise this. They were certainly not the first. Nor were they the first to enable and suffer abuse within the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement.

Part Five will explore the structure and abuses of True House, the first Catholic covenant community household, and its connection to Fr. Michael Scanlan.

{→Part One→Part Two→Part Three}

[1] https://www.scribd.com/doc/300189881/Circa-1978-Community-of-God-s-Love-Covenant-Servants-Wkd

[2] Nouwen, Henri J.M. “The Pentecostal Movement: Three Perspectives.” The Scholastic, Vol. 108, Issue 19, 1967, pp. 15-17, 32. https://archives.nd.edu/Scholastic/VOL_0108/VOL_0108_ISSUE_0019.pdf

[3] Reimers, Adrian J. “Charismatic Covenant Community: A Failed Promise.” Fidelity Magazine, May 1986. https://www.scribd.com/document/63589533/Covenant-Community-A-Failed-Promise-partial-by-Adrian-Reimers

[4] Reimers, Adrian J. “Charismatic Covenant Community: A Failed Promise.” Fidelity Magazine, May 1986. https://www.scribd.com/document/63589533/Covenant-Community-A-Failed-Promise-partial-by-Adrian-Reimers

[5] “Fr Mike Scanlan, our spiritual father.” Messy Family Project, Ep. 63, 18 Jan 2017. https://messyfamilyproject.org/mfp-063-fr-mike-scanlan-our-spiritual-father/

[6] https://www.scribd.com/doc/300189881/Circa-1978-Community-of-God-s-Love-Covenant-Servants-Wkd

[7] Sisters of the Little Way. Descent into Light, Episode 1: “Sacred Trust Shattered.” 01 Oct 2025, https://www.sistersofthelittleway.com/p/i-sacred-trust-shattered

[8] “Days of Darkness: Fr. Michael Scanlan.” Uploaded by John Flaherty, 05 Apr 2011, https://www.scribd.com/document/52356465/Days-of-Darkness-13-Minute-Audio-tape-of-Fr-Michael-Scanlan-TOR

[9] “Sword of the Spirit Policy Notebook 0001.” Uploaded by John Flaherty. https://www.scribd.com/document/19142540/Sword-of-the-Spirit-Policy-Notebook-0001

[10] https://www.scribd.com/doc/300189881/Circa-1978-Community-of-God-s-Love-Covenant-Servants-Wkd

[11] “Days of Darkness: Fr. Michael Scanlan.” Uploaded by John Flaherty, 05 Apr 2011, https://www.scribd.com/document/52356465/Days-of-Darkness-13-Minute-Audio-tape-of-Fr-Michael-Scanlan-TOR

[12] “Call to Arms: A Nation at War.” Prophecy from Bruce Yocum, 18 Jan 1982. Uploaded by John Flaherty. https://www.scribd.com/document/61625296/Sword-of-the-Spirit-A-Nation-At-War

[13] “Bishop Ottenweller’s Visitation Report.” Letter from Bishop Ottenweller to Coordinators of Servants of Christ the King, 10 Jan 1991. Uploaded by John Flaherty 17 May 2011, https://www.scribd.com/document/55661455/Bishop-Ottenweller-s-Correspondance-with-Servants-of-Christ-the-King-1991-92

[14] “The Ottenweller Report 1991.” Uploaded by John Flaherty, 25 Dec 2017. https://www.scribd.com/document/367863206/The-Ottenweller-Report-1991

[15] Ottenweller Report, p. 52

[16] Reimers, Adrian J. “Charismatic Covenant Community: A Failed Promise.” Fidelity Magazine, May 1986. https://www.scribd.com/document/63589533/Covenant-Community-A-Failed-Promise-partial-by-Adrian-Reimers

[17] Ottenweller Report, p. 53

[18] Ottenweller Report, p. 65

[19] Ottenweller Report, p. 48

[20] Ottenweller Report, p. 58

[21] “Bishop Ottenweller’s Visitation Report.” Letter from pastoral leadership to members of Servants Christ the King, 19 April 1991. Uploaded by John Flaherty 17 May 2011, https://www.scribd.com/document/55661455/Bishop-Ottenweller-s-Correspondance-with-Servants-of-Christ-the-King-1991-92

[22] “Doomed from the Start.” Transcript of “Personal Perspectives,” 14 Aug 1991. Uploaded by John Flaherty, 13 Sep 2009, https://www.scribd.com/document/1969528/Doomed-from-the-Start-Tom-Kneier-The-Sword-of-the-Spirit

[23] “And Scales Fell From His Eyes.” Letters from Keith Fournier, Oct 1990 and Feb 1991. Uploaded by John Flaherty, 18 Mar 2014. https://www.scribd.com/document/213045020/And-Scales-Fell-From-His-Eyes

[24] Scanlan, Fr. Michael. “Perspective.” New Covenant, Nov 1991, p. 27, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015078389163&seq=116

[25] Ottenweller Report, p. 48-49

[26] “Shredding the Sword of the Spirit Covenant.” Uploaded by John Flaherty, 01 Sep 2009, https://www.scribd.com/document/19274926/Ottenweller-Shreds-Sword-of-the-Spirit-Covenant-w-Pict

Tucked away on Franciscan University’s website, on a page entitled Campus Safety, is a link to a document called Historical Review and Actions Taken Regarding Campus Safety.[1] It was published on April 12, 2019, and updated on October 21, 2022. It chronicles how Fr. Sean O. Sheridan, president of Franciscan University from 2013 to 2019, commissioned a third-party firm to investigate the university’s handling of sexual abuse allegations. Fr. Sheridan publicly apologized in his homily at the opening Mass of the 2018-19 academic year, in the wake of the Cardinal McCarrick scandal, to victims of sexual abuse and violence “by any member of the Franciscan University family,”[2] and took action by promising the Historical Review, a report concerning the university’s handling of sexual abuse allegations, to the Board of Trustees.[3]

The report includes a list of clergy, both TOR friars and visiting priests, against whom substantiated allegations of sexual misconduct have been made throughout the university’s existence. It also explains the implementation of new protocol to ensure campus safety. Fr. Sean O. Sheridan appeals for forgiveness on behalf of Franciscan University.

This is no small thing.

And yet, Fr. Sean O. Sheridan’s words at the opening Mass of the 2018-19 academic year give me pause: “Like any institution, we too are comprised of flawed individuals who make mistakes from time to time, and who sin from time to time.” It reminds me of the press release regarding Fr. David Morrier after he pled guilty to sexual battery,[4] which explains rape “is not only a crime but a serious sin.”[5] Both comments betray the gravity of offenses committed by not only Morrier but of university personnel. Morrier did not just rape a student; he groomed her through charismatic ministry and spiritual direction. This was not simply a case of a “flawed individual” who may “sin from time to time,” as Fr. Sean O. Sheridan claimed. Morrier had been given the authority and independence within his order and the university to methodically groom and abuse a student. The culture at Franciscan University allowed him to do it. From the list of abusers compiled in the Historical Review, groomers and abusers were not uncommon among the Friars of the Third Order Regulars or, consequently, Franciscan University.

The university’s post-Morrier press release as well as Fr. Sean O. Sheridan’s comments at the inaugural Mass echo the response of an American cardinal who, during an interview with NBC News in 2004, was asked to comment about the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church: “The church is made of saints and sinners and sometimes the sinners find their way into the clergy. And, well, since we’re all sinners, we can see how that can happen.”[6] This is right theology: we are all sinners. But it’s a weak and tone-deaf pastoral reply. Sure, we’re all sinners, but we all don’t groom and rape children. That much was known in 2004, even if a close examination of systemic abuse came later.

And this cardinal who was interviewed by NBC News to so blithely comment on the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church? It was none other than Cardinal McCarrick, who would later be convicted of pedophilia, accused of assault, and defrocked as a priest. I’m not accusing Fr. Sean O. Sheridan of any crime or behavior like that of McCarrick—and indeed, he should be commended for commissioning the Historical Reivew— but I am saying their responses were equally vapid. By the time Sheridan made that comment at a Mass in 2018, he would have been aware of the charges against his brother-friar, Fr. David Morrier since Morrier was reassigned away from campus in 2015, shortly after he was charged with rape.

Suggesting that Franciscan University did not understand the gravity of its friars’ offenses—insisting that it houses sinners “like any other institution”— the Historical Review was not mentioned in any press release from the university following Fr. David Morrier’s conviction. This was a missed opportunity for the university to demonstrate commitment to institutional responsibility. Several Catholic diocese and institutions provide media releases when they update their lists of credibly accused clergy or employees to aid in transparency. It appears Franciscan University simply wanted the attention from Morrier’s conviction to go away, for people to forget and move on.

