Who Is John Galt? John Corapi, Of Course!

July 8, 2011 By Max Lindenman 99 Comments

Yesterday, I noted approvingly that Fr. Gerard Sheehan, Fr. John Corapi’s SOLT superior, condemned Corapi in fairly plain English, rather than in the sort of obfuscatory Church-speak that once made John Allen, Jr. liken l’Osservatore Romano to Pravda. It seems to be contagious. Today, Corapi issued his rebuttal. No longer is he talking in terms of cabals against his human rights, or of plans to feed entire worlds. Instead, he sticks to contracts and money.

Regarding my personal financial situation—From the earliest days (more than twenty years ago) the Founder of the Society of Our Lady, Fr. James Flanagan, encouraged me to support myself and the Church as well. He said they could not afford to support my ministry and me personally because of the unique nature of the mission. At every step of the way, through the entire past twenty years, the Society of Our Lady’s leadership knew of my financial independence. As Fr. Flanagan encouraged, I have supported SOLT and myself from ‘day-one.‘ I have never relied on the Society for shelter, clothing, transportation, medical care, or legal counsel and instead, using my history of success in business, set up my mission as any savvy business man would, meanwhile continuing to support the Society and many other Catholic Charities.

Regarding the charge of sexual impropriety—This song of greed has been sung many times before. I have never had any promiscuous or even inappropriate relations with her. Never.
Regarding the investigation—As standard practice, my legal counsel advised me not to cooperate with the investigation until I was able to determine that the Commission’s process was fair and I had adequate rights to defend myself. Questions that certainly qualify the validity of any legal case have never been answered by the so called “fact finding team.” They refuse to reveal, and therefore utilize, any of the so-called evidence perhaps because if ‘the bad guy’ were truly revealed it may be revealed that he is really not that bad. Clearly, as my legal counsel has portrayed, the evidence supplied by the accused (of which my counsel is not permitted access to) must not have any substance.

Regarding ‘hush money’—I never paid anybody off to remain silent. On two occasions there were standard severance agreements executed with former employees and independent contractors. These agreements contained very common non-disclosure provisions. Any attorney who would not include such provisions in such agreements would rightly be guilty of negligent and actionable conduct.

Granted, in the next and final paragraph, Corapi begins to air his inner Gloria Gaynor, as he insists he isn’t extinguished and won’t crawl under any rocks and die. But up till that point, he sounds like any businessman with a vested interest and a legal team to defend it. In that, he brings the whole matter back down to earth, which is where it’s always belonged.

By itself, denial of the sex charges doesn’t tell us anything. He’d deny them if they were false (after the manner of Joseph, son of Jacob), and as well if they were true (in the manner of Bill Clinton, brother of Roger). I see no reason to doubt that the money paid the interested parties came as a formal part of a severance agreement. Corapi strikes me as far too smart a customer to cover his flanks with a roll of small bills and a handshake. (In any case, the words “hush money” don’t appear in Sheehan’s statement.)

Corapi’s claims about SOLT’s investigative process are too vague to admit of easy interpretation. What rights of self-defense did he want but not get? And what can he mean about the “evidence supplied by the accused”? He IS the accused. Either this is a simple oversight or a sign he’s anticipating filing his own civil suit.

But it’s the first paragraph that I find most intriguing. His statement, that he set up his business “like any savvy business man [sic] would” suggests he sees ministry as a form of entrepreneurship. And though I won’t say a business model is necessarily a bad one, I doubt many churchmen would make the equation quite so baldly. Cardinal Mundelein, who always knew the bottom line when he saw it, once joked that, for $10,000, he’d spontaneously teach himself to speak Hebrew. But then, that sum probably wasn’t going to end up in his pocket.

