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He's a Priest. He's a Parent. and Nothing's Simple after That.

By Emily Gurnon
Pioneer Press
July 20, 2013

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_23696179/hes-priest-hes-parent-and-nothings-simple-after.html

Members of the Roman Catholic Church of St. Columba in St. Paul suffered a double blow in the summer of 2004: Their school closed and their parish priest abruptly left.

Officials of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis never told parishioners why the Rev. Daniel Conlin was reassigned, church members said. A simple announcement was made. But news soon made its way through the grapevine: Conlin had fathered a child during a consensual relationship with a married woman.

The baby was born after Conlin left St. Columba, according to the child's birth certificate. The baby's mother and her husband separated a short time later; their divorce was final in 2008, court records show.

As recently as mid-June, the 51-year-old priest and canon lawyer sat on the archdiocese's marriage tribunal, which decides annulments -- rulings in the eyes of the church that a marriage never existed. His name and biography were removed from the website after the Pioneer Press alerted the archdiocese that its report on Conlin and the archdiocese was nearing publication.

Conlin celebrates Mass each week as a guest pastor for a Minneapolis church and conducts Mass or confession from time to time for at least three others. In the now-deleted biography, the archdiocese said he leads retreats and serves as chaplain for the St. Paul Fire Department. And he continues to spend time with the woman and the child they conceived.

The Roman Catholic Church has struggled for hundreds of years with the problem of priests who break their vows of celibacy and impregnate women. Such cases have prompted lawsuits, financial payouts, broken families, public apologies and, in many cases, cover-ups.

Some St. Columba members, including those who say they left the parish because of the incident, said they were angered by Conlin's behavior and the way they say the archdiocese has tried to keep it under wraps. Several wondered aloud about whether the dollars they put in the collection plate at Mass go toward paying child support.

The archdiocese should have handled the situation "just like they tell everybody in all situations: Be open and upfront," said former St. Columba member Tom Thomas, who knew of Conlin's child shortly after the birth. "Honesty is always the best policy."

Thomas said he liked Conlin but was disturbed by the incident and the secrecy around it.

The Pioneer Press contacted more than 30 current and former members of St. Columba. Of those, 20 said they knew of the affair. Some declined to comment to the Pioneer Press. More than a dozen of those willing to talk said they don't understand why Conlin is still a priest. Several questioned why he was serving as a judge on the marriage tribunal.

To protect the child from public scrutiny, the Pioneer Press is not disclosing the names of the child or the child's family members.

Contacted in person at his residence at the Cathedral Rectory on Selby Avenue in St. Paul, Conlin told a reporter late last year, "We'll talk, I promise we'll talk" about the matter after he spoke with his superiors.

"I'm not even sure there is a story that needs to be a public one," he said. "I can say that I've done nothing criminal. So I think that's a huge distinction."

He asked a reporter for understanding and sensitivity. "There are a lot of innocent people involved, as you can imagine," Conlin said.

In a later telephone call, he said he would not comment further, calling the subject "personal and private."

The mother of the child also declined comment.

Officials of the archdiocese have not denied that Conlin fathered a child.

A reporter who asked for an interview with Archbishop John Nienstedt was told that the request would be considered only after written questions were submitted. After receiving the questions, archdiocese spokesman Jim Accurso responded via email with a statement. It read:

"This is both a personnel issue and a personal matter regarding something that occurred nearly a decade ago. Like every organization, we do not address personnel matters publicly. Further, this is a private family matter and we need to respect the privacy rights of all involved, most especially the child, who will no doubt be harmed by unmerited public disclosure."

AN OPEN WOUND

In the St. Columba community, Conlin's actions and the ongoing secrecy from church leaders have caused harm.

"A number of people left the parish over the scandal," said church member and current trustee Bernie Hesse.

"There was never an official statement saying what happened." Priests are only human, he said. "But people were hurt, and there was no accountability."

The same week that the parish learned Conlin was leaving, they were told their school would be closed. The combination was a "tsunami" for the parish, Hesse said.