And maybe they would have. Then, just a year after Morrier’s guilty plea, allegations against another TOR friar on the university’s campus came to light.

In 2012, a female student at Franciscan University sought spiritual direction from Fr. Gregory Plow, TOR. She later sought counsel from the university’s Wellness Center as Plow’s behavior grew increasingly controlling. Joseph Loizzo, who was the Director of the Wellness Center at that time, affirmed that Plow’s behavior was emotionally abusive and noted that the friar had even left a bruise on the female student’s arm. She described, in one of her sessions with Loizzo, how, if Plow weren’t a priest, she would assume he had been flirting because of his “repeated comments about her appearance, beauty, etc.”[7] The female students’ parents, friends, and professors corroborated her allegations, having noticed Plow’s odd, “possessive” behavior towards her.

When these allegations were sent to Student Life, Fr. Richard Davis, TOR responded by suggesting a “confrontational meeting” between the female student and Plow. Understandably, the female student did not want to meet with Plow; she had, on the advice of her counselor and father, created distance between herself and Plow. Yet the meeting was offered as an ultimatum: unless she agreed to meet with Plow, Student Life would not follow through on her allegations, which had been substantiated by roommates, friends, and counselors.

As one who has taken the safe environment training for years on end, I can attest to the fact that it is never suggested to ask an accuser to meet with the accused. This manipulative and aggressive move on the part of Student Life seems intended only to intimidate the student.

Jenn Morson, a journalist who has tirelessly exposed abuse at Franciscan University, reported that Fr. Dave Pivonka, president of Franciscan University, claimed in an email[8] to alumni in 2023 that the university investigated the allegations against Plow in 2012 and found he had not violated university policy, even though quotes from the University’s Workplace Harassment policy were included by Loizzo in his report.

There are two possible implications of Pivonka’s claim. Either we are to assume that flirtation from friars, controlling behavior, emotional abuse, and physical bruising are not against university policy and, therefore, is behavior students can and should expect from TOR friars, or Pivonka is suggesting that the female student lied, that her claims are unsubstantiated. The latter would mean the Director of the Wellness Center and the students’ professors, friends, and family also lied. Either implication is abhorrent and unacceptable.

The allegations were sent to the Diocese of Steubenville in 2023 and then-Bishop Montforton replied three months later that while Plow did “exhibit a level of personal interaction on a non-professional level”, he “through courses, has learned important lessons regarding pastoral judgment and professional standards.”[9]

The word “courses” went off like an alarm bell in my head. I had read that before. Laypeople have heard that before. Bishop Montforton echoed the worst of episcopal responses. The Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report lists hundreds of priests who were accused, then put on leave to receive counseling, take courses, or undergo evaluation, only to be reassigned to churches and universities where they abused again.

After information about Plow came to light, more alumni came forward with their own stories of Plow’s disturbing behavior on campus.[10] These stories include reports of Plow reading bedtime stories in girls’ dorms and staying long after male visitation hours ended. While Fr. Gregory Plow’s offenses were not proved criminal, his behavior fits the profile of a clergyman willing to use his position to spiritually and emotionally manipulate those under his care. As the investigative podcast Crisis points out, when a cleric sets “their own rules and expectations,” they have made themselves “more privileged than the other people of God.”[11] As the Church has learned through self-examination, this behavior—clericalism—is a pillar that supports systemic abuse.

Researchers like Julie Hanlon Rubio, professor of Christian Social Ethics and co-author of Beyond Bad Apples, describes how clericalism grants clergy “excessive authority, trust, rights, and responsibilities.”[12] At Franciscan University, friars serve as teachers, coaches, chaplains, confessors, and spiritual directors, creating what Margaret Smith, professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, refers to as “opportunity risk.”[13] The TOR friars have ample opportunity to become intimately involved in students’ daily lives, which requires more vigilance and attention to protective policies. However, Plow seems to have been given a great deal of liberty in his interactions with students.

Fr. Gregory Plow’s accuser, as well as her fellow alumni, should have been thanked for bringing his manipulation and abuse to the attention of the university. Instead, she appears to have been bullied by Student Life, and the additional accounts ignored. It’s worth considering, given these reports, that Plow might not be fit for ministry on a university campus. This could have been an opportunity for Plow’s interactions with young women to be minimized. Friars of the Third Order Regular have a mother house in Loretta, PA where he could have resided to serve in other capacities, away from young women. Instead, he took “courses” and was awarded positions of administrative authority as Associate to the Vice President for Franciscan Life and Head Chaplain of Athletics.

This lackluster handling of allegations extended to student allegations against fellow students as well. Alumni have shared occasions in which Student Life mishandled allegations brought forward by female students concerning male students. The response of Student Life is weak and, at times, cruel: one student was told her own behavior was “compromising,” one was asked what she had been wearing, one was told she had asked for it, one was blamed for getting drunk.[14]

Hearing testimonies of female alumni facing blame for their own assault reminded me of the public response to the Steubenville rape case. Alexandria Goddard, an investigative writer, collected and published comments posted publicly on social media between 2012-13 from members of the Steubenville community, which included, “you should have seen the outfit she had on” and “I have no sympathy for whores.” A local radio personality commented, “It’s easier to tell your parents you were raped than, ‘Hey Mom and Dad, I got drunk and decided to let three guys have their way with me’.” The idea that any young girl would allow boys to “have their way” willingly and consensually exposes their own pornographic perception of girls. The lack of shame and self-awareness in airing out these comments on a public forum betrayed a cultural norm, an accepted perception of women. “Who raped who?” as another said, implying that it was worth considering that an unconscious teenage girl forced teenage boys to kidnap and rape her.[15]

It wasn’t that I had never heard this before. Women hearing other women blamed for rape, assault, and harassment is why these are among the most underreported crimes.[16] But again, after the influence of the #metoo movement, extensive research about violence towards women as well as the nature of trauma, and countless public testimonials, I naively believed that our culture had moved beyond the ignorant assumption that a woman’s clothing, behavior, demeanor, or drinking invites and welcomes violence from men.

Victim-blaming is a common reaction to misfortune and crime. It allows individuals or a community a chance to believe the wrong could not be done to them if they take imagined precautions. Yet victim-blaming also tends to be more prevalent when the perpetrator is well-loved or respected by an individual or community,[17] like for instance, football players in a rust-belt town whose pride and joy is football. Or, in the case of the Catholic Church and Franciscan University’s community, revered clergy. Cognitively, it is challenging to accept that someone who is loved, respected, or revered could be capable of something like possessive behavior, leaving a bruise on a girl’s arm, or even rape.

The temptation to blame the victim was also in play within the Steubenville Catholic community when, in 2021, a female teacher at the local Catholic high school was charged with sexual battery against a male student. Thankfully, the parent of the student reported the crime immediately and it was handled appropriately by the diocese and law enforcement. However, within the community there seemed to be a protectiveness over the perpetrator, who was not just a teacher, but a daughter of a local married Catholic priest. In a bizarre twist of clericalism, the community allowed her a different set of rules than other sex offenders. I was startled to see her so visibly active in the community, working at local shops and taking tickets at family events with minors present, despite her Tier 3 sex offender classification. Again, as in the Steubenville football rape case and Morrier rape case, there was a strong show of public support for the perpetrator.

By the time allegations about Fr. Gregory Plow surfaced, we had lived in Steubenville for no more than a year, and the proverbial naked bike ride was full-bodied and overwhelming. I felt like I was living in the fable of the Emperor’s New Clothes, only the nudity in question was not of an individual, but a group of abusers and the community that rode alongside them, shielding their shame by joining the ride. I had met few others who saw the dysfunction (or who were willing to talk about it). We all had, at different moments, questioned our own perception and experience. For me, all it took was a glance outside Steubenville’s walls where the world and the Church were grappling with the sex abuse crisis to realize that the emperor, or community in this case, truly had no clothes.

In 2025, a podcast was released that offered understanding (and a vocabulary) for the culture we were navigating in Steubenville. Sisters of the Little Way, a new order of religious women committed to helping the Church heal from abuse, released an eight-part podcast called Descent into Light, which gathered wisdom and research from experts to explore the causes and responses to the abuse crisis within the Catholic Church, in light of their own experience with an abusive priest.

