Doomed From The Start

~ Tom Kneier ~
Re: The International Covenant Community called The Sword of the Spirit.

From the talk, Personal Perspective, an audio recording made in Steubenville, OH on August 14, 1991 describing the negative effects of the teachings and pastoral model of the Sword of the Spirit Covenant Community upon members of the Servants of Christ the King.
(The above picture is said to have been taken at the inauguration of the Sword of the Spirit at Ann Arbor, Michigan, November 1982. Keith Fournier and Tom Kneier are present, standing alone at the center left.)

Page 1 of 21 What follows are Tom Kneiers personal comments regarding Bishop Ottenwellers findings into the Pastoral visitation of the Servants of Christ the King, a Branch of the Sword of the Spirit. Msgr. Foys, Chancellor of the Diocese of Steubenville, will be the moderator. Mr. Kneier was one of the original, founding Coordinators of the Community of Gods Love (later Servants of Christ the King,) dating back to the early 1970s and the Thursday Night Prayer Meetings in Christ the King Chapel at the College of Steubenville (now Franciscan University.) Tom and Fr Michael Scanlan TOR were the first two permanent Coordinators affirmed by the members beginning in 1977. I have done my best to carefully transcribe these remarks, but errors may be present. When I present information [within these symbols] it is not Mr. Kneiers comments, but editing of my own to clarify his comments or to summarize periods of discussion. The length of the talk given by Mr. Kneier with the questions included at the end- is well over 100 minutes long. I do not believe I have omitted anything that would change the nature of his remarks. A complete digital replication of the cassette tape is here: http://www.mediafire.com/download/u1m2byyjp6faejg/Doomed_from_the_Start%3A_Tom_Kneier_08 -14-91.mp3 I also used (Headings Like This) over blocks of text. I did this to make finding specific material easier. They are topic headings gleaned from Mr. Kneiers comments. Finally, you will occasionally see numbers like this: (00:00). I used this to mark my place on the tape as I had to go back many times and review what I had written for accuracy sake. Having both listened to the tape and then having created a document from it, I found there to be a significant difference in the two experiences. I believe the written experience is probably better, as it gives people a chance to stop and digest all that is said (and there is a lot that is said.) The audio experience tends to be, for lack of a better description, easier to swallow. I often found myself catching things that were said very quickly that had much more impact when you had time to think about them. Mr. Kneier is to be sincerely thanked for coming forth and saying these things. He is the only Sword of the Spirit Coordinator from Servants of Christ the King to stand before present and former members and repent, apologize and accept Bishop Ottenwellers findings. Fr Michael Scanlan TOR, Fr David Tickerhoof TOR and John Sengenberger (former Coordinators of SOCK) never did these things. Keith Fournier has written a series of letters to members and was featured in a news article about the community in 1992. These comments are nearly 20 years old. Those of us who experienced Bishop Albert Ottenwellers Pastoral Visitation have had nearly two decades to reflect on the experience. Toms comments come just TWO MONTHS after the Bishop issued his findings1. In retrospect, his comments may seem partial or incomplete in the present. Be that as it may, I am simply grateful that he came forward and affirmed Bishop Ottenwellers remarks in a manner congruent with his soul and his past experience as the former Junior Head Coordinator of the Sword of the Spirit Covenant Community, Servants of Christ the King. John Flaherty, Grand Island, NE
1

September 13, 2009

(Revised June 25, 2013)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/19099693/ottenweller-finds-allegations-valid-steubenville-register-06211991

