Stood On A Ridge

I’m going to start off by apologizing.

I do not usually use this as a vessel for anything serious (but it has been known to happen).

First off yes, I am Catholic. No, I do not go to this church. No, I am not defending this or any other form of abuse that has happened in the Catholic Church over the years. Yes, I am peripherally aware of the people involved in this, but have only actually met (and even that is a vague sort of thing) one of them.

At a party.

Anyway, here is the story from IndyStar.com:

Indianapolis priest charged with kidnapping and battery in dispute with his wife

Holly V. Hays, holly.hays@indystar.com Published 6:41 p.m. ET Feb. 27, 2018 | Updated 6:47 p.m. ET Feb. 28, 2018

An Indianapolis priest is facing multiple charges after authorities say he struck his wife, held her against her will and threatened to choke her at a local church.

The Rev. Luke Reese, who made history as the first married priest in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, faces two counts of criminal confinement and one count each of kidnapping, domestic battery, battery resulting in bodily injury and intimidation following a Sept. 24 altercation with his wife.

Ordained by a division of the Catholic church based in Houston, he was assigned to Indianapolis and served as a parochial vicar at Holy Rosary Church. He was granted a six-month leave of absence after the incident.

The charges stem from events that unfolded after Reese found his wife in a car with another man, according to court documents.

Reese's wife told police she and her husband drove in separate vehicles to a park near 34th Street and Central Avenue where they could talk. When she got into his car, she told police, he locked the doors and began to drive.

As Reese was driving her to Holy Rosary Church, he repeatedly slapped her and demanded the pass code to her cellphone, she told police. Inside the church, he again demanded access to her phone.

When she refused, Reese's wife told police he forced her to kneel at the altar and threatened to choke her. He also slammed her against a wall inside the church, the documents said.

When they returned to the car, she relented, she told police, and gave him the pass code. He read text messages she had exchanged with the other man before slapping her again and causing her head to hit the car's window, the documents said.

Reese's wife told police they then went to her grandmother's home, where he told her she would stay away from the "temptation" of Indianapolis, according to court documents. Reese planned to have his wife tell her family "what she had done by talking to another man," his wife told police.

But when his wife's grandmother asked about the bruising and swelling on her face, Reese began to yell.

"I hit her, that's what's wrong with her," the grandmother remembered him saying, according to court documents.

"A priest and you beat her?" she remembered asking.

"I could have killed her," Reese replied, according to court documents.

Reese's attorney declined to comment about the allegations Tuesday night.

Mary Foley Panszi, who represents Reese's wife, declined to comment specifically about the case but said she wants to caution against casting judgment.

"I'm a strong believer in 'innocent until proven guilty,' but you don't go blaming the victim in anything like that, regardless of what are the surrounding facts," Panszi said. 

A jury trial is scheduled for May, according to online court records. The charges of criminal confinement and kidnapping are Level 5 felonies, each punishable by up to six years.

The charges, filed in October 2017, were first reported Tuesday afternoon by independent reporter Damien Fisher.

Reese, formerly an Anglican priest, was ordained in the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter at Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston in 2016, according to the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. He has since served as an associate pastor in Indianapolis' Holy Rosary Parish.

Because Reese's archbishop is in Houston, Indianapolis Archbishop Charles C. Thompson cannot immediately make any official decisions regarding discipline and Reese's status within the church, according to Greg Otolski, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.

Otolski said he had no knowledge of any of the incidents taking place inside Holy Rosary Church. Placing Reese on leave was a decision mutually made by leadership in both Houston and Indianapolis after the allegations came to light, he said.

In a written statement, the ordinariate said Reese has been barred from performing any public ministry since he was placed on leave. His leave of absence was announced to Holy Rosary parishioners in an Oct. 1 bulletin.

"Bishop Steven J. Lopes of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter has pledged the diocese’s full cooperation with the civil authorities conducting the investigation," the statement reads. "The Ordinariate is committed to collaborating with authorities to ensure justice is provided for all concerned, and affirms the Catholic Church’s clear teaching that domestic violence is never justified."

IndyStar reporter Vic Ryckaert contributed to this story.

Call IndyStar reporter Holly Hays at (317) 444-6156. Follow her on Twitter: @hollyvhays.

Okay. Here we go.

First and foremost I am not defending any of this in any way shape or form.

Not this, nor any of the other scandals the church has found itself embroiled in over the years.

The reason I am even as familiar with the details of this as I am is because my wife’s family goes to this church.  It has hit home for them in a very serious way.  They know all of the people involved in this very well.  They have had all of these people in their home fairly regulary. Sometimes at the same time.

What the writer of the article doesn’t go to mentioning is that there was a whole lot more going on here.  It looks like the head priest at this church was covering for Reese to some degree.

I think for my wife’s family (including her younger sister who considers the head priest a friend), and, probably the majority of the parish is the betrayal of trust issue.  If one priest was, indeed, covering for the other (*allegedly* he was aware of the situation and did not report it), there is a huge problem.

The bigger problem here, for me, is why this is news but how all of the good works the Catholic Church in general does is not.  Had this been another demonation which didn’t have specific rules about priests being married (essentially he slipped in on a technicality), this would have been a blurb in the crime section or a 2-3 paragraph story on page 17 between a bunch of ads.

The media is all about sensationalism more than reporting.  It feels like it always has been. Jon Stewart said it best in America, The Book with regard to “The Spanish-American war from william Randolph Hearst and William Pulitzer. “The papers blamed the Spanish and presto! The resulting war raided circulation for both men, and the pair’s blend of fiction, bigotry and jingoism became known as yellow journalism.

Later, the phrase was shortened to “Journalism.””

But seriously.  Why does it have to be something like an 80/20 mix of nasty/nice.