Any update?
Well I still tried to wait for a response, but nothing. I also don't want to unnecessarily reveal anything private without necessity, but I guess the necessity is given now.
Basically, my involvement is this: Over the course of 3 - 4 months, I built a site for Resistance apologetics which includes a full map of all Resistance priests / Mass locations:
https://dubia.cc/ - not just to convert other Catholics, but also to refute Protestants, Orthodox, Atheists, etc. Because ever so often, you'd get asked "are you in a cult?", "science disproves God", etc. A friend of mine (also Resistance, with a YouTube channel where he does debates) wrote about 300 - 400 articles, but they're not well-sourced. We are working to get them signed off by a priest (Fr. Lang, who is still with the SSPX but resisted in 2012), so that I don't accidentally make theological errors. Basically "TradCatholic Answers".
On the website I also maintain a "
Where are we?" map of all Resistance priests and Mass locations. Naturally, I have vested interested in keeping a list of "clean" Resistance priests (i.e. priests who are validly ordained, not shady, etc.). I go around handing people business cards with a link to that site if they ask what I believe and "where to go to Mass":
It's a very effective way of evangelization. But I cannot go around handing people these cards while listing potentially shady priests. I already took Fr. Abraham and Fr. Peignot off my list and I won't list their Mass locations, for good reason.
So this is why,
SEVEN WEEKS AGO, I wrote to Broadstairs, after I noticed the "decrevi" Video that started it all (has been deleted in the meantime). Because of the "decrevi" Video, someone added the scandal to Wikipedia. So I wrote to Broadstairs on
20th of May:
[...] What I will remark is that the British group really needs to clear up the „dodgy priest“ allegations, because the German Wikipedia page now slanders the Resistance as hiding pedos. Basically the story is this: +Morgan handed out a phone number of a priest who was kicked out by the diocese based on „child molestation rumors“ and then worked with the Resistance. Then he „behaved weirdly“ at one Mass and the host, „Dr. K“, phoned +Morgan for clarification and +Morgan blocked him, which confused „Dr. K“. Then Dr. K made a YT video alarming people and now we have a PR disaster (thanks to some Irish YouTuber). And then some German leftists put this on the SSPX Resistance Wikipedia page.
Now I say: it was reported to the police, the police didn’t find anything so far, so a simple statement by +Morgan „the priest hasn’t been officially convicted, so we still work with him“ would be enough, just to get leftists off our back. If you could forward this to +Morgan, that’d be great. Fr. Hewko also defended +Morgan here, so Fr. Hewko is not in principle sectarian. Forgive him his faults. [...]
The response came back on the same day:
[...] Over here, the Resistance (although I dont like that name) is doing well with regular Masses and reasonable numbers. I must say the 'dodgy priests' allegations are complete nonsense. In fact with the recent claims, the couple who started the rumours a few months ago were arrested by the Police and charged with criminal harassment. Clearly the Police believed the allegations were nonsense. As BpW often said the Church ways are different from the ways of the world and so statements are not put out against these defamations and lies. The Church has never operated like that. All the so-called resistants know the truth.
So, Broadstairs knew that there were arrests going on, even back in May (now we have July, seven weeks later). This does not necessarily mean that Broadstairs created the harrassment campaign, but it strongly supports that theory.
At the time I didn't realize that by "the couple" they meant Dr. K and his wife, otherwise I would have been more suspicious of their same-day response. I assumed it was some third-party couple running around creating rumors about this priest. So I thought "okay, there's some couple running around making rumors about a priest, let the police clear it up". So I took their response at face value and didn't investigate further.
Now however, it turned out that the "harassment police arrest" was over simple E-Mails, which obviously makes me more suspicious of Broadstairs actions and "defense", since a full-blown police report is a severe escalation. So, two days after the video that started this thread (on 27th of June), I wrote another E-Mail, since I remembered that the Broadstairs group clearly knows about the situation, asking them to clarify what their perspective is - what do they know?
I also asked them for rough Mass locations in the meantime (so I could put them on dubia, just the rough locations, so I can list the contact information for Mass coordination together with the location), to which I just got the response:
It is probably best to have me down for the whole of England and if anyone is visiting England they can use this email address which I check every day. Bishop Ballini is in charge of Ireland and I think he would want the same security measures because we have suffered so much at the hands of the media, even Bishop Williamson's funeral got two bad newspaper articles.
So, they don't want to hand out Mass locations because of journalists. All I can say is that so far, the Mass locations are not a problem (most are not the real locations anyway, it's just the town name where the Mass location is, not the physical house address). Bp. Stobnicki had zero problems for example giving me his locations. Again, it's weird that they want to run all communication through Broadstairs but at the time I wasn't suspicious yet:
Hi [name],
yeah that’s no problem I just need „rough locations“ or town names, like Bp Stobnicki gave me: for the E-Mail contact, I’ll just put in your E-Mail. The map is just supposed to „show presence“, so that someone can see „okay there is a mass location somewhere in Exampleshire“. [...] Has Bp Ballini been "kicked out" of Ireland? At least I heard that from Fr. Marcel.