Page 2 of 21 Monsignor Foys: [Tom Kneier] asked me awhile back if I would come and moderate this evening and thats what I will do, I will moderate. What the evening will be is well start out with a very brief prayer and then I have a few words to say and then Tom will speak to you for however long it takes him to say what he needs to say, then well have a short break and gather again if you have any questions you would like Tom to answer. (00:39) I am really grateful that this meeting is taking place tonight on the solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I think of the Virgin Mary as a woman of great faith. And her faith had to be what sustained her through her entire life. She was approached by a God that turned the world upside down, in her Magnificat she talks about raising the lowly and feeding the hungry and sending the rich away empty and even though he turned her world upside down, she never lost faith. [Goes on to recount the many times Marys faith sustained her.] And I think of Marys faith and how it sustained her, and I think of our faith and how it has to sustain us. And how it has sustained all of you in these last 8 months [referring to the time over which the Bishops Pastoral Visitation was conducted into the life of the Servants of Christ the King.] [Tape breaks in as Monsignor Foys is speaking] I said yes for several reasons. One, is that I have great faith in you and in this community and I believe this will be a part of the process, and also because I have great respect for Tom Kneier. You know, during this process [Bishop Ottenwellers pastoral visitation into the Servants of Christ the King] Tom and I had to deal with each other very often. And I know that Tom was getting it from all sides. But through the entire process he was always a gentleman and always very respectful to me personally, and always very cooperative. So when he asked me to come tonight, I came not only because I believe, and have faith in you, but because I respect Tom as a person, and as a member of the Community of the Servants of Christ the King. So now I will turn the program over to Tom. Tom: Thank you for your prayers and support. Its important to know, that even if none of you had come, or if even only a handful had come, I still would have been convinced that this was the right thing to do. Im here because I want to be and the things I have to say I want to say. And whether or not they meet other peoples expectations or satisfy individual concerns, only God knows, but I know that I wanted to do this, and feel right about it. [Speaks about Msgr. Foys] We are taping this tonight, not to make a great splash about it, but in case it can be used by others who arent able to be here, if it can do anything to accomplish further healing and reconciliation then its worth it. (06:45) [Life is lived forward, but understood backward. Tom reflects on how this has been true for him.] The more time that passes, the more I understand. I believe in the months and years ahead well better understand the meaning and the suffering weve gone through together, and the suffering currently, even though we may never understand it, and thats ok. Were people of faith. At least I have grown in my understanding, and I want to share some of those things with you. [Discusses the events leading up to this meeting, going back to a letter he wrote to Servants of Christ the King in March, 1991 promising an open forum-meeting of the Community and the Coordinators to

Page 3 of 21 dialogue at length about the pastoral visitation. The meeting never happened, the original Coordinators all resigned before the Pastoral Visitation was complete, and so Tom felt like it was something he said he would do publicly, and so is fulfilling that statement tonight. After about ten minutes of background he begins his remarks reguarding Bishop Ottenwellers conclusions into the Servants of Christ the King.] Tom: I would like to use the three main things the Bishop uses in his final report.our accountability to him our pastoral care system and our relationship to the Sword of the Spirit and its influence on us. I find that almost everything can fit under those three things so I am going to try to use those to speak about. [He describes his first visit to the Sword of the Spirit.] (Hearing Grievances within the Sword of the Spirit) When I was up in Michigan a year or so ago attending my first assembly of the Sword of the Spirit you know I got thrown into a situation that I did not expect was not prepared for- which was hearing grievances from these major leaders in the Sword of the Spirit, grievances that had been going on for years. And I was selected with a committee of a couple of other guys. We experienced that week and then I subsequently experienced for six months, serving on that interim government committee- the impossible task, of trying to sort through years of experience, and conflict and hurt, and this side and that side. And what we experienced was that there were some things we could ferret out some issues- but many things we we had this kind of conviction that the best thing we can do for these people is to call them to have mercy on one another. And so we in our conclusions and in our report we asked for that, you know, that they lay down their arms, that they show mercy, that things that maybe hadnt been answered to their satisfaction, that they could surrender that and they realize that the peace and the order of the life of the Sword of the Spirit, and that the Work of God be more important that their own personal issues. (Scandalized by the Sword of the Spirit Leadership) Um, I have to say, and I think I said this before I was not only discouraged with the response to it, I think I was scandalized to find that there were so few ready to do it. I watched men that I respected very much have their issues so much in their gut that they just couldnt let go, or felt like well no thats not the answer yeah yeah we believe in mercy eventually BUT we gotta follow process and get to the issues and so forth. So for all the frustration and all the difficulty of that I think the Lord showed me something and impressed something on me, and I think its given me a compassion for the Bishops situation in which he came into it midstream, you know wed been living and working as a community for a long time and even though we had communication with him he was not fully apprised of all that was going on and so I can at least on that level understand -perhaps- why he chose to handle things that way, and it may help you to understand a little more. (Topic One: Accountability to Ottenweller)

