By Kent Faulk
Birmingham News
August 22, 2011
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/08/man_fought_with_a_priest_earli.html
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| The Rev. Emmanuel Isi, shown here leading an Ash Wednesday service at the Cathedral of St. Paul in downtown Birmingham on March 9, was injured in an assault on Wednesday. (The Birmingham News/Michelle Campbell) |
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- A man believed to have assaulted a Catholic priest last week was involved in a fight with a priest earlier this year, according to police and court documents. The documents are not clear whether the fights -- both related to the man's wife -- were with the same priest.
As of Sunday, no arrests have been made in the latest incident, Birmingham police have confirmed.
The Rev. Emmanuel Isi, 57, associate pastor of St. Paul's Cathedral in Birmingham, was involved in a car wreck Wednesday in the 5600 block of Avenue H in Belview Heights, a few blocks from St. Mary's Catholic Church in Fairfield. Witnesses told police that after the crash a man dragged Isi from the car and assaulted him. The two men traded blows, according to one witness.
Isi had been listed last week as being in critical condition at UAB Hospital. Efforts to get an update on his condition Sunday were unsuccessful.
Birmingham Catholic Diocese Bishop Robert J. Baker last week confirmed that Isi had been warned to stop an improper relationship with a woman who may have been the wife of his attacker on Wednesday.
According to a Fairfield police report filed about six hours after the incident, a woman said she followed Father Isi to St. Mary's to sign up for a class. She turned into St. Mary's but Father Isi turned another way into Birmingham. She later received a call from her son who told her that her husband had run the priest off the road and beat him to death, according to the police report.
Efforts to reach the husband and wife, who are going through a divorce, and the wife's divorce attorney were unsuccessful Sunday. A lawyer representing the husband, Greg Case, said the public hasn't heard the whole story.
"All I can say is, there are two sides to the story," Case said. "I think when the whole story comes out, it might be viewed a little differently."
The 54-year-old woman also presented Fairfield police with a court order of protection she had against her husband.
According to state court records, the woman and her husband separated in February. On March 6 she filed a report with the Birmingham Police Department for harassing communications against him. She stated in that report that she and her husband are separated and that he keeps calling and stalking her. She also states that her husband "is violent and she fears for her safety."
The Birmingham police report also states that her husband thinks that she is seeing someone else "and has stated that he will kill them."
Jefferson County Circuit Court records show that on March 11, the husband filed for divorce stating that "there is an irretrievable breakdown in this marriage and further attempts at reconciliation are impractical and are not in the best interest of the parties."
In an answer filed March 25 to her husband's divorce petition, the woman agrees that there was a breakdown of their more than 30-year marriage, but also alleged that her husband had committed adultery. She asked that their property be split.
That same day, the woman also asked a court to issue an order of protection against her husband. She stated in the motion that her husband recently injured her and stalks her. It also states that on March 17 while a friend was helping her move furniture that her husband fought the friend while he was in her car.
"The friend is a priest. I fear for my safety and just ask that he (her husband) be ordered to stay away from me," according to her motion for an order of protection.
The motion does not name the priest. There is no record that the husband or the priest were arrested or charged in that fight.
A judge issued an order of protection and restraining order that says the husband and wife have to refrain from harassing, intimidating or committing acts of violence against each other.
Isi, a native of Nigeria, is a member of the Missionary Society of St. Paul, an order of priests founded in 1977 in Africa. Baker, head of the Catholic Diocese of Birmingham, said he was hopeful Isi would recover and be able to describe what happened.
Contact: kfaulk@bhamnews.com
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