Sr. Danielle Victoria and Sr. Theresa Aletheia identified a pattern in cases of abuse where victims are turned into scapegoats by the community. This occurs when the community refuses to confront the root causes of abuse and “inevitably cast the darkness onto others.”[18] If someone—like the victim of rape or assault—threatens the social cohesion of a community, or their perceived reputation, the community will make an example out of the victim in an effort to maintain “a clean image” which comes “at a devastating cost.”

In Fr. Pivonka’s email to alumni in which he claimed that Plow had not violated university policy, the implications are that Plow’s abusive behavior is, in fact, expected and acceptable on Franciscan University’s campus. If Pivonka is not suggesting that, then he is suggesting that the victim fabricated her testimony. And if the victim is lying, then so are employees and students of Franciscan, as well as the victim’s family and friends. Pivonka’s response to the allegations against Plow are, unfortunately, a perfect example of an institution scapegoating a victim and “casting the darkness onto others”—and those “others” include his own employees and students—to salvage the “clean image” of Franciscan University and the friars.

When I shared allegations about Fr. Gregory Plow, TOR on social media, I was immediately messaged by a wife of a university employee who had been involved in Student Life, who urged caution and pointed out that I did not have all the information. I agreed this was true, and that I would be more than happy—relieved even—to hear anything that refuted the meticulous notes made by the Director of the Wellness Center which were corroborated by professors, friends, and family of the student involved. In defense of Plow, she replied, “He is a friend of Mary’s.”

Yes, Mary. As in the Mother of God.

Her defense of Fr. Gregory Plow was not based on evidence but echoed some of the defenses past clergy victims have heard from nay-sayers: he’s a holy man, he wouldn’t do that, he’s a priest so he knows better than you, this is about you and your problems. He is a friend of Mary’s was a deflection of Plow’s behavior and an effort to protect the reputation of not only Plow, but of the university.

Protecting social cohesion at a devastating cost had happened and was happening in Steubenville among Franciscan University’s staunch defenders. I wanted to ask a similar question from that sect of the Steubenville Catholic community as Rachel Dissell, an investigative reporter from Cleveland, Ohio, had posed about Steubenville’s rape case: “Is this football town putting its daughters at risk by protecting its sons?”[19] Was maintaining an institutional reputation more important than the safety of students? Why, especially in a post-scandal Church outfitted with policies designed to hold clergy accountable, would a culture of protection around the friars subsist at Franciscan University? Why would they ignore the painful experience and hard-earned wisdom of the Catholic Church?

I wanted to learn more about the culture that bred and nurtured abuse both at Franciscan University and within Steubenville’s Catholic community living in the university’s shadow. I wanted to learn because I feared a culture which had a history of protecting abusers would not be prepared to make the changes necessary to end the cycle of abuse and cover-up.

To understand the culture of systemic abuse in the Catholic community of Steubenville, I would need to go further back in Franciscan University’s history, to the arrival of Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR, as its president. With him would come a tide that transformed the university from a notorious party school with dwindling admissions into a school that Pope John Paul II would laud as an exemplary Catholic university.

Tucked behind the surface of its exemplary façade was a community under Fr. Michael Scanlan’s leadership which would spend “a lot of time trying to convince other people that their experience wasn’t valid”[20] and come to be called “an evil system”[21] by the Bishop of Steubenville. In the story of this community, which had been foundational to Franciscan University’s reform and rebranding, I would find the roots of systemic abuse.

Part Four will explore the connection of Franciscan University with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, and the charismatic community in Steubenville under Fr. Michael Scanlan’s leadership.

[1] https://integrityandtruth.franciscan.edu/we-stand-for-integrity-and-truth/

[2] https://integrityandtruth.franciscan.edu/father-seans-homily-at-the-opening-of-the-semester-liturgy/

[3] https://integrityandtruth.franciscan.edu/we-stand-for-integrity-and-truth/

[4] “Former Ohio school priest sentenced for sexual battery.” WTRF.com, 14 Mar 2022. https://www.wtrf.com/ohio/former-ohio-school-priest-sentenced-for-sexual-battery/

[5] https://franciscan.edu/franciscan-university-statement-on-father-morrier-2/

[6] “Transcript for Feb. 29^th.” Meet the Press. NBC News, 29 Feb. 2004. Web. 14 May 2026. Transcript.

[7] Morson, Jenn. “Allegations Against Father Gregory Plow, TOR, currently assigned to Franciscan University of Steubenville.” Believer, 26 June 2023. https://jennmorson.substack.com/p/allegations-against-father-gregory

[8] Morson, Jenn. “A Response to Fr. David Pivonka’s Alumni Email.” Believer, 28 June 2023. https://jennmorson.substack.com/p/a-response-to-fr-david-pivonkas-alumni

[9] Morson, Jenn. “Bishop Montforton’s Letter Regarding Fr. Gregory Plow, TOR.” Believer, 11 July 2023. https://jenmorson.substack.com/bishop-montfortons-letter-regarding

[10] Morson, Jenn. “Others Share Their Allegations Against Father Gregory Plow, TOR.” Believer, 30 June 2023. https://jennmorson.substack.com/p/others-share-their-allegations-against-958

[11] The Catholic Project. Crisis: Clergy Abuse in the Catholic Church, Episode 2: “What Caused the Crisis?” 23 Sept 2020. https://catholicproject.catholic.edu/podcast/

[12] Sisters of the Little Way. Descent into Light, Episode 1: “Sacred Trust Shattered.” 01 Oct 2025. https://www.sistersofthelittleway.com/p/i-sacred-trust-shattered

[13] The Catholic Project. Crisis: Clergy Abuse in the Catholic Church, Episode 3; “What Caused the Crisis?” 23 Sept 2020. https://catholicproject.catholic.edu/podcast/

[14] Morson, Jenn. “Alumnae Question Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Commitment to Title IX.” National Catholic Reporter, 16 Apr 2018. https://www.ncronline.org/news/alumnae-question-franciscan-university-steubenvilles-committment-title-ix

[15] Roll Red Roll. Directed by Nancy Schwartzman, Netflix, 2018.

[16] Engel, Beverly, LMFT. “Why Don’t Victims of Sexual Harassment Come Forward Sooner?” Psychology Today, 16 Nov 2017. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-compassion-chronicles/201711/why-dont-victims-of-sexual-harassment-come-forward-sooner?msockid=34ed8433fcff6451043f92e7fdd265f2

[17] Roberts, Kayleigh. “The Psychology of Victim Blaming.” The Atlantic, 5 Oct 2016. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/10/the-psychology-of-victim-blaming/502661/

[18] Sisters of the Little Way. Descent into Light, Episode 5: “The Displaced Weight of Abuse.” 29 Oct 2025, https://www.sistersofthelittleway.com/p/v-the-displaced-weight-of-abuse

[19] Roll Red Roll. Directed by Nancy Schwartzman, Netflix, 2018.

[20] “Doomed from the Start.” Transcript of “Personal Perspectives,” 14 Aug 1991. Uploaded by John Flaherty, 13 Sep 2009, https://www.scribd.com/document/1969528/Doomed-from-the-Start-Tom-Kneier-The-Sword-of-the-Spirit

[21] “Shredding the Sword of the Spirit Covenant.” Uploaded by John Flaherty, 01 Sep 2009, https://www.scribd.com/document/19274926/Ottenweller-Shreds-Sword-of-the-Spirit-Covenant-w-Pict

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{This is Part Two of a series. You can find Part One here.}

When I was baptized at age nineteen, I intellectually understood the grace of baptism; I had been well catechized.[1] A deeper longing—one I vaguely understood at the time—sought an erasure of self. I half-expected that, at baptism, my old self would disappear. A new life equated starting over. But sacraments do not wield magical power. I was, of course, still myself with my memories and experiences intact, but all of it was now exposed in a way, illuminated and liberated. This new self in Christ would take a lifetime to develop and would include all of me. I would learn to allow Christ into every part of me, even the dark corners, but that would be a long time coming.

The day after my reception into the Catholic Church, I had my first panic attack as I realized that very little of my material life had changed. I woke up in the same place and in the same situation as the same person.

I had not forgotten that I was sexually abused as a child, but the memories were like scattered pieces of a torn photograph in my mind. I let them lie there, gathering dust, without realizing that threads connected many moments of my teenage and young adult years to those childhood events. In fact, my self-perception had been highly influenced by that abuse. It sat like a rot in my being as I earned two degrees, married, had children, and homeschooled like a fiend. The longer I left those scattered pieces alone, the harder my life in the present grew. It affected my marriage, how I related to my children, and my perception of the world.