I didn't receive a response. Then, two days after this thread was started, I remembered that Broadstairs knew about the situation and reached out again:
Hi [name],
besides the missing Mass locations (okay fine, I’ll just send everyone in the UK to you for Mass coordination), the problem is that this „dodgy priest“ situation now turned into a complete PR disaster for the Resistance because of the police arrest of „Dr. K“ and his wife. This "Dr. K.“ guy now made a YT video with 300k views about his „harassment arrest“ over E-Mails. He says he wrote angry E-Mails because he was being blocked over being referred to a shady „priest“. Something extremely weird is going on here. I beg of you to please make some blog post or respond to this E-Mail: What is exactly going on? Where is +Ballini? Where is +Morgan? Why did Dr. K get blocked (mistake?)? What relation does this „priest“ have with the Resistance? Is he even a priest? The „priest“ (Fr. Kerry Moran?) seems to have been only a deacon. Who ordained him, +Viganó, BpW? It’s unlikely that multiple dioceses conspired against one guy, who won’t even say who ordained him.
The Church has indeed defended herself against false allegations (e.g. Cardinal Rampolla was defended against Masonic allegations by Church officials), I’m not buying that excuse. But silence breeds rumor, which we need to avoid. It’ll only get worse with silence. I personally just want to resist liberalism (I’m not pro-Hewko, as you know) - but „we have few priests" cannot be an excuse for taking in any priest claiming persecution or arresting people for writing E-Mails warning about a specific „priest“. I cannot seriously recruit people for the SSPX Resistance while this scandal is going on: https://archive.is/IhB8C
What is weird about this Dr. K. guy is that he is running around in shades, even in Church, and makes videos with indecently clothed women. But other than that, +Morgan did celebrate in his chapel and he otherwise doesn’t seem to have a reason for lying (Social media fame? Wanting to randomly destroy the Resistance, why, he’s not leftist?). On the other hand, now the police sent 3 cars to arrest him, which is severely disproportionate for just „harassment“. Maybe because of his videos (which have now been taken down?), but then it would be better to simply refute him.
Sorry for asking, but the situation simply doesn’t look good for +Ballini and +Morgan. Why are they so silent? If the bishops made a mistake with the blocking + arrest, it would be better to own up to it now, rather than making matters worse and ignoring everything. Mistakes / deceptions can happen, but I don’t understand why a simple „sorry we accidentally recommended the wrong priest“ has to turn into a PR disaster with 300k+ people watching. Being persecuted for defending the Faith is one thing, being persecuted for making a mistake is another.
Clearly the Police believed the allegations were nonsense.
Not really, the police is simply bound to investigate if a warrant is filed, no matter what. However, why would an full arrest warrant be filed over simple E-Mails? You can simply block them, answer them saying it was a mistake, etc. An escalation to a full-blown arrest looks extremely bad, as if we’re covering up something. The faithful are now confused as to who’s telling the truth and whether the UK / Irish Resistance bishops are still trustworthy, because they are so secretive / silent. I will defend a priests good name, but this weird secrecy because „we cannot defend ourselves publicly“ has to stop. Even if it’s all lies, then please just say so.
The good news is that we now have a Resistance group going in Germany, but PLEASE clear up the situation.
In Christ,
[my name]
So, this was on
27th of June (one week ago). I haven't received a response in a week, and, given that "I check this e-mail every day", I suppose I won't ever get a response. To sum up, Broadstairs:
- Knew about the situation since seven weeks ago
- Alleged to the police arrest as a "proof of guilt" on Kavanaughs part
- Doesn't want to hand out contacts / locations of any UK priests, to "protect against journalists"
- Doesn't want to clarify whats going on
I'm trying to find a best-case interpretation, but, given this poor communcation, I cannot list Broadstairs or Bp. Morgan himself as a good Mass location anymore, until I know what's going on.
At least on my part, I did what I could: I just want to write this up so nobody in the future can say "oh the Resistance covers up pedo priests" or "dubia.cc lists pedo / invalid priests" - no, I clearly don't, I removed roughly nearly a third of all priests (marked in red):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16wO1gTdilEcdqsWfJ0mZn-hgYD2MRJ1SCKSAHzcDj18/edit?gid=1507791103#gid=1507791103I brought up this topic in person with Fr. Marcel de la Croix, but he didn't know more than I do - although he has occasional physical contact with Broadstairs. I will now try to get the UK Mass locations in another way, other than Broadstairs. Potentially I could contact +Viganó or +Stobnicki, but that still wouldn't give clarity on what is going on in the UK.
My issue is not whether Fr. Moran is guilty or not: my issue is the horribly poor "I'll just ignore answering my e-mails and hope the problem will go away" type of communication of Broadstairs. I have no idea what's going on in the UK. So, until they fix their situation, I won't list them anymore. Simple as that and it's all I can do.
I hope this addresses any rumors and invalidates the idea that the Resistance would just "sweep it under the rug" - however, until Broadstairs / Bp. Morgan responds, there's no real point in speculating their motives.
Just in case anyone in the future will say that "the Resistance is a cult that just covers up scandals" - well, I did what I could. Pray for +Morgan and Broadstairs.
Topic: Man arrested for email (Read 16225 times)