An archdiocese spokesman said at the time that Conlin's move was unrelated to the closing of St. Columba School, which had an enrollment of about 140 students. The school was nearly $1 million in debt, an amount that was growing each year.

Phyllis Trisko and her husband were members of the church, at 1327 W. Lafond Ave. in St. Paul, for more than 40 years. It was a community they cherished, she said.

The couple no longer attend services there. Conlin's affair with the married woman "was the last straw," Trisko said.

"I understand it takes two to tango, but with all of his training as a canon lawyer and a priest, he should know better," she said.

A WARM, THOUGHTFUL MAN

Daniel Christopher Conlin grew up in St. Paul. His father, Robert Conlin, was a devoted Catholic who taught sociology at the University of St. Thomas and served as a deacon before his death in 2001. His mother, Marie, is still living.

Conlin was ordained for the archdiocese in 1990. After working as a priest at Guardian Angels in Oakdale and at the Cathedral of St. Paul, he went to Rome, earning a doctorate in canon law there in 2000.

Canon lawyers interpret and apply the law of the Roman Catholic Church. One of Conlin's duties has been to serve as a judge on clerical penal trials, according to his now-deleted biography on the archdiocese website, determining church discipline for priests accused of wrongdoing. He also has taught at the university level and leads retreats nationally and internationally, the biography said.

Conlin visits other parishes in the Twin Cities and elsewhere to celebrate Mass, conducting weekly services at St. Olaf in Minneapolis, and occasional fill-in duty at St. Cecilia's and Blessed Sacrament in St. Paul, the Church of St. Canice in Le Sueur County and other locations, according to church staff and documents from recent weeks. Since 2000, he has been chaplain of the fire department. He has served since 1993 as chaplain of the Minnesota Emerald Society, an Irish-American law enforcement group, the archdiocese biography said.

The marriage tribunal "assists divorced people who petition for an investigation of their prior marriage(s)," the archdiocese website says.

"After gathering as much information as possible, the tribunal makes a human decision under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and for the benefit of the Church community regarding the status of the marriage bond. Either the marriage will be upheld as valid and binding, or it will be determined that no sacramental marriage bond existed due to certain conditions which render the marriage null," the website says.

Whatever the outcome, "the tribunal investigation process is an opportunity for participants to experience healing and reconciliation with God and the faith community," the website says.

Over the years, Conlin has been seen by many as an intelligent, warm and thoughtful priest.

"Most of the (St. Columba) kids were close to him. Every recess, he came to play basketball with us," said Steve Zilberg, a former St. Columba student who was in his early teens when Conlin left the parish. "He cared about kids a lot."

St. Paul Fire Chief Tim Butler mentioned Conlin in his blog in January 2010. Conlin had paid a visit to a group of firefighters that morning in his capacity as department chaplain (radio call sign "Angel One").

"He is a wonderful humanitarian and a quiet, friendly man," Butler wrote. He said he was impressed that Conlin frequently monitored the fire radio system "and often joins the fire crews in the stations for a meal and quiet discussions."

A fellow priest who invited Conlin to lead a 2008 church retreat in Birmingham, Ala., described him in a church newsletter as "a wonderful priest" who would preach at weekend Mass and be available for counseling and confession during the week.

Contacted for this story, the Birmingham priest, Michael Deering, said he had met Conlin at a retreat Conlin gave for seminarians at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. Deering was impressed.

He had no idea at the time of the Birmingham retreat of Conlin's history. He said it would preclude further involvement by Conlin with the parish. "I will pray for Father, but we could never invite him back," Deering said.

A MARRIAGE ENDS

The ex-husband of the woman Conlin impregnated, who will be referred to as "Bill" for this report, said he knew for months that the affair was going on. When his wife became pregnant, she confirmed to Bill that the baby was Conlin's, Bill said. On the child's birth certificate, the space for the father's name was left blank, public records show.

Bill's and his ex-wife's divorce agreement notes that Bill was found by the court not to be the father, and Bill does not pay child support for that child.

