Thursday, June 22, 2006
EMAIL FROM DR. BOND
Dear Friends,
Since I am regularly contacted by Catholic parents who want to know if it is now safe to send their sons to St. Gregory's Academy in Elmhurst, Pennsylvania, I would like to update the warnings to parents that I previously posted about St. Gregory's. The original warnings can be found on our web site at:
http://www.saintjustinmartyr.org/news/SSJ_atStGregory's1.htm
http://www.saintjustinmartyr.org/news/LetterWarningToStGregorysParents.html
Catholic parents who are concerned about the spiritual, moral, and intellectual welfare of their sons should stay as far away from St. Gregory's Academy as possible. Although the priests of the suppressed Society of St. John are no longer living there, nevertheless there has been no essential change in the environment at St. Gregory's Academy, an environment that allowed the sexual perverts of the SSJ to abuse the students there. While Alan Hicks is no longer the headmaster, Hicks' assistant headmaster, Howard Clark, is now the headmaster. I dealt extensively with both Hicks and Clark from the very beginning of the Society of St. John scandal. After an initial period of thinking Hicks and Clark would help expose the SSJ, it soon became apparent that neither of these men were interested in the welfare of the souls of the boys for whom they were responsible. Neither Hicks nor Clark wanted the truth revealed because they knew that it was their negligence which made it possible for the SSJ priests to molest the boys at St. Gregory's Academy. Hence, neither Hicks nor Clark told the truth when they were deposed in the federal lawsuit filed by a former student of St. Gregory's Academy who was homosexually molested by SSJ priests, Carlos Urrutigoity and Eric Ensey. Clark, whose own son shared a bed with Urrutigoity, denied any knowledge of this in his deposition. In sum, Clark supported Hicks in his effort to protect the institution of St. Gregory's Academy at the expense of the boys who had been abused on their watch.
Worse yet, Clark now employs as dorm fathers and teachers many of the devoted cult followers of Carlos Urrutigoity and the SSJ: Brendan Landell, Sean Fitzpatrick, Garret van Beek, and Mark Schwerdt. These young men were intimate acquaintances of Urrutigoity, yet they are now the "adults" responsible for the boys who are currently students at St. Gregory's Academy. Neither Landell, Fitzpatrick, van Beek, nor Schwerdt had the courage to tell the truth about Urrutigoity's habit of giving "spiritual direction" to boys while sharing a bed with them, yet Howard Clark has put these cult followers into positions of authority where they are free to spread the poison of the SSJ into the next generation. Anyone who doubts that there remains a connection between Urrutigoity and the current employees and friends of St. Gregory's Academy need only go to the "Bonny Prince" web site (http://thebonnyprince.blogspot.com/) and read the names of the contributors, as well as some of the posts.
Finally, the Fraternity of St. Peter, which runs St. Gregory's Academy, has shown no desire to clean house. Like Hicks and Clark, both Fr. Arnaud Devillers and Fr. Paul Carr suffered severe memory loss while being deposed in the federal sex abuse lawsuit brought against the Fraternity of St. Peter, the Society of St. John, and the Diocese of Scranton. Yet the leadership of the FSSP was compelled to pay the largest portion of the nearly half-million dollars required to settle this lawsuit, for they knew that a multi-million dollar victory in court--where the full truth would have been revealed for all to see--would have ruined them.
In light of the above, I cannot repeat strongly enough that no parent should have anything to do with St. Gregory's Academy.
Pax vobiscum,
Dr. Jeffrey M. Bond
