Former Conn. Priest Indicted on Meth Charges

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ctpost.com/news/article/Feds-Priest-charged-with-selling-meth-4200164.php

I’m getting so tired of hearing about these stories still…this was not isolated, but it caught me on a day I was tired and I just wanted to yell. Where do these men come from…is seminary just a tool to get a home and food? So many priests, not the majority I realize, seem to not just go against teaching, but not have good intentions. This was a different spin than affairs with men/woman and children. CT had other priests in the news and again, I’m just tired.
I will pray for them later, but this caused a crisis of faith years ago and I had gotten away from waiting for a shoe to fall at my church or a neighboring one…these stories evoke fears again, that something is wrong with formation or testing…or maybe we just can’t know hearts…
I remember looking at bishop-accountability.org type sites and hundreds and hundreds of priests accused, sued, and arrested…still a minority but I pictured them ordained and wondered was it all fake, the harm they do goes beyond the victims and families, it hurts many others in many ways.
 
Yes, the news is distressing and disappointing. It is not the sort of thing which is ever good, but all the more so after the horrific sex abuse scandals of the recent years.

Unfortunately, we know little about what led to Msgr. Wallin’s downfall. The news article mentions that he resigned his position as pastor in July 2011 for health and personal reasons. His public faculties as a priest were suspended in May 2012. And during the final months of 2012 he was involved in drug dealing.

We can only speculate about what circumstances led to him spiraling out of control. There are many possibilities which could cause this to happen, whether a priest or not. Although I wish priests were immune to such things, they are human, like the rest of us and suffer from the same flawed natures.

Please pray for Msgr. Wallin, for any persons he may have endangered, and for the people of the US who will be affected by this story.

Unfortunately, the story went national yesterday, and there will be many persons who are either scandalized, or who are delighted, by the news of Msgr Wallin’s problems. Before these problems happened, he seems to have served the people of Connecticut in very responsible positions.
 
Totally my opinion here, but I strongly believe this is the ongoing fruit of a totally misguided worldview and outlook on faith that dominated catholicism in America and in much of the world since the early 1960’s. Somehow self-idolotry crept in and became entrenched in the bureacracy of the church’s institutions. Here’s the most convincing explanation I’ve ever personally heard for how it came to be from one of the perpetrators: ewtn.com/library/PRIESTS/COULSON.TXT

In summary, a big chunk of people in the church (including an awful lot of senior priests and bishops) somehow managed to forget that we are sinners in need of salvation! When you forget that fact, there’s no limit to what you can rationalize.
 
Just another consequence of the post-modernism age. Some clerics have forgotten fundamental spirituality such as the practice of virtue and the need for self denial. We are now being told by the world and even in some circles of the Church that the “old theology” is not so easy to live with - that it is too hard for man in these current times and that an easier solution to the problems of life can be found. The movement to erode and dismantle the outdated advice of the spiritual masters is gaining ground everywhere and on every level - spiritually and psychologically as man becomes his own master.
 
What a shame. But in the end, priests are still men, human beings who can be tempted and can become ensnared in Satan’s traps. He must have gotten addicted at some point…How? It does make one wonder.

Pray for our holy priests.
 
I can understand addictions and sin but how do you have affairs with men…use drugs…steal money…watch porn etc and then say mass if you believed you were representing Christ? I have done many sins but would I have in their role…I dont know. It makes me feel they dont really believe and that makes me sad.
 
As I understand it, if Wallin hasn’t been laicized – and there is no indication in the article that he has been – then he isn’t a “former Catholic priest”; he’s a Catholic priest whose faculties have been suspended.
 
How does this happen? I’m sure he had to have a spirtual director. What is the 9-5 life of a priest? Is there a weekly list of things he is to accomplish and then report to his superior? This man was a pastor and a monsignor. Where did he find the time to run this operation along with a porn shop?
 
aicirt said:
How does this happen? I’m sure he had to have a spirtual director. What is the 9-5 life of a priest? Is there a weekly list of things he is to accomplish and then report to his superior? This man was a pastor and a monsignor. Where did he find the time to run this operation along with a porn shop?
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It seems he opened his business after his faculties were suspended.
 
po18guy said:
The devil hates all that is good and holy. A point missed by the talking heads.
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What would be the point of referencing a co-conspirator who has, to this point, always been unavailable for comment?
 
po18guy said:
The devil hates all that is good and holy. A point missed by the talking heads.
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I don’t think “The devil made me do it” is an adequate defense when it comes to trafficking in meth. News reports also indicate that when he was released from the diocese, he invested in a porn shop. All of that is a very different matter than falling into sin through weakness.
 
cornbread_r2 said:
It seems he opened his business after his faculties were suspended.
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He went on sabatical in 2011. In May of 2012, he’s no longer a priest. Now he’s in the drug and porn business. He was a monsignor and head of a parish but had no education and no skills and this was the only line of work he could find??? I bet he was involved before he left the priesthood. And if he was, how does this happen?
 
aicirt said:
How does this happen? I’m sure he had to have a spirtual director. What is the 9-5 life of a priest? Is there a weekly list of things he is to accomplish and then report to his superior? This man was a pastor and a monsignor. Where did he find the time to run this operation along with a porn shop?
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I’ll bet that he never noticed the Holy Spirit living within him.
 