It wasn’t until the birth of my seventh and last child that something within me shifted irrevocably. It had been a difficult pregnancy and birth. My son was born prematurely—beautiful and healthy—and when I began to hemorrhage, I was given medication to stop the bleeding. Unfortunately, it was also diarrhetic. I sat in my own shit and blood, numb and helpless, as a team of nurses worked fastidiously around me. I was exhausted, terrified, and humiliated. I felt that, somehow, I had failed, or that my body had failed me. And the feeling was hauntingly familiar.

This intense shame about my own body would enact a gravitational pull that centralized the scattered bits of abuse in my past. After the traumatic birth, the memories of my early years were with me constantly. The fragments of that photograph were quickly stitching back together as I realized why I had resisted healing for so long. As a mother, I simply did not have the time or emotional resources to face it. I could not do what I needed to do—work, cook, clean, and care—while I was simultaneously haunted by the past.

The haunting reached a breaking point during the celebration of the Mass with the words: This is my Body.

It had grown increasingly uncomfortable, and then painful, to hear these words spoken during the consecration. I became so distracted by memories that I would have to leave the sanctuary. I spent many Sundays crying in our family van, embarrassed, unsure of how to explain what was happening inside of me because I did not understand it. Christ’s invitation to look upon his body ignited a visceral reaction of disgust, memories of coercion, and shame. Christ invited me to look upon his degradation and subsequent glorification while I was stuck in the moment of my own body’s degradation. While Christ willingly exposed himself to nakedness and abuse, I could not choose. I did not choose.

I was angry at God. And I felt guilty about it. Which made me more angry. Rinse, repeat.

A friend told me about a priest in Portland who offered “healing confessions”, which entailed a general confession (traditionally longer and intended to draw out roots of habitual sins) followed by renunciation prayers over habits, sins, events, and relationships. I didn’t know much about it. I did not know about its history in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement. I had not even heard about the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. I only knew that I was desperate.

It was snowing that day; the homeless encampment across the street from the church had been abandoned for warming shelters, but plastic bottles and garbage littered the sidewalk. I followed the priest into a confessional. He was polite, tranquil, and rarely looked at me; in fact, he brought the monstrance into the confessional and had me face Jesus in the Eucharist. I ugly-cried for a solid hour, snot bubbling out of my nose, and he listened. Both separately and together we recited renunciation prayers over whatever hold these events had over my life. He named my abusers and renounced their hold over my life. He suggested I find a good, professional counselor. It seemed like he viewed the confession as tearing off a badly wrapped bandage, and now the rest was up to my cooperation with God, grace, and professional, psychological help (which I sought soon after).

I left drained and exhausted but empowered. For years, shame from the abuse had left me cowering in a corner of my own life, afraid to take risks and build strong relationships. If anything, the renunciation prayers helped me to remember my baptismal vows and the gifts of the Holy Spirit which had already been imparted to me. It reminded me that God had supplied me with the fortitude and courage to face the evil that had been done to me.

A few months later, before we left for Steubenville, Ohio for my husband’s job in the steel industry, I spoke with a friend of mine—a Franciscan University alum—and told him about the powerful confession. He listened, and then very carefully said, “I’m happy for you. But imagine that experience in the hands of the wrong priest.” I was stunned by his reply, but I had to agree: such an intimate and emotive experience could have gone very badly in the hands of a mal-intended priest.

I have thought a lot about his reply since I moved to Steubenville, especially after learning how Fr. David Morrier, TOR, abused a Franciscan University student under the guise of healing and deliverance ministry. In March of 2022, a few months before we arrived in Steubenville, Morrier pled guilty to sexual battery. The victim’s statement read at the sentencing described years of grooming via spiritual direction, deliverance prayer, and exorcisms, which were known and defended by the TORs and the university’s administration. The judge said it was “the most powerful victim statement”[2] he had ever heard.

As I read her testimony, I thought of my own “healing confession” several months earlier. Unlike Morrier, and the other TORs and community members involved in the survivor-victim’s testimony, the priest in Portland never touched me. Even when he prayed over me, he simply extended his hands without making contact. Unlike Morrier, and the other TORs and community members involved in the survivor-victim’s testimony, the priest in Portland never asked for details about abuse or sexual encounters; it was enough for him to hear I was abused and prayed for deliverance from that shame. Unlike Morrier, and the other TORs and community members involved in the survivor-victim’s testimony, the priest in Portland never suggested I was plagued by demons, nor did he ask me to return for more “sessions.”

The survivor-victim of Morrier describes struggling during the sessions and being restrained, and it seems that behavior was interpreted as demonic possession. I cannot imagine having one’s abuse recounted while being restrained, which activates a survivor-victim’s panic response since helplessness and coercion made their original abuse possible. Even being touched—in the “laying on of hands”—could be triggering. It was clear to me that Franciscan University’s handling of this charismatic practice—referred to as deliverance ministry, healing prayers, and theophistic counseling—was abusive in and of itself, apart from the abuse Morrier committed privately.

As I processed this horrific information, I was driving my daughter to Franciscan University a few times a week for her to attend classes. It was deeply unsettling to ascend the hill and enter a separate, manicured world where such atrocities had occurred. I thought I might hear someone discussing it around town. I thought that maybe students would gather for a peaceful protest on campus, or that staff might stage a walk-out. I thought parents of students would be outraged and demand transparency from the university as well as the TORs. It could have been because I was new to the area and outside most social circles, but I heard very little.

Assuming local Catholics simply had not heard (somehow, unfathomably), I posted links to the case on social media. There were a few connected to Franciscan whose social media platforms expressed outrage about Morrier and the university’s attempts to silence his victim. Overall, though, there was an eerie stillness or, like the Steubenville rape case, defense of the perpetrators—which, in this case, was the university and even Morrier.

For the university’s defenders, Morrier was either considered innocent or shrugged off as a bad apple, a disturbed man, a one-off TOR. However, while the allegations involving Morrier were the most heinous that came out of Franciscan, Fr. David Morrier was not the only TOR who had used his position to abuse students.

Fr. Sam Tiesi, TOR, a priest who served alongside Fr. Michael Scanlan, had also been accused. He was quietly disgraced posthumously by the removal of a plaque that had been erected in his honor after accusations were substantiated. Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR, a former president of the university, fiercely defended him, allegedly turning the blame onto Tiesi’s victim. Other friars also insisted Tiesi’s victim must have misinterpreted his behavior, even though he allegedly kissed her and rubbed his erect penis on her.[3]

A pattern was evident: in instances of abuse, Franciscan Third Order Regulars victimized students who had come to school already vulnerable (by past abuse, trauma, grief, or mental illness) by using their positions as revered clergy and by abusing charismatic practices to violate physical and emotional boundaries. The other friars defended their brother friars and went so far as to blame the victims. The school, in turn, dismissed and denied allegations.

This pattern was far from unique within the Catholic Church. In fact, one of the reasons it is a recognizable pattern is because of extensive research commissioned by the United States bishops to analyze abuse allegations that had amassed by the turn of the century and resulted in a flood of lawsuits.

In 2002, the same year that the Boston Globe uncovered the sex abuse scandal in the Boston archdiocese, systemic cover-up of sexual abuse was revealed in my home archdiocese of Portland, Oregon. We had the distinction of being the first archdiocese to claim bankruptcy in the aftermath. This was a year after I joined the Catholic Church. I was comforted and consoled by what the Church did next, though it would prove to be the first step in an ongoing process.

The USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) gathered to assemble the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, more commonly known as the Dallas Charter. It is a comprehensive set of procedures for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy. The Charter also includes guidelines for reconciliation, healing, accountability, and prevention of future acts of abuse, which included safe environment training for all clergy, employees, and volunteers in each diocese. It is not perfect by any stretch, and continues to undergo revisions, but it opened dialogue, spread awareness, and hamstrung potential repeat offenders with a zero-tolerance policy, which meant that any priest or deacon with credible claims against them could not continue to serve in ministry while the case was reviewed.

The accountability of bishops would be called into question when a new wave of scandals broke in 2018, the year the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report[4] concerning child abuse by Catholic clergy was made public. After the floodgates of 2002 broke in Boston and elsewhere, allegations in the Philadelphia archdiocese began pouring in followed by years of investigation into all the diocese within Pennsylvania, which resulted in the release of hundreds of priests’ names implicated in alleged abuse (including some TORs). A sex abuse ring was uncovered, wherein it appeared as though priests were sharing groomed children. Testimonials of adults who had been abused by clergy in their youth were shared publicly.