Corapi defines his worth to SOLT by pointing to the ledger: he made his money on his own, kicking some back to SOLT from time to time. Therefore, he’s an asset. To treat him as anything else is a mark of the worst kind of ingratitude. Factually, he’s probably right. Corapi’s nothing if not a self-starter. SOLT’s association with him must have won the society no end of publicity, and probably a few candidates for the priesthood. Corapi doesn’t say what financial support he offered, but whatever it was, it must have been a lot more than nothing, which is what SOLT would have gotten had Corapi decided to transfer his vows to some diocese.

I can’t comment on the canon-legal aspects of the deal Corapi says he made with Fr. Flanagan, the one according to which he got to live outside of SOLT’s rules. To many observers, Corapi’s refusal to live in community despite Sheehan’s direction violates the spirit, if not the letter, of his obligation. Mark Shea admits wishing he’d “man up and humble himself.” The Te Deum blogger lectures Corapi from afar on the virtue of docility. Right or wrong, they’re missing Corapi’s point.

In his own mind, Corapi’s John Galt — the hyper-productive citizen who refuses to support a structure he sees as corrupt, effete, and worst of all, oppressive. He seems to want others to see him this way, too. He might not have cited his earning potential in the beginning, but when SOLT mentioned money and assets, it made up the meat of his retort

Mind, I‘m not suggesting this is a calculated move; Corapi‘s not positioning himself on an issue in order to appeal to a particular portion of the public. No, when he talks about money and independence and praises his own gumption, he sounds perfectly sincere. Nevertheless, this is bound to resonate with someone. As Marvin Olasky points out, a certain segment of the political Right has adopted Ayn Rand as a kind of prophet, though more likely despite her anti-Christian hostility than because of it. As Olasky writes of Representative Paul Ryan and Senator Ron Johnson, both avid Atlas Shrugged readers, “They may just be looking for a novel that shows young readers how capitalism turns individual self-interest into service to others, and in the process helps the poor far more than socialistic schemes do.”

This is the essence of Corapi’s message: not “I’m through doing good,” but “I can do more good serving myself than I ever could by serving those chowderheads in SOLT.” This will fall flat with most Catholics — excepting those who have traced his problems back to Saul Alinsky — but as Corapi’s said himself, he belongs to the world now.

All things considered, it’s tempting to say the world can jolly well have him.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , 99 Comments

Corapi and Fightin’ Words

July 6, 2011 By Max Lindenman 21 Comments

“It’s not a fight, honey. It’s a disagreement.”

Have you ever spoken thus to your kid when she caught you and your spouse circling each other with butcher knives? If so, you should consider drafting official statements for the Church. When it comes to conflict resolution, no one’s jargon is gummier or windier. Pope Benedict didn’t sack Marcial Maciel; he invited him to a life or prayer and penitence. Superiors don’t order their subordinates to shape up or ship out; nor do subordinates tell their superiors to take this job and shove it; instead, both express a wish to engage in dialogue. When the Vatican sends the Bobs to Initech, it announces an Apostolic Visitation.

Euphemistic language serves a practical purpose: it shows everyone in the best possible light. Those above seem benevolent; those below, principled. Rivalries and grudges have no official existence. Nobody acts from spite or pique. As long as everybody plays along, we, the faithful, can convince ourselves that things are basically okay, that we can rely on the Church, if not always to be sensible, then at least to be good. As any commentator who praised the Blessed John Paul II’s personal sanctity while recognizing the hit-or-miss quality of his managerial style will tell you, there is a difference.

Yesterday, Fr. Gerard Sheehan, regional priest-servant for the Society of Our Lady of the Trinity, broke the line ever so slightly. Issuing a statement on his societ’s investigation into the alleged misdeeds of SOLT member Fr. John Corapi, he leaves the reader in no doubt that he rates Corapi somewhere between scurvy and Hepatitis C:

SOLT’s fact-finding team subsequently learned that Fr. Corapi may have negotiated contracts with other key witnesses that precluded them from speaking with SOLT’s fact-finding team. Many of these witnesses likely had key information about the accusations being investigated and declined to answer questions and provide documents.