The marital termination agreement notes that "the father of (child)" has signed a Recognition of Parentage form and is paying $750 a month in child support to the mother.

Bill now struggles with what he calls Conlin's "double life." He said he met with then-Archbishop Harry Flynn at the time of the events, but Archbishop John Nienstedt has declined repeated requests to meet with him.

For years, Conlin was considered a trusted friend of Bill and his family, including his parents and children. Bill's father said Conlin used to visit frequently at his house and at Bill's house. The priest would gather with them to celebrate birthdays and other events.

But since the birth of the child, Conlin has made neither apologies nor amends to the family, Bill's father said. Meanwhile, Conlin spends time at Bill's former home with Bill's ex-wife and the children, Bill's father said.

"Father Conlin is still in the lives of our grandchildren, and that hasn't changed," Bill's father said. "It wasn't just an event that happened. There's so much residual effect. When we see that he continues to minister to parishes -- where were the pastors of (those churches)?"

He believes the archdiocese handled matters "poorly" when it put Conlin back on the tribunal.

"The marriage tribunal -- a priest (who was) in a position to pass judgment on marriages is the same guy who destroyed a family and a marriage itself? I'm at a loss," Bill's father said.

"We've been silent (because) we haven't wanted to hurt the church," he said. But he agreed to a reporter's request for an interview because he now believes openness is the only avenue to healing.

"When all is said and done, my main concern is the (child and the child's siblings). ... And I just don't know what they're supposed to understand."

PRIESTLY ADULTERY AND CANON LAW

Canon law, the written rules governing the faith and practice of the Roman Catholic Church, calls for penalties for a priest who commits adultery.

The Rev. Thomas Doyle is a canon lawyer in Vienna, Va., with more than 30 years of experience. In the early part of his career, he was assigned to the Vatican embassy in Washington, D.C., and to the task of handling some of the first priest sex abuse issues. Though no longer actively involved with the institutional church, he has continued to study and write about priests' sexual activities and the church, as well as work with abuse victims.

As one trained in canon law, Doyle said the law that most specifically applies to Conlin is Canon 1395. It calls for suspension for a priest who commits adultery. In addition, "If he persists in the delict (offense) after a warning, other penalties can gradually be added, including dismissal from the clerical state."

Doyle said the onus is on the archbishop to investigate the current status of the situation and Conlin's relationship with the woman.

"(Nienstedt) is the one that's responsible for monitoring this priest's behavior," Doyle continued. "And he's the one that's responsible to provide the proper kind of pastoral care or justice for the ex-husband," as well as avoiding "serious scandal and destruction to the children, if it's not already happened."

Nienstedt told Bill in an email last year that he did not believe a meeting with Bill "would be helpful."

He wrote, "I do understand the frustration and disappointment that you have expressed with regard to Father Conlin. As you know, he was permitted to maintain his status as a priest and employee of the Archdiocese by my predecessor, Archbishop Harry Flynn. Because of that fact, any new action on my part requires additional procedural steps under universal church law.

"I have taken some steps already in dealing with Father Conlin but naturally those discussions are confidential," Nienstedt continued in his letter. "Please know that I am working to resolve the matter."

Archdiocese records show Conlin serving as the chief judge on the marriage tribunal, now known as the Metropolitan Tribunal, in 2003. He succeeded the Rev. Joseph Wajda, who was sued in 1989 by two boys for alleged sexual abuse in Crystal. Wajda settled the case out of court while denying the allegations.

After church officials removed Conlin from St. Columba, they sent him to a Menlo Park, Calif., seminary for a sabbatical in 2005, according to interviews with acquaintances of Conlin. By 2011, he was back on the marriage tribunal in St. Paul, the official Minnesota Catholic Directory said.

Other than those decisions, it is unclear what other actions the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has taken involving Conlin.

Former Archbishop Flynn did not respond to email and telephone requests for comment.

Bill said he felt sad for all the priests who do good work. He believes they make up the vast majority of clerics and shouldn't be tarnished by association.

But he wants Conlin to make a choice. "Either be a priest," he said, "or be a dad."

