MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press
By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 07/20/2013
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.
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