What was also evident in the grand jury report was the extent to which the abuse had been covered up by Church hierarchy. Though this was now widely known among laypeople after the Boston Globe investigation and others, abusive priests were moved from school to school and parish to parish. The Pennsylvania Grand Jury report, in all its heart-breaking detail, made clear that the Church needed to address the deeply rooted denial and deflection of abuse allegations among the episcopacy.

Again in 2018, another facet of systemic abuse in the Catholic Church came to light with the revelation of chronic abuse by Cardinal McCarrick. What made this case unique to what we had faced thus far as Catholics, was that his victims were adults, mostly seminarians (though he also abused at least one minor, which led to his removal from the College of Cardinals in 2018 and dismissal from the priesthood in 2019).

Not long after, with the advent of the #metoo movement and the discovery that top Hollywood executives, most famously Weinstein, had used their positions of power to coerce and assault adult women, the concept of consent was seen in a new light. Even if an adult in a vulnerable situation—for example, an actress looking for a break or a seminarian expected to respect and obey his superiors—appears to consent, as in does not fight back, is it still abuse?

The answer is, absolutely. When there are power dynamics at play—when one is in a position of authority over the other—consent can be called into question because it requires outside pressure and influence. The revelation of these cases, both in the secular and religious spheres, reframed what had been passed off as bad or odd behavior in a more nefarious light.

In the case of Cardinal McCarrick, he used his respected and authoritative position to control the outcome of priests’ assignments and movement in the Church according to how they responded to his sexual invitations.

And, as in the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report, the Vatican’s McCarrick Report[5] details the institutional cover-up of McCarrick’s offenses, though it was not just a matter of cover-ups. What makes the chronology of events in McCarrick’s case so disturbing is how often Church officials were discussing allegations brought forward by laypeople and clergy yet found reasons to ignore or dismiss them. Between the 1980s and 1990s, when priests came forward with allegations against McCarrick, they were offered therapy and told by their bishops to forgive the cardinal. Some allegations were dismissed as slander; in one case, McCarrick was simply passed off as “different.” When McCarrick was confronted about the allegations, his self-defense was enough to ease the minds of Vatican officials.

Once again, laypeople were left to grapple with the betrayal of church hierarchy, even of such beloved popes as John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who had received and entertained allegations against McCarrick, but dismissed them as unsubstantiated.

The Pennsylvania Grand Jury report and McCarrick Report were devastating. I had been one of the many Catholics defending the Church and her renewed efforts to protect children. I had been one of many Catholics citing abuse statistics in other institutions as proof that abuse exists everywhere. I had been one of the many Catholics who believed that the abusive priests were bad apples, anomalies in a mostly functional institution. However, it became clear in 2018 that abuse was not the only problem, that Church leaders had put the Church’s reputation, as well as their own personal reputation, above the safety of laypeople.

In the wake of these revelations, there were lay and Church efforts to explore, investigate, and discuss systemic abuse. One of these efforts was an investigative podcast called Crisis produced by The Catholic Project, a group of researchers sponsored by Catholic University of America committed to accountability, transparency, evangelization, reform, and renewal.[6]

The episodes were released between August and December of 2020, which correlated with the COVID shutdowns in Oregon. Churches were gradually reopening with distancing protocols. I listened to the podcast in the evenings after my children were in bed and found it comforting to hear the voices of the host, theologians, psychologists, clergy, and survivors. Even though it was heart-breaking material, it also provided a sense of community with fellow Catholics in a time of isolation and outrage in the wake of Pennsylvania and McCarrick. Crisis offered commiseration, but also an in-depth look into the systems and psychology behind what had so badly wounded the Church.

Crisis explains how clericalism played a significant role in abuse cover-up. Dr. Susan Timony, associate professor of pastoral practice at Catholic University, defines clericalism as priests who “separate themselves” as “more privileged than the other people of God,” thereby establishing “their own rules and expectations.” Host Karna Lozoya cites many examples of abusive priests using their trusted position as alter Christus (another Christ) to take advantage of parishioners’ trust. These priests put themselves on a pedestal—and allowed parishioners to keep them there—instead of seeing themselves as servants of the Church. While a familial relationship is natural with a person referred to as “Father,” clericalism occurs when parishioners allow the priest privileges which are not “necessary to his ministry or good for the life of the community as a whole.”[7]

Dr. Paul Scalia, Vicar for Clergy in the diocese of Arlington, VA, states that within the dysfunction of clericalism, there is “a lack of fraternal correction.” When priests, and in turn their bishops, are unwilling to correct or receive correction, “faults, crimes, or misdeeds” are ignored.[8] Both he and Dr. Timony referred to this as an old-boy network, which many institutions suffering from systemic abuse—government, corporations, the entertainment industry—operate under. Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, states that bishops need to trust others to aid in investigations and to seek guidance of experts, instead of keeping it within priestly fraternity.[9]

This line from Crisis especially stuck with me: “When the Church mishandles abuse allegations, it does lasting damage to survivors and their families. It undermines the credibility of the institution and creates an environment of distrust that prevents genuine reform.”[10] The Church’s mishandling of abuse left a gaping wound in the Church body’s side, and from it flowed baptized and catechized members scarred by betrayal and abandonment. The research and analysis conducted within and outside of the Church following the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report and McCarrick scandal proved systemic abuse was not a thing of the Church’s past, but a present and immediate crisis.

While I am not a survivor of clergy abuse, I know what it means to suffer in silence after abuse and assault. I know what it’s like to harbor secrets not only as memory in the mind, but as memory in the body. I know how different it feels to be believed versus being distrusted, and how the latter can cause lasting trauma of another kind. It can lead to self-doubt in addition to the self-disgust brought on by abuse. I knew what abuse had done to me. And now I was looking at the Church body as my own body— manipulated, deceived, abused, and doubted. It was a terrible clarity.

In Steubenville—not among individual parish priests, but within the Franciscan University community—it seemed as though many were unaware of, or assumed immunity from, this wound in the Church body, even though it festered within their city on a hill.

A proverbial naked bike ride continued to parade through Steubenville, startling me into double-takes and reality checks, as more allegations and convictions came to light.

Part Three in this series of essays will focus on Franciscan University’s Historical Review, and how their handling of another round of accusations sheds light on a systemic culture of abuse.

[1] Thank you, Janine Applegate.

[2] Giannamore, Paul. “Former Franciscan friar Morrier sentenced on sex crimes.” WT0V9.com, 11 Mar 2022. https://www.wtov9.com/news/local/former-franciscan-friar-morrier-sentenced-on-sex-crimes

[3] Morson, Jenn. “Plaque’s removal from Franciscan University exposes abuse by former chaplain.” National Catholic Reporter, 31 Oct 2018, https://www.ncronline.org/news/plaques-removal-franciscan-university-abuse-former-chaplain

[4] https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/report

[5] https://www.vatican.va/resources/resources_rapporto-card-mccarrick_20201110_en.pdf

[6] https://catholicproject.catholic.edu/podcast/

[7] The Catholic Project. Crisis: Clergy Abuse in the Catholic Church, Episode 2: “What Caused the Crisis?” 23 Sept 2020. https://catholicproject.catholic.edu/podcast/

[8] The Catholic Project. Crisis: Clergy Abuse in the Catholic Church, Episode 2: “What Caused the Crisis?” 23 Sept 2020. https://catholicproject.catholic.edu/podcast/

[9] The Catholic Project. Crisis: Clergy Abuse in the Catholic Church, Episode 10: “Bishops’ Accountability,” 23 Dec 2020. https://catholicproject.catholic.edu/podcast/

[10] The Catholic Project. Crisis: Clergy Abuse in the Catholic Church, Episode 10: “Bishops’ Accountability,” 23 Dec 2020. https://catholicproject.catholic.edu/podcast/

Having lived most of my life either north or south of Portland, Oregon, nothing that happens there surprises me. Maybe it’s proof of a full-circle indoctrination by the town’s self-proclaimed motto Keep Portland Weird. In the ‘90s, I loved going to Saturday Market on the waterfront and window shopping on NW 23^rd with my friends. The City of Roses changed significantly through the ‘aughts, enchanted with its own reputation, and attracted a lot of newbies who took on a performative weird-Portland vibe. In the comedic sketch series, Portlandia, Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein make good-natured fun of its quirkiness; for each character they created, I could say, I know/knew someone similar.

