Our Founding Document

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In the Archdiocese of St Paul-Minneapolis, we bear a particular responsibility to Dan O’Connell, James Ellison, and their families. Ryan Erickson was easily assimilated by our diocese’s dysfunctional clerical culture, a culture for three decades corrupted by the open secret of the lavender pretenders. It was a culture built on a shared secret of clergymen who knew an ugly inside story and a laity that painfully started discovering one incredible tale after another. After living with and evaluating Ryan Erickson for four years, the St. Paul Seminary pronounced him fit for the priesthood. That staff has had no retreat, no internal interrogation, no letter of sorrow and no apology to the children of Dan O’Connell. We see instead the glazed eyes of men so accommodated to perversion that they could live with a predator murderer for four years and graduate him as “Father”.

The seminary knew Erickson had an allegation of homosexual abuse and a "compromising" incident at Winona Seminary. That wasn't enough to keep out the predator. The SPS faculty could no longer judge fitness for fatherhood, for they had repudiated fatherhood and heterosexual masculinity both theologically and psychologically many years before. Another wounded healer was sent to the laity. The cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis have annual pride celebrations of sexual perversion. Our church officials have not had the intellectual rigor or moral strength to resist this powerful secular cult. Some of our parishes and religious orders have publicly joined the fun.

Because the Twin Cities are such notorious centers for the celebration of homosexuality, neither the media, nor the mental health professions, nor the law enforcement institutions have been inclined to vigorously pursue the corruption that is in our Church. This confluence of immoral guardians has corrupted the church and civic culture in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and New York for decades. It is the same culture that allowed a known pedophile to direct the Minneapolis Children’s Theater for many years. Our bishop does not know the extent of deceit and corruption that has filled the St. Paul Seminary, diocesan priesthood, and urban parishes of the last forty years. He inherited his Vicar General and most of the employees of the archdiocesan office from the previous bishop. Like Pope John Paul II, Archbishop Flynn is a holy man. Like most Catholics, he finds it difficult to believe that the priests he has befriended could be so deeply implicated in a web of evil and deceit. Like most Catholics in our archdiocese, the Bishop will not know the extent of the evil unless those responsible confess, repent, and resign. We are not a protest movement or a pressure group against the bishop. We are asking that the guilty parties repent, admit their wrongdoing, and resign. For a true reform after the death of Dan O’Connell, we ask all Catholic laymen and priests to urge in every way possible the repentance and resignation of the following three priests:

We ask this priest, in reparation for what he has done and what he has failed to do, for the devious culture he has secretly allowed and hidden from faithful Catholics and from the Bishop, relinquish his diocesan authority:

Kevin McDonough
 Rector St John Vianney Seminary (1987-90)
Chancellor (1988-1991)
Vicar General (1992-present)

“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are filled with dead man’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to men but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”
Matthew 23:27-28

We ask the two following priests to immediately stop functioning as priests and vacate any church or orphanage property in which they currently reside.

Jerome Boxleitner
 Catholic Charities and St Joseph Orphanage (retired)

Dale Korogi
 Rector of St John Vianney Seminary (1990-1992)
Pastor of Christ the King parish (Oct 2003-present)

“Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish will give him a serpent?”
Matthew 6:9-10

Inspired by the example of Dan O’Connell, one of us confronted Msgr. Jerome Boxleitner about his sexual abuse of male teens and seminarians. We asked him to resign and leave the Catholic orphanage where he lives. There also was a meeting with Vicar General McDonough, who admitted knowledge of two Msgr. Boxleitner abuse cases. Fr. Korogi refused to meet with us. Letters requesting the resignation of Fr. Kevin McDonough, Msgr. Jerome Boxleitner and Fr. Dale Korogi have been sent. In February 2006, 27 priests of the diocese sent a letter to the bishop saying his support of the marriage amendment was a scandal and act of discrimination. A week later, over 130 staff and faculty at University of St Thomas protested against the administration with a letter stating “the love, commitment and monogamy” of a lesbian couple as “no less real because they are not married.” The diocesan priesthood is in crisis. It is a crisis about the meaning of love. It is a crisis in our diocesan offices of justice. It is a loss of coherence in our teaching and common life. From 1998-2002 our Justice Tribunal was headed by a homosexual predator already guilty of court documented abuse of young males. From 1991-1997 seminarians were being taught their course in sexual morality by Fr Bill McDonough, gay apologist and brother of the Vicar General. The resignation of the Vicar General would allow a reevaluation of the chancery staff and ideology by Archbishops Flynn’s new appointment. A dynamic evangelical masculinity and loving Marian femininity would bring life to what is now a sexually confused, doctrinally divided, and morally weary bureaucracy. Elijah proclaimed to Israel that it could no longer “limp along with two opinions.” Dan O’Connell is silent in his grave. On Ash Wednesday, 2006, a St. Paul priest who objected to the sexualization of children in the diocesan touching program was silenced by what the “tough” nun in charge promised would be a “two by four” from Fr McDonough. These silenced fathers thunder with Elijah against Baal and his pretend priests. In our Lenten meeting, docsociety will introduce the first draft of a white paper on the history of our polluted diocesan priesthood. The local Catholic Church is not a federation of parishes or a collection of individuals. It is a communion united by the Eucharist, our creed, and the integrity of our sacramental life. The purity codes that define the brotherly love of the celibate priesthood and the heterosexual sacrament of marriage are under attack. The attack is not from the outside but from our own poorly formed priests and church employees. We “limp along with two opinions.” The brotherly love of philia is polluted by eros and purified by agape. If our priests wash out the pollution, our local church will deepen the Eucharistic communion that animates our Catholic life. This is all we seek.


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