When the fact-finding team asked Fr. Corapi to dismiss the lawsuit, to forbear from foreclosing his mortgage, and to release her and other individuals from their contractual obligations to remain silent about him, he refused to do so and, through his canonical advocate, stated: “It is not possible for Father Corapi to answer the Commission’s questions at this time.”

SOLT’s fact-finding team has acquired information from Fr. Corapi’s e-mails, various witnesses, and public sources that, together, state that, during his years of public ministry:

He did have sexual relations and years of cohabitation (in California and Montana) with a woman known to him, when the relationship began, as a prostitute; He repeatedly abused alcohol and drugs; He has recently engaged in sexting activity with one or more women in Montana; He holds legal title to over $1 million in real estate, numerous luxury vehicles, motorcycles, an ATV, a boat dock, and several motor boats, which is a serious violation of his promise of poverty as a perpetually professed member of the Society.

SOLT has contemporaneously with the issuance of this press release directed Fr. John Corapi, under obedience, to return home to the Society’s regional office and take up residence there. It has also ordered him, again under obedience, to dismiss the lawsuit he has filed against his accuser.

Note that Sheehan uses only as much jargon as decorum requires. Corapi didn’t abuse substances; he abused drugs and alcohol. He didn’t have inappropriate relations; he had sexual relations. Sheehan didn’t invite him to live in community with other SOLT members; he directed him, under obedience. The effect is no less jarring or damning than it would have been had he called Corapi a cad, a cur or a mountebank. In fact, Sheehan deserves a special edginess award for using the term sexting, which has only been in circulation for a few years. Yes, he surrounds it with scare quotes, but then, he’s writing for some pretty straitlaced readers.

I have to say, I like it — a lot. Sheehan’s statement leaves the imagination only as much as it deserves. There’s still room to wonder which drugs Corapi abused, how much booze he could put away, and in what context these sexual relations took place — were they full-blown love affairs, or simple hookups? Hopefully, Bob Woodward will get on that one of these days. For my part, I know all I need to know, namely, Corapi was a wrong’un, and Sheehan’s not the kind of guy to polish his halo while people trash him in public. Also, given Corapi’s eagerness to sue, Sheehan’s plain talk enhances his credibility. He wouldn’t make these explicit charges unless he was able — and ready — to back them up.

Some people might prefer a little bit of ambiguity. To them, I can only say that the more plainly the truth is stated, the more it looks like truth, and the less it looks like truthiness. A determined lunatic can see a conspiracy anywhere, but even the average person can spot one in a fog.

The same principle applies to the exercise of power. What happens in camera and stays in camera usually smells fishy, even when it shouldn’t. Take Pope Benedict’s recent and abrupt removal of William Morris, Toowoomba, Australia’s bishop. The facts as we know them don’t quite add up. In 2006, Morris issued a pastoral letter vaguely endorsing the ordination of women and married men in order to plug the gaps in the clergy’s ranks; five years later, he was gone.

Morris has claimed to be the target of a “latter-day inquisition.” Okay, that‘s one side of the story. I want to know the rest. Five years offers room for a lot of back-and-forth. If Morris said anything scornful or defiant — if he was guilty of “contempt of cop,” as critics said of Professor Henry Louis Gates — I want to know. Knowing might swing my sympathies toward Rome. This is probably bad ecclesiology, but I wouldn’t take kindly to being told, “Tie this kangaroo down, sport.”

As I understand it, the Vatican is preparing a report on its investigation of Morris. Hopefully, it’ll take on Fr. Sheehan as a ghostwriter.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , 21 Comments

Deacon Checks Corapi’s Math

June 22, 2011 By Max Lindenman 15 Comments

Deacon Greg Kandra does a splendid of of explaining why John Corapi’s attitude toward the priesthood could stand a little fine-tuning. (He quotes Herman Melville, too, which I think is pretty cool):

Of all the bizarre comments contained in John Corapi’s rambling speech on Monday, there was one that struck me as especially strange, and particularly sad.

