UNITED STATES
The American Conservative
By ROD DREHER • June 19, 2014
The other day, I blogged about the conviction of Fr. Isidore (Stanley) Brittain on child pornography charges. The Orthodox priest was an unpaid staffer at his local Orthodox parish, and, according to police, was “loosely affiliated” with the parish at the time of his arrest. Last week, I wrote about how the OCA’s 2011 Sexual Misconduct committee (SMPAC) report strongly faulted Met. Jonah for letting Fr. Isidore serve in that Corvallis parish, given his past record of alcoholism, sexual harassment, and seeking out gay sex. I said then that the committee was absolutely right to fault Jonah, but the report (which was a heavily politicized document) failed to fault Bishop Benjamin as well.
I’ve just located in my files Met. Jonah’s response at the time to the SMPAC report, in which he strongly disputes its reporting and conclusions. Here is a relevant part to the Brittain case:
Fr Isidore was released (as suspended) to the Diocese of the West at the request of Bishop Benjamin, to be under the close supervision of his psychologist and his spiritual father, Fr Stephen Soot. I spoke personally with the psychologist, as well as Fr Stephen and Mat. Mona Soot.
After a period of time, Bp Benjamin asked that the suspension be modified, at the express recommendation of Fr. Isidore’s psychologist, to assist at the Liturgy for the sake of his healing and recovery, to which I agreed. I had been invited to Fr. Soot’s parish in Corvallis, OR, by Bp Benjamin, who specifically asked me to permit Isidore to serve with us, as a sign of hope for his full recovery, and at the recommendation of his psychologist.
Not only does the memorandum confuse the timeline of events, and have a number of key facts simply wrong, its assertion that Fr. Isidore was not closely supervised in his recovery efforts [sic]. I doubt he could have been more closely supervised. In fact, both Bp Benjamin and I have exercised extreme care in this, and his process carefully monitored by a psychological professional together with a priest. Absent significant financial resources to pay for inpatient treatment or to pay for his room and board at a monastery, how could we have done anything better?
Boy, this chaps my hide. Here’s what could have been done better: Brittain ought to have been defrocked, and allowed to participate in the parish as a layman. If Jonah’s account is accurate, it is appalling to consider that these clerics — Met. Jonah, Bp. Benjamin, and Fr. Soot — believed that a sexually troubled priest (in this case, an alcoholic homosexual) ought to be able to use ministerial service in a parish as an aid to rehabilitation. And that they took the advice of a psychologist over common sense. In one sense, this is understandable; the Catholic bishops routinely did this in years past. But these decisions were made in 2009 or later, long after everybody knew, or ought to have known, how foolish and risky these decisions were.
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