Portland’s weirdness has made national news for unique forms of peaceful protests, like spontaneous dance parties outside of an ICE facility. It also made the news for the presence of ANTIFA, though its more significant moral stain is the city’s apparent impotence in handling the transient population that has swarmed sidewalks, underpasses, and green spaces, rendering it a more difficult city to navigate. Even so, I will always have a tenderness for Portland as a place of awe in my youth, where I first attended the ballet, first enjoyed live theater, first danced in a Latin club, and where I became Catholic.

When I was nineteen years old, I was baptized, received First Communion and Confirmation at St. Patrick’s, the oldest church in the city nestled beneath an overpass in the Pearl District. In Portland, Catholicism is counter-cultural. Precisely because Catholicism is weirder than Weird there, the Catholic community is vibrant and constantly challenged to face the world with compassion, mercy, and patience.

And sometimes—every now and again—one might walk out of a Saturday vigil Mass to find a parade of nude bicyclists whizzing past the front steps of the church.

I never thought to warn our midwestern friends, who had recently relocated for a job south of Portland, about the naked bike ride. Maybe I should have. As it happened, they were caught completely off guard on the steps of St. Stephen’s, their children in tow. They recounted the story to my husband and I later and, well, I laughed. The whole scenario was too hilarious. But it was not funny to them. They were shocked, understandably. They eventually moved.

We also moved a few years later. The Pacific Northwest is an expensive place to live, for one, and for as lovely as our Catholic community was, it was geographically spread out in ways that made it difficult to connect. When my husband got a new job in the Pittsburgh area, we did a cursory search for towns with vibrant Catholic communities. Pittsburgh itself was a possibility, but Steubenville was cheaper, smaller, and home to a Catholic university that regularly appeared in the Newman Guide, an annual compilation of Catholic colleges and universities recognized for a devout campus culture and their faithful adherence to Catholic teaching.

At the time, we did not know a lot about Franciscan University of Steubenville. My husband had taken youth groups to Steubenville Northwest, an annual revival-like youth conference sponsored by the university, where it was both puzzling and interesting to see Catholic liturgy combine with what we knew to be a high energy Pentecostal worship style. We were also aware that Franciscan University hosted the Hildebrand Project, an annual conference to discuss the works of theologians like Dietrich von Hildebrand and Hans Urs von Balthasar, who had been influential in my own faith-life. I surmised that a school which furthered knowledge of this scholarship—theologians who helped inform Vatican II— had a healthy Catholic culture.

Yet in the back of my mind, I held onto an odd experience I had at a Steubenville youth conference years before. In 2004, right before getting married and just a few years after becoming Catholic, I was on a PR tour for a Catholic film, Therese: Story of A Soul, in which I had portrayed St. Therese. One of my stops was Steubenville South, a youth conference sponsored by Franciscan University. I was under the impression I had been asked by the conference to deliver the testimony of my conversion, which had occurred during my teen years.

I realized soon after I arrived at the venue in Louisiana that the conference organizers had never wanted me there, that nearby Carmelite sisters had made the request. I watched as they discussed amongst themselves what to do with me before finally deciding that I should give my testimony during the introit of the conference.

Then a woman with a walkie-talkie looked me up and down and said, “You’ll have to change.” She then spoke into her walkie-talkie, “Therese is too sexy. She needs to change.”

I was mortified. I had dressed professionally in black slacks and a v-neck sweater top (in Louisiana summer heat). I offered to return to the hotel to redress my underwhelming yet offensive décolletage, but instead they gave me a conference t-shirt to put on over my top. As thousands of teens filed into the stadium, and as Christian music blared from the speakers, they handed me a microphone and gestured for me to get on stage. I shouted over the music into the microphone. And for the rest of the conference, the organizers, including a friar, barely spoke to me. My manager and I could not wait to leave.

I made an excuse for their impersonal behavior: promoting a Catholic film was not the point of their conference. Steubenville youth conferences are revivals, retreats, a chance for Catholic teens to come together and worship, and I could see how a PR opportunity, even for a Catholic film, would be inappropriate, and at the very least, an unwanted distraction. I chalked it up to a miscommunication, even if it could have been quickly remedied.

In their attempt to follow their own (not mine) expectations of modesty, they had treated me like a piece of faceless flesh, ironically the very thing they purported to avoid by having rules for modest dress. They could have pulled me aside and let me in on the rule, but instead they made a public display of my transgression. They did not bother to learn my name and instead kept the whole exchange as impersonal as possible.

However, I knew this one experience years before could not inform my whole opinion of Franciscan University’s culture. Perhaps the puritanical response to my God-given lady parts was unique to Steubenville South and a more conservative southern culture. Perhaps.

As we prepared for our move from Oregon to Ohio, I researched the town of Steubenville, our soon-to-be new home. Besides its ties to the coal industry, the mafia, Franciscan University, and Dean Martin, it had more recently circulated national news when two football players at Steubenville High School were convicted of raping an intoxicated and incapacitated female student in 2012. I watched the documentary Roll Red Roll which investigated the crime and aftermath.

While I was angered, saddened, and disgusted, it did not shock me that high school football players assaulted a girl. What shocked me was the response of the local community. The girl was immediately judged. Many defended the football players. Many defended their town against outside criticism. Many questioned the victim’s flirtation and choice of clothing, implying that her behavior justified the boys’ criminal actions. The incident weighed on my heart as I packed up our home in Oregon; I wrestled with a sliver of doubt concerning our move.

Though, I also know from personal experience that assault can happen anywhere. And a horrific event does not necessarily define a town. As a former public-school teacher, I know that one predatory teacher does not define a school district. As a Catholic, I know that one predatory priest does not define a diocese. And furthermore, trust can begin to rebuild if the affected institution expresses sorrow, regret, and a renewed commitment to protecting potential victims.

We left our Oregon hamlet on a prayer and arrived in Steubenville a week later. Our jaws dropped as we drove through town. Tall brick buildings with broken windows and water damage loomed over Fourth Street as ghostly reminders of what the town had once been. Every third house was in a stage of ruin. The town looked bleak against the gray skies packed with humidity and hills that had long ago been stripped of natural resources.

Yet a part of me felt oddly comfortable. This was working class poverty, something I hadn’t seen since I was a teenager. Outside money had flooded the Portland area starting in the ‘90s. When I returned to teach high school at my alma mater, I barely recognized my hometown in southwest Washington. It was as though the entire town had been shot through with Botox. Everything was new and shiny; previously abandoned storefronts were populated with antiques, boutiques, and specialty restaurants. I felt out of place in my own hometown. There was something familiar and honest about the cracks in Steubenville’s sidewalks. There was something endearing about the peeling plaster inside the old Catholic Church downtown.

As it turned out, there was a story behind the peeling plaster: two years before we arrived, after years of raising money for remodels and programs, it was discovered that the diocese comptroller embezzled funds for years. Families, many of whom struggled at or below the poverty line, watched their tithes skip town. I imagined such an intense betrayal of an entire diocese could potentially wreck a place. But not Steubenville.

Such faith, I thought. I still had in my mind an image of Steubenville as a resilient Catholic community rising from the ashes of the rustbelt. Where did I get that idea? From Franciscan University’s advertisements, for one. I had not only watched Roll Red Roll before moving to Steubenville. I had also watched the “City on A Hill” episode of Real Life Catholic, a show created and hosted by Christ Stefanick, a respected evangelist and Franciscan alum, in which he takes the audience around a town struggling to rebuild itself. I had also listened to the episode about Steubenville from Catholic pundit Matt Fradd on his YouTube show. Both had glowing reviews of the town and community. It seemed from their testimonies that the Franciscan charisms of poverty and humility flowed from their “city on the hill” into the personality of the town.

While Franciscan University was not the reason we moved to Steubenville, one of the programs that made the town attractive was the Commuter Scholarship offered by the university, which incentivizes locals to attend. As my husband and I still felt the strain of our own school loans from decades before, we were anxious to help our children find affordable ways to earn college degrees. A month after we settled into our new home, I visited Franciscan’s campus. I understood immediately why it could be described as a city on a hill, but not in the way that Christ used the simile in the Gospels. It was a place removed, set apart from its environment.