Page 4 of 21 The first think I want to talk about is the issue of our accountability to Bishop Ottenweller. As you know when things first broke the Bishop talked about not being fully honest with him, not being fully open with him and the effect that had on him, and the feeling that Servant (of Christ the King) leadership was responsible for that. I want to say that I dont believe we did everything that we could have, or should have, to keep Bishop fully informed about the Sword of the Spirit. I dont believe we did. I know our attitude. Our attitude was, well, we know our hearts are in the right place. Like we know that were submitted to the Church in our hearts, that our first identity and our first loyalty is to the Church. We know that. Anything we do in an ecumenical way needs to be submitted to the Bishops authority and we knew that our heart was right on that and we wanted that. (Sword of the Spirit too complicated for the Bishop) But we also had, I think, and attitude of that said you know, the Sword of the Spirit is very complicated. Its very complex and there is a lot of, a lot to it; because its not a specifically Catholic Body theres a lot of terminology that gets thrown around that gets easily misunderstood. And we kinda let ourselves I believe- let ourselves get convinced that it was more, it would be more of a problem to try to talk out ALL that the Sword of the Spirit was and ALL that it meant in great detail with Bishop, but rather to respond to his questions about it and to present what he asked [about], and to do that honestly and openly, but not to sorta quote un-necessarily bring up issues that could uh, could maybe even jeopardize what we were doing or what we were involved in. Theres a couple things I feel we were wrong about that and were problems. The main one was though that it put US in the position of deciding what the Bishop should have and what he shouldnt. You know what I mean. It was in that sense not a full submission. I mean we were saying we were fully submitted in our hearts and we would give him the loyalty that we certainly felt, but we were the ones that put ourselves in the position of deciding, you know, how much would be helpful to him or how much he would need to know or what would be a confusing issue or what wouldnt. And I believe that was a real mistake. And it was a failure on our part. (More Initiative needed to Inform Bishop) I think we should have taken more initiative, to, if we thought that he didnt fully understand or didnt grasp what we were doing, I think we should have taken more initiative to make sure that he did. Some people have said well gee if the Bishop wanted to know more why didnt he ask more questions? Well thats one way to look at it, but I know from my seat, and thats the only place I can be responsible, I know I didnt take more initiative. And I could have. I could have said ya know brothers I dont think Bishop fully understands what were doing, I think he needs to, even if it means that from our point of view there are consequences that are really negative for the Community. (Fear In Us)