Before he became Pope Francis, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio said a priest who fathers a child "must leave his ministry and take care of his child, even though he might decide not to marry the woman."

In his 2010 book, "On Heaven and Earth," published in English in April, he wrote, "Because just as the child has a right to have a mother, the child also has the right to the face of a father. I commit myself to do all the paperwork in Rome, but he must leave everything. ... The double life does not do us any good, I do not like it; it means sustaining deceit."

NOT AN ISOLATED PROBLEM

Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine monk and Catholic priest, conducted a 25-year study of the sexual behavior of Roman Catholic priests. The landmark study was published in 1990 in a book, "A Secret World: Sexuality and the Search for Celibacy." He continues his scholarship on the matter.

Sipe said the issue of priests fathering children is nothing new.

"This is a problem that has broad and extensive implications because it happens frequently," he said. "We've got file cases full of this stuff."

Priests who have engaged in such behavior are often appointed to the Cathedral rectory of the diocese, Sipe said. St. Columba parishioners were told when Conlin left that he was being reassigned there.

"The thinking oftentimes has been, 'We will keep them close to the officials of the church,' " Sipe said. "The important thing is that they don't leave the priesthood."

In another case, a Missouri man sued a priest who had an affair with his wife and fathered a child. The husband believed for years that the child was his own.

The case against the Rev. Joseph H. Matt and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph is pending in Missouri courts.

As with Conlin, Matt has served on the marriage tribunal in his diocese, along with being a parish priest at St. Joseph the Worker Parish in Independence, Mo. He remains a part-time judge on the tribunal, a diocese spokesman said.

The husband went to the diocese in September 2010 to tell church officials of the affair between his wife and Matt, according to a diocese statement. The family belonged to a suburban Kansas City parish where Matt had been serving.

The following month, Bishop Robert Finn suspended Matt and removed him from St. Joseph the Worker. Finn also made a public statement to the parish community, acknowledging that the suspension was a consequence of the affair.

"In recognition of the hurt, the potential for scandal, and my concern for all of the parties involved, I have relieved Fr. Matt from his duties as pastor until the matter can be further examined," the bishop wrote to the parish. He also provided the statement to the media.

The diocese did not dispute Matt's paternity. He was allowed to return to St. Joseph the Worker in February 2011.

The man's lawsuit, filed Sept. 26, 2011, claims fraudulent concealment, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent supervision, among other things.

Jack Smith, a spokesman for the diocese, said he could not comment on the suit, as it is ongoing.

Other examples of priests who fathered children -- and how their superiors dealt with them -- include:

-- The Rev. Casmir Mung'aho fathered a child in his first year at St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y. The New York Archdiocese removed him from the Warwick, N.Y., parish that he had been serving for less than a year. Bishop Dominick Lagonegro disclosed the news to the parish at Mass and through a parish blog in January 2012, saying, "While we regret having to bring such sensitive matters to your attention, (we) believe that it is better to be forthright with you ... our faithful people should hear it first from their pastors rather than from someone else." An archdiocese spokesman said Mung'aho remains a priest and is on leave.

-- The Rev. Gabino Zavala, auxiliary bishop of the San Gabriel Pastoral Region, resigned in January 2012 after he told the archbishop of Los Angeles that he was the father of two teenage children. Archbishop Jose H. Gomez told parishioners the news in a written statement and added that the archdiocese had "reached out to the mother and children to provide spiritual care as well as funding to assist the children with college costs."

-- The Rev. Henry Willenborg was removed from his post at Our Lady of the Lake church in Ashland, Wis., after the New York Times reported in October 2009 that he had fathered a child with a woman while serving in Missouri. The Franciscan Order of which he was a member had come to an agreement years earlier with the woman to provide child support and tuition assistance. In exchange, she was to remain mute. The woman later broke the confidentiality agreement, according to press reports, as she sought help from the Franciscans to pay for cancer treatments for her son. The boy died at age 22 in November 2009.