Steubenville is a series of rolling hills, many of them manmade from years of mining. Foundations of most houses are planted on inclines, some more precariously than others. Franciscan University sits on one of the highest hills overlooking the town and Ohio River. After driving through an economically depressed and quiet town, the surroundings improve with altitude. As opposed to town, the buildings on Franciscan University’s hill are maintained and the grounds beautifully manicured. It is peaceful and picturesque; young men and women smile and make eye contact as they pass each other. They are as friendly to strangers as they are to each other. It is as though the entire campus is under the protection of an invisible force field, set apart from the town below as well as the rest of the world.

During that first visit, occasionally on campus I would see a black-robed friar walking around in sandals. I was familiar with various orders within the Catholic Church, but I knew very little of the order living on Franciscan’s campus. Curiosity would lead me to another piece of my Catholic education, twenty years post-baptism: not every Franciscan friar is alike. These friars are not the same as the gray-robed Franciscans I saw chatting with the poor on the streets of New York City. The Third Order Regulars, or TORs, are unique within the family of Franciscan religious.

Traditionally, “third order” refers to the dedication of laypeople to an order’s charisms. For example, Sts. Catherine of Siena, Rose of Lima, and Martin de Porres were Third Order Dominicans. They did not belong to a community of religious but consecrated their lives to God by following the rule of St. Dominic and serving their community. The Third Order of Franciscans was formed by pious people who could not abandon their lives to join a Franciscan monastery yet still wanted to follow in St. Francis’s footsteps of rebuilding the Church through service, chastity, and obedience. These individuals banded together over time, forming communities.

President of Franciscan University, Fr. Dave Pivonka, TOR, explains it like this: “Francis started three orders. I like to joke that it took Francis three times to get it right.”[1] One distinction between the first order of Franciscan brothers and the Third Order is how each views poverty—the former is “without property” and the latter practices “the right use of poverty.” Because the Third Order is involved in healthcare and education, having “stuff” would be essential. Like many orders, it would debate and split over how to live out the vow of poverty.

The Third Order Regulars of St. Francis today is an international community of priests and brothers. The community of TORs who serve Franciscan University of Steubenville (as well as St. Francis University) are centrally located in Loretto, PA, and according to their own website, claim to serve the Catholic Church through “high school and college education, parish ministry, church renewal, social justice, campus ministry, hospital chaplaincies, foreign missions, and other ministries in places where the Church is needed.”[2]

The Third Order Regulars were invited to the United States in 1910 from Ireland to help with education. The university in Steubenville was founded by them in 1946 and just thirty years later, admissions dwindled. Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR, became the president of the university in 1974 and famously turned it around. He had been swept up in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal that began at Duquesne University in 1967, and introduced the movement to his brother-friars. He, in turn, infused the university with charismatic worship and practices. This answered my question as to why the Steubenville youth conferences looked and sounded like a Pentecostal revival with a Catholic interlude.

While as converts we did not understand the desire to tap into a Pentecostal-based worship style that we, even as Protestants, found spiritually manipulative with its carefully orchestrated highs and lows, we assumed that if it was rooted in Eucharistic adoration (as it appeared to be) then we could overcome our discomfort, and trust that, if it was erroneous, the Church would have suppressed it years ago.

My husband and I were still concerned that many charismatic practices broke down personal boundaries under the guise of spiritual care, which potentially created unnecessarily vulnerable situations. We talked to our kids, who were attending the local Catholic high school and planned on attending the Steubenville youth conferences, about potential spiritual and emotional manipulation.

Our perception of Steubenville and Franciscan University was just beginning to take shape when, in October of 2022, just four months after we arrived, an article from The Pillar, a Catholic periodical, entitled, “New allegations charge Franciscan University abuse cover-up,” appeared in my feed. The allegations implicated both the university and TORs as having “mishandled spiritual, psychological, and sexual abuse” reports from a student on campus. My eyes returned again and again like a tripped record to the words “sexual abuse”. The abuse was perpetrated by Fr. David Morrier, a TOR friar who had served as university chaplain, and “who was convicted this year of sexual assault.”[3]

This year. I felt like I had been sucker-punched.

I backtracked through the trail of news coverage to learn that in March of that year, 2022, Fr. David Morrier, TOR, pled guilty to one count of sexual battery.[4]

The sexual assault was enough in and of itself. But what the victim described in her statement[5] at Morrier’s sentencing revealed a spiritually abusive culture at Franciscan University. Morrier used charismatic practices to manipulate and abuse her that, even without sexual battery, would have been cause enough to lock him away. She described how, after divulging details about past abuse in the confidence of spiritual direction, she was then subjected to several “deliverance sessions” in which it was determined she was possessed by thirty-six demons. She was then subjected to exorcisms where she was held down by adult men—local members of the community— and forced to repeat details of past sexual abuse while they doused her with holy water.

For days, I was speechless. I robotically drove my kids to and from school. At Mass, as I sat near strangers who I had been hoping to get to know, I now wondered who knew and who had been involved in the illicit exorcisms, abuse, and cover-up. I was haunted by the idea of a young woman traumatized by past abuse, seeking counsel and healing, then enduring a violation of such magnitude.

I kept thinking of our midwestern friends and their shock at walking out of Mass with their children in Portland to see the nude bicyclists. I kept thinking how I responded with laughter and a blithe comment: “Yeah, that’s Portland”. Keep Portland Weird. In some ways, their reaction made me question why it did not bother me. They had every right to question the cultural milieu wherein a naked bike ride would be acceptable, even celebrated, and at the very least, blasé.

In Steubenville, I felt like I had stepped out of the doors of “weird” Portland and onto the streets of “Catholic” Steubenville to find a proverbial naked bike ride. Passing before me was an endless parade of shocking Catholic behavior that was celebrated. In the year that followed, the parade would thicken with criminal convictions, shocking allegations, victim-blaming, body-shaming, and communal silence—which were all more unsettling than if I had seen painted nudes in tutus.

It did not help that, before our first year would draw to a close in Steubenville, we were at a party when, one of the guests, who was also a popular Catholic pundit posed the question, “What do you think—should women be able to vote?” I could not hide the look of disgust on my face. I turned to my husband on one side of me and my eldest daughter on the other who were also gaping in disbelief as the question was legitimately entertained by the attendees.

And then, as I listened to the brief conversation that ensued, I noticed there was a deacon present who had been involved in illicit exorcisms performed on at least one student at Franciscan University. We left the party not long after, feeling as though we had moved to the Catholic Upside Down.

Within that first year in Steubenville, when people learned we were from the Portland area, we received surprised expressions, laughter, comments like, “Oh, so you escaped?” and, “Ah, the left coast!” All they knew about the incredibly beautiful Pacific Northwest was what they had seen from right-wing news coverage: ANTIFA throwing Molotov cocktails into storefronts and protests with people dressed in inflatable frog suits. By our one-year anniversary of arriving in Steubenville, I wanted to say, “You can laugh, but… what do you have to say for this place?”

Inside, I could feel myself gawking in shock and outrage while the majority seemed nonplused. Nothing to see here. Keep Steubenville Catholic. Or in some cases, Keep Steubenville—well, Steubenville. At the rally on the courthouse steps during the Steubenville rape case, some locals chanted “we are not ashamed” as outsiders challenged their collective response to the rape victim on social media. Members of the Franciscan and larger Catholic community said likewise by ignoring, dismissing, and denying Morrier’s abusive behavior.

The lack of shame about sexual assault in Steubenville was as shocking to me, the outsider, as the naked bike ride was for my Midwestern friends in Portland.

Gobsmacked from exposure to the dark underbelly of Franciscan University’s highly emotive, charismatic spirituality which had nurtured manipulation and abuse, I reexamined my own experience with deliverance prayer. Earlier that year, just weeks before Morrier’s sentencing in Ohio, I was in a confessional in Portland, Oregon in search of healing from past abuse.

Note: This is the first in a series of 7 essays. Continue with Part Two.

[1] “Battling

Wokeism in Higher Education.” Matt Fradd, Ep. 364, 29 Sept 2022. YouTube.

[2] https://franciscanstor.org/our-mission/mission-ministries

[3] “New allegations charge Franciscan University abuse cover-up.” The Pillar, 28 Oct 2022. https://www.pillar.com/p/new-allegations-charge-franciscan-university-abuse-cover-up

[4] “Former Ohio school priest sentenced for sexual battery.” WTRF.com, 14 Mar 2022. https://www.wtrf.com/ohio/former-ohio-school-priest-sentenced-for-sexual-battery/

[5] https://www.bishop-accountability.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/documents-BA-Steubenville-Morrier-Victim-Statement-2022-03-11.pdf

Fences in Farm Country

There were no fences
in that little farm town
except for the one
around their garden
of zucchinis and pumpkin,
tomatoes and peppers,
as though that tiny plot
was more valuable than
the pink bicycles in their garage.