Page 5 of 21 I think there was a fear in us of that. I think that especially during the years -the period- where the People Of Hope and Arch Bishop Garrity were in conflict. I think we felt vulnerability there. Well, were not like the People of Hope and we dont have the same issues and the same conflicts and gee if we get into all this what if something happens like that to us? What if Bishop takes our standing as a Fellowship and what if he this, that and the other thing. And I think we let fears like that get in the way, and um keep us from taking the imitative that I think we should have taken. I think probably in retrospect, that came back to hurt us when the Visitation began, because I think perhaps Bishop didnt fully understand our life as he should have or could have had we been more responsible for it. (24:51) Understanding us as a lay Covenant Community and so forth. In some ways I feel like he still doesnt fully because the committee on the Visitation had to address allegations and couldnt just come in -in a neutral environment- and say, well lets evaluate the life of the Servants of Christ the King, lets talk about the positive and negative with no pressures or something. The committee was under a lot of stress and a lot of pressure and it was based on allegations that had been raised and so, um, there wasnt that freedom just to look at all the aspects of the life of the Community the way it could have if it had been raised earlier and in a different environment. (Fr Mike Scanlan Responsible Coordinator to Bishop) (25:32) I know I am not the final word on this. I wasnt the Coordinator responsible for directly relating to the Bishop. Fr Mike [Scanlan TOR] had that responsibility and I know that he had meetings individually with Bishop that didnt include the rest of the Coordinators over the years. Until last year my visits were the ones limited to the annual reviews as a group of leaders. So I just want to emphasize that this is my perspective, this is what I believe, Fr Mike did tell me before he left town hes in Austria this month- he did say that when he gets back he is planning to schedule a similar session to follow up on things as appropriate so he may uh address this more fully or shed more light on it, but from my perspective, I needed to share with you what I thought. (Apology) (26:25) I am sorry for failing you in this area. I am sorry that I didnt take more initiative, even though it wasnt directly my responsibility I think sometimes that was a thing I stumbled on, well its not my area not just this area with Bishop but other areas in community life and again I think Ive learned something about that, that its ok to take initiative and its right to take initiative sometimes when you see things. (Too Much Human Strategy) (27:01) So in retrospect I believe there was just too much human strategy involved in dealing with the Bishop, too much worry and fear in worrying about the consequences of talking things through totally and completely; too much worry about that hes not going to understand because its an ecumenical situation theres all kind of terminology that doesnt fit our Catholic situation, that we should not have given into that but rather trusted God in the situation and taken much more initiative so that he would

Page 6 of 21 have been much more fully involved and informed about the Sword of the Spirit. So I do ask your forgiveness I am sorry for failing you in that way. Just before the meeting I personally apologized to Msgr. Foys for that because he was also involved in all our annual meetings. I tried to call Bishop today and apologize to him too but found out he was out of town because why should I be saying it to you only when, they were the ones, also that were directly involved and so I want to apologize to Bishop as well for my failure in that. (The Fellowship: Relation to the Covenant Community) There is one other area I wanted to say something about when it comes to accountability to the Bishop and to the local diocese, and it has to do with the Covenant Community and the Fellowship. I think everyone here knows that the Covenant Community (Servants of Christ the King) preceded the Fellowship by about three years. So during the years 1977 to 1980, Fr Mike [Scanlan] would relate to the Bishop about our Covenant Community, and about our Lay Association. But in 1980 Bishop established the Fellowship in addition. And in doing so gave us two identities that overlapped and, you know, that may have been the last point of clarity that weve had on this area since. It seems like its been an area thats been wrought with confusion and has had a lot of problems connected to it. It seemed clear to us at the time when we started, we got a Fellowship thats for people to join FROM the body of the Covenant Community who so wish to join not everybody is obligated- those who dont wish to join can continue in their parishes; it seemed pretty clear. But I think that as time went on lines of distinction were fuzzier and there were certainly it was certainly a point that seemed to sorta haunt us over the years. At first Fr Mike [Scanlan TOR] was responsible for reporting to Bishop on things. Then when the Fellowship was established he became the administrator which is the pastor of the parish- and Fr Dave [Tickerhoof TOR] became the parochial vicar. Then Fr Dave[Tickerhoof TOR] was assigned to become the administrator but Fr Mike [Scanlan TOR] continued as the Senior Head Coordinator of the [Sword of the Spirit] community. Then much later on I was assigned to be made a Head Coordinator over certain areas of the Lay life but Fr Mike [Scanlan TOR] continued in outreach and in relating to Bishop; then I took over as Senior Head Coordinator and Fr Dave [Tickerhoof TOR] was made coordinator in connection with his responsibilities to the Fellowship. If this is confusing you [laughter in the crowd] you might have an idea why it didnt work very well, when Bishop would be communicating with us and all the areas of the life; and again this stuff has only hit me in retrospect, putting myself in his seat. (Delegated Authority Approach) To us it was perfectly clear as we went along: well we know what head coordinator means and we know what fellowship coordinator means, but we thought it would be very obvious, you know, if he needed to talk to us about a certain area of community life, wed have it spelled out: this person is responsible for that area. But I gather that what he experienced was, Usually I can go to a pastor he has said this- usually I can go to a pastor in a parish situation and say whats going on in the parish and the pastor tells him right there. He doesnt say, well if you want to find out about x here you should