Near the beginning, when he makes clear that he’s not actually leaving the priesthood, but only suspending his public work as a priest (and dropping the title “Father”), he shrugs off the impact this will have on his life. Nothing much will change, he says, explaining that he really had little to do with the sacraments, anyway—saying mass, hearing confession, anointing the sick.

“I didn’t do very much of that quite honestly in the twenty years that I did minister,” he says, adding, “90 percent of what I did in the past did not require ordination. Speaking through social communication—radio, TV, so forth—that’s not ministry, strictly speaking. My particular mission was speaking, writing, and teaching—not so much in the sacraments, but outside of them, in conjunction with them. So what I’m going to be doing in the future is pretty much the same thing.”

Well. I have to appreciate his candor. But off the top of my head, I can’t think of any priest I know who has so effectively and completely marginalized—even minimized—the most transcendent aspect of his priesthood: celebrating the sacraments. Any one who has been given the great gift of Holy Orders knows that ordination is not strictly about what we do, but about what we are, and what we become. And yet, a priest becomes, by sacred ordination, alter Christus, another Christ. Fundamental to that is grace—the grace to Nwreconcile the penitent, anoint the sick, baptize new Catholics and, most humbling and overwhelming of all, transform bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ in the sacrifice of the mass.

Corapi was far from the only priest who devoted the better part of his career to non-sacramental duties. Benedict was a scholar, Pius XII a diplomat. Even John XXIII, whose most ardent admirers praise his pastoral qualities, got most of his pastoral experience in posts where administrative and diplomatic matters would have preoccupied him. Nevertheless, Corapi’s mathematical separation of the strictly sacramental and non-sacramental aspects of his ministry would seem to require an unusally pragmatic turn of mind.

A couple of years ago, when I caught my own case of collar fever, I made an appointment to see my pastor. His religious order, the Order of Preachers, happened to be the order I imagined myself joining. Knowing of the vocations crisis, I expected the man to slip chloral hydrate into my coffee and spirit me off to the seminary, or at least block the door until I’d signed the enlistment papers. To my surprise, he received the news of my vocation with a bland lack of enthusiasm. After accepting that no congratulations from him would be forthcoming, I got down to business and asked what qualities the province vocations director might be looking for.

“Well,” he answered. “he’ll probably want to know your attitude toward the Mass.”

It was like hearing a joke and not getting the punch line. The Mass? I’d prepared a presentation of what I considered my most sacerdotal qualities: some published writing, some facility with foreign languages, and some overseas teaching experience. What on earth could my attitude toward the Mass have to do with anything? How many attitudes was it possible to take, anyway? He had a bumper sticker on the wall of his office, reading: “WHO WOULD JESUS BOMB?” so I didn’t think he meant for me to froth at the mouth over the Novus Ordo.

My bafflement must have been showing, because the pastor added, “He’ll want to know if you go every day, for example.”

It now occurs to me that he was offering an unrecognizably dumbed-down version of the lesson Deacon Greg teaches: as long as a priest has a proper appreciation for his sacramental role, then there’s a good chance he’ll be able to survive burnout, dead-end assignments, episcopal displeasure, and whatever other occupational hazards his kind faces as a matter of course. If reminding yourself, “Hey, at least I get to say Mass” can turn a bad day bearable, than you might have a calling after all.

Now, I don’t mean to suggest that Corapi’s anywhere near as clueless as I was — and probably remain — on the subject of the Mass and its centrality to a well-balanced priestly life. It seems more likely to me that he’s trying to console himself in the manner of a man who’s just been served with divorce papers: “I only lost 10% of my job”; “That hag only put out 10% of the time.” Like the best bullets, both men would appear to have a hollow point.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , 15 Comments
« Older Posts