My children were loud,
but her children louder
by laughter and shrieks
as they raced their bikes
past our house and into
our yard with no fence
which is how I met
their mother who smiled
more than she spoke.

She wanted to practice English,
and I wanted to practice Spanish, so
we moved beyond yards with no fences
into homes where we sat to speak.
She brought me zucchinis and pumpkin,
tomatoes and peppers from her garden;
she told me of home, of dancing skirts
that look like flowers spinning in the sun
and cowboy boots with heels of steel,
and how to make real tortillas.

Viruses and politics fenced us in
and we stopped speaking,
stopped visits, only waved
as the girls rode by on bicycles
in a town that was already quiet.
And one day they moved
without saying goodbye
and I worry we both saw fences
though there were none,
not really.

The itching goes deeper than skin: it’s not just the tactile weight of a record balancing between my palms, or the brief buzz of friction when the needle makes contact. This agitation for records travels over muscle and sinew from the recesses of my memory. It is primal.

And I think it has something to do with my sister’s death.

I have struggled to write about her as I process not just her death, but her tumultuous life as well. Part of the problem is my memory. I have only a handful of memories of my sisters from when I was little. Carrie and Spring are my sisters by half; we are connected by my dad. In the divorce settlement from his first marriage, he was permitted to see them every other weekend. A handful of days.

Our very little time together as a family of six stands out in my memory, enshrined and gilded: Saturdays on the water, spontaneous beach drives, sun-bathing in the backyard while Paula Abdul blares from the boombox between my bikini-clad and bronzing sisters. And, on the rare evenings when my dad came home from work before bedtime, we gathered around his record player. We were not allowed to touch it or his vast collection of records. Its verboten nature rendered it almost holy.

Music was my dad’s religion before he found Jesus. His records told the story of his life. Most of the chapters he preferred not to relive, so there were some records that gathered dust in the cabinet. But on these special nights, his burdens seemed lighter, and he would let a record fall from its sleeve into his scarred palm: the Doobie Brothers, or Paul Simon, or Elton John. We would watch the record turn as it released its magic into the beleaguered air of our home. We would smile, laugh, sing and dance. He taught us the Twist, the Mashed Potatoes, the Boogaloo. It was as though the record’s centripetal force pulled us all into a unity we silently craved.

As we grew, we grew apart. Or maybe we just grew older in the same state of half-knowing each other. Carrie and Spring married, had children, and were appropriately engaged in their own busy lives. It wasn’t until I married and started having children that something clicked: there was more material to connect us. But as I stitched my family together, Spring’s life unraveled.

My most recent memories of her are difficult, tainted by tension, resentment and a little bit of guilt. Drug addiction was nothing new to our family, but her descent was so gradual and masked that we did not see the signs. She was adorable, charming, and funny; we believed her stories of how she unjustly lost job after job. And then she lost another job and housing, so moved in with my parents and into my old room.

After growing up around addiction, I had moved away, returned, and saw things I had not seen before. And with this clarity, I noticed Spring’s behavior was abnormal and concerning. I told her so. She was intensely hurt.

Spring and I ran into each other a handful of times over the next decade. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer and endured a double mastectomy, I visited her. She showed me her scars. I told her I loved her. And I left wondering how her latest access to prescription drugs—for legitimate, intense pain—would affect her addiction. Within a few years, she was addicted to meth and living on the streets.

The story of how my dad, after years of searching for her, brought her home for the last few months of her life is a story for another time. (And it’s a good one.) But she died in my parents’ guest bedroom, meth pipe in hand, after just minutes of fatefully ingesting fentanyl.

On the weekend of Spring’s memorial service, as her body lay freezing in a surprisingly long queue for cremation, I sat with my parents and Carrie on her light-strewn patio drinking chardonnay and snacking on roasted sweet potatoes. The Doobie Brothers played from the open kitchen window. Carrie and I both lit up, as though Michael McDonald’s falsetto struck the same memory cord in our brains. We immediately returned to Dad’s record player. While my dad smirked boyishly, we reminisced about the record-playing ritual.

And Carrie confessed. She told us all how one day while Dad was at work, she had placed the Doobie Brothers’ album “Walk This Road” on the record player, intermittently peeking out the window to make sure he wouldn’t catch her. I watched my dad’s face, the child inside me expecting him to explode with fury, but he smirked again and shook his head. He shrugged. We laughed.

As we sat there recalling record albums, I remembered the small stack of records I collected as a teenager during occasional trips to secondhand stores in search of worn-in jeans and vintage t-shirts. Sometimes I found a record worth buying—Janis Joplin, Jackson 5, Rolling Stones. I hid them in my dresser, setting them apart as my dad had done. But they all disappeared while Spring was living in my old room. My records were not the only thing to go missing from the house during that period. I had forgotten about them until that evening on Carrie’s patio while we avoided reminiscing about Spring’s drug-affected behavior and instead focused on the before times.

It’s been almost two years since Spring died. I recently celebrated my 44^th birthday and, for the first time in my life, placed a record onto a record player of my own— a gift from my husband—and felt a current of electric joy travel up my arm as the needle made contact. As I sat back and listened to an entire record, I realized I had forgotten the experience of active listening, of absorbing an album from start to finish, and appreciating the artful arrangement of songs.

But it went deeper than that. When my sister died, I feared what had been irrevocably lost. I had already grieved her, in a way, during her years of transience and absence. But her death ended any possibility of reconciliation and restoration in this life. I think I knew I needed to hold onto something good. I needed a relic of the before times.

On the night of my 44^th birthday, my dad called me from his garage to talk records. I could hear him rifling through the sleeves of his vast, sacred collection. “Do you remember this one?” he would ask. If I didn’t, he would start singing a song and I would join in.

He laughed and I laughed as the records worked their magic, the centripetal force turning us away from what has been and what might be in a dizzying and temporary transcendence.

“They’re yours if you want them,” he said.

I replied enthusiastically. Of course I wanted them.

Then he added, “They’re in great shape.”

I refrained from a cheeky remark.

I was once brought back to life
by food and comida mexicana:
spicy cabbage, chicken soup, casseroles
topped with cheese, and burger bowls,
pollo asado con papas, tamales y taquitos

prepared by citizens and non-citizens
who shared the knowing of childbirth
gone poorly, rivers of blood and stitches,
the state of being scared literally shitless
while cradling a creature even more powerless

(while cradling los anhelos
que tienen para sus hijos).
From their want they gathered yet more,
with others brought sustenance and buen sabor
to fill my broken belly with esperanza y amor.

-LYT

(Thank you to my Spanish-speaking friends who helped with the Spanish. You know who you are. Besos y brazos.)

They smile and lean in, their ears
tuning to the sound of consonants
that stick to the roofs of their mouths,
and trickster vowels that morph
and partner promiscuously—
like read and coin and where
and laugh and boat and nightmare.
They giggle when I would have cried

(and maybe I should have tried
to explain that English is an artifact
of an island invaded and conquered
and reconquered, the words small flints
of stone and rock they later used
to oppress and conquer; words abused
by tongues to cut off ears and hair;
words that could now tether them
to the land concealing the footprints
of their familial sacrifice, in canyons
and riverbeds) but instead I explain

that vowels are not what they seem.

LYT

He began class with an archeological dig
of his name, the syllables stacked
like leather-bound books on a shelf
filled with ancient lettered epics,
an anglicized, half-butchered best effort,
still he made it a game: sounds like
go-eat-your-wheaties (but it did not).
Levity betrayed its conquered etymology
of Bulgarians and Greeks under Turkish rule
lifetimes ago; though I already knew
how to hop-step over its five syllables,
had used it as a pick-up line on his son:
how do you pronounce your name—a question
I would answer for the rest of my life,
and carry in my own intercontinental flesh
the war-torn story of an ocean crossed,
so their children’s letters could be leather-bound,
so their grandchildren could letter epics.

Homilies from Haiti lacked zealous haste,
sailed out on a breeze only to detonate
with lead-bottomed weight. Father Chateau,
softly stepping and meek, ascended the ambo
then struck us with his minute of prose:
a miniature Gospel stripped to its bones
and raw beauty, each syllable enunciated,
every word painstakingly emancipated
like a marble from the back of his throat,
the deliberation of each thought an antidote
to the dizzying, frenetic cyclone of sound
of American life his tranquility drowned.

LYT