-- The Rev. James Foley of Boston had a long-term sexual relationship with a Needham, Mass., woman in the 1960s and 1970s. It came to light when church files, made public in 2003 during the broader sex abuse scandal in Boston, showed that Foley had disclosed it to his superiors, according to press accounts. The two children he fathered with Rita Perry lodged a paternity suit. They also sued for wrongful death; Foley was with Perry and fled her apartment as she lay dying of a drug overdose in 1973, according to church files obtained by the Boston Globe.

The children settled with the Archdiocese of Boston. It issued a statement in 2004 which read, in part, "This tragic situation illustrates the inherently exploitive and harmful nature of sexual relationships between priests and parishioners ... (they) are a violation of the trust which parishioners place in their priests." Foley was removed from ministry.

-- The late Rev. Francis E. Ryan fathered two children with the organist at his Montgomery, Ala., church, the children alleged in a lawsuit. Carla Latty of Morris Township, N.J., and her brother, Adrian Senna of Burnaby, British Columbia, sued the St. Joseph's Society of the Sacred Heart and others in 2009. They alleged that the society had a legal duty to disclose Ryan's identity and that it should be held liable for failing to end the affair. An appeals court threw out the case in 2011, determining that the society had no legal obligation to Latty and Senna.

A DIFFICULT DECISION

John Estrem, a now-inactive priest who directs a Wayzata nonprofit for the disabled, worked with Conlin when they were both assigned to the Cathedral in the 1990s. It was two years into Conlin's career as a priest.

Estrem said that while they were not close, they respected each other. He has not talked with Conlin about his child.

If the situation were one involving child sexual abuse, Estrem said, he "wouldn't lose 10 seconds of sleep" over how to handle it.

But in the case of a priest who has a child, it's more complicated, he said.

"I've said for a long time that these are the kinds of decisions that are hardest for people in leadership, because there isn't a clear answer, in my opinion," Estrem said.

The archdiocese has to think about the woman, the child, the ex-husband and the priest himself, he said.

Estrem added that the archdiocese has more than just a simple employer-employee relationship with its priests. It is responsible for the men's basic needs, including room, board and health care. In exchange, a priest commits his life to the church and doesn't make much money.

"There's a trade-off in there," Estrem said. "You belong to the community. (The archdiocese) can't very easily say: 'You're on your own. You've got to go build your life.' "

St. Columba member Dave Dahl, who is still active in the church, said that on the one hand, it seems "hypocritical" for Conlin to remain a priest and serve on the marriage tribunal.

"On the other hand, one of the beliefs of the Catholic Church is you confess your sins and you're forgiven," Dahl said. "I really feel for that little (child), though."

GOING FORWARD

Patrick Wall, a former priest who served in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis between 1993 and 1997, including time on the archdiocesan finance council, now works in southern California as a child-protection advocate, author and consultant on clerical sex abuse, assisting prosecutors and private attorneys.

In his experience both inside and outside the church, Wall has seen what happens when priests fail to live up to the church's sexual standards for them.

"It leads to all kinds of compromised lifestyles by the priest," filled with lies and secrets, Wall said. Children and families get hurt, he said.

When church leaders take part in the public silence, Wall said, they put the image of the church and its priests above the well-being of the child.

As for Conlin, his role now is to be a parent, Wall said.

"That child's soul is more important than any work that Father Conlin could do as a priest," he said. "(The child) has a right to have a full-time mom and dad."

Meanwhile, Bill has tried to move on with his life.

After Conlin's child was born, the archdiocese paid for Bill and his ex-wife to attend mediation, he said. Their aim: to come up with an amount of money that would help with support for both of them.

It is not clear whether his ex-wife accepted payment or receives further help for the child.

Without advice of an attorney, Bill settled for $25,000 in exchange for agreeing not to sue the archdiocese or Conlin, who is named in the legal settlement document.

Bill "contemplated certain actions against the (archdiocese) including claims for damages for matters regarding a certain Roman Catholic priest hereinafter named ... " the document said.

Later in the settlement, Conlin is listed among those included in the "released party," the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

 

 

 

 

 




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