Priests in a diocese have a lot of time by themselves, they don’t check-in so to speak to anyone. They make their schedule, masses, etc. Years ago, when there were more priests, they lived together and that might have helped with some things if someone was thinking of doing something illegal or immoral.

In Ct we also had a priest who had a long time boyfriend and used money from his parish.
articles.courant.com/2010-07-06/news/hc-priest-arrest-0707-20100706_1_sacred-heart-church-funds-priest
He had people stick up for him, we had another get in trouble for young boys to my recollection that no one suspected.
I know priests hear things though, it’s like a fraternity, like cops, fireman, etc. What do you do, it must be hard. I know the CT priest with the boyfriend had another priest tattle and he took a lot of flak, I think took a sabbatical. I’m not sure he came back.

It’s sad but more attention has to be given to priests, more support, more eyes. It will hurt the faith to see it was not curtailed.
 
debraran said:
Priests in a diocese have a lot of time by themselves, they don’t check-in so to speak to anyone…
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Being a Catholic priest is notoriously a lonely profession. People want to put priests on a marble pedestal, but they are less willing to relate to them as human beings, e.g. befriend them, invite them to dinner or other outings, etc.

Back when there was an abundance of priests, and multiple priests lived together, it may have been less of a problem. But as the number of priests have fallen, and the more priests live alone, it creates a situation where stress is not relieved. And being a priest is a stressful job.
 
Dale_M said:
Being a Catholic priest is notoriously a lonely profession. People want to put priests on a marble pedestal, but they are less willing to relate to them as human beings, e.g. befriend them, invite them to dinner or other outings, etc.

Back when there was an abundance of priests, and multiple priests lived together, it may have been less of a problem. But as the number of priests have fallen, and the more priests live alone, it creates a situation where stress is not relieved. And being a priest is a stressful job.
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I agree. There is not much you can do for the priests who went into the field with ulterior motives, some never really wanted to be a priest for the right reasons. I feel for the ones that still have the zeal, the need to help others and do God’s work. They have way too many things to do in some areas and not much help. My priest goes to 2 parish’s back and forth on the weekends. In the “olden days”, the same priest usually didn’t do the 8, 10 and 12 and vigil.
They burn out and in the burnout comes dark periods and apathy.

They need prayer but also friends and people that see them as something other than a means to get baptized, married or funeral arrangements. They will call him at all hours, want things all the time but never think as a human being he also needs things. It’s sad.

I know sociopaths can pass lie detectors but I really think priests need more than written tests they can get through. I also know the blind eye exists in part because they have no one to replace them with but that still can’t excuse seeing a priest carrying on in a manner that is wrong and letting it go. The priest who did that 911 call on the Internet (I didn’t listen to it) who tied himself up and gagged himself, had asked for time off beforehand…what went wrong, what didn’t’ come out before, they are missing something somewhere.

Keep praying for good vocations and families that will encourage them but until things change, I can see some young men being scared.
 
Addiction is a disease folks and is not “a sin” i.e. it is not a moral failing-This article is about a person suf:mad:fering from the disease of substance dependence who just happens to be a Priest.
 
cmodrmac said:
Addiction is a disease folks and is not “a sin” i.e. it is not a moral failing-This article is about a person suf:mad:fering from the disease of substance dependence who just happens to be a Priest.
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The article said :

A prominent priest who served as pastor of St. Augustine’s Cathedral parish in Bridgeport and as a close aide to then-Bishop Edward Egan was indicted on charges he was part of a drug ring that conspired to sell methamphetamine

He was selling which is horrible. Using is an addiction but how or why a priest would decide to seek out one of the worst drugs out there and use it would be odd. He was found with packaging materials and was busted in a sting.

The porn shop etc. was also a :"business’ not something he was just doing in his home.

gawker.com/5977011/cross+dressing-connecticut-priest-busted-for-selling-meth-and-laundering-money-through-his-sex-shop

I don’t know how much peace he ever had, so many things in his mind, so many evil things, selling drugs, buying porn, promoting it, it seems like he hated what being a priest was.
I know God knows everything so he understands what happened, his mercy is better than ours, I just worry that people on the fence about coming back will cringe at these stories and not.
 
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