Page 7 of 21 talk to so and so. [Tape leaves off here and resumes amidst this sentence] (31:20) that part of what Bishop experienced was Fr Mike [ScanlanTOR] saying, yeah Im responsible but we have this delegated authority approach, this shared responsibility approach so theres various guys you talk to on various things, and, like I said, running through those titles and even though we communicated them, I can really see how it would have been confusing and difficult for Bishop to relate to this concept of the Covenant Community and the Fellowship overlapping, and where the buck stops. Some people have called the problem having too many hats. I think thats a part of it. You had the same people responsible for multiple things. And sometimes depending on which hat you were wearing or who was speaking to you, you would have a certain hat on, and it could get confusing. (32:14) When Bishop concluded the Visitation and said he wanted to change the accountability thing so that there was one person to relate to my first reaction was, well I thought thats what we had in the beginning? We had Fr Mike [Scanlan TOR] who was the one person to relate to on all these fronts. But as Ive gone through it and understood the complexities of all these different roles and responsibilities among coordinators, I understand why he wants to establish this clearly. (The Fellowship: Collaboration) I think that what we deemed sort of as collaboration, Bishop experienced as Covenant Community controlling the Fellowship. Our thinking was, we need to collaborate. There are two entities that are separate in their structure but they overlap because so many people are the same people; they overlap because they are joined in goals and mission and so forth, so youd have a body of coordinators representing both constituencies or concerned about both because they both overlapped. And so what seemed to us as collaboration -as necessary- I think eventually Bishop talked about it as people experiencing the Covenant community and the body of Coordinators and Lay Coordinators controlling the Fellowship too much and the Fellowship not having the freedom it should have had. (33:50) I dont know what new structures will get established in all this but I think weve learned some of the lessons from this kind of too many hats and too many people having same roles and all that stuff, and perhaps can use some of the wisdom in re-establishing (Pastoral Care System from Sword of the Spirit) Ok, the next area that Bishop talked about in the conclusions was the pastoral care system and I want to talk about that. Simply put, I believe that the pastoral care system that we received from the Word of God and the Sword of the Spirit was a vehicle and a cause for much hurt in our community. The degree to which it was harmful to people varied from person to person. And I think there was a lot of reasons for that: time that you would have been in the community, your own age and life experience, whether you were single or married, whether you had been in pastoral responsibility or not, if you had been in a lot of different groups or not, who was your particular pastoral leader and his or her character and personality. All those things would have affected what you experienced through pastoral care. And so thats why you heard so many different people talking about their experiences; it almost sounded like they couldnt be in the same community. [digression]

Page 8 of 21 (Convincing Others that their Experience Was not Valid) (35:40) Unfortunately we spent a lot of time trying to convince other people that their experience wasnt valid. I think that I can certainly say that in my responsibilities as a former coordinator that many people were hurt by the pastoral care system, that were harmed through it, and through practices within it, and that we need to accept that, and sorta lay down this idea of, either it all worked or it all didnt work. I just dont think thats going to get us anywhere. [Digression] Id like to talk tonight about my perspective as a coordinator and how it went, and what my perception of the failures of that system, not discounting where it worked, and not discounting where people were fed and grew through it. Again, dont read this as saying there was nothing good, there was no good fruit that happened, I know people who did, and I know people matured in the community over a number of years. (Why the Sword of the Spirit Pastoral System did so much Harm) But I want to tell you why I think that the pastoral care system that we received from the sword of the Spirit did so much harm. First I think it gave essentially untrained lay men and women too much personal responsibility in authority for other peoples lives. It gave too much jurisdiction, too much responsibility to individuals to try and take care of other individuals. I say essentially untrained because even though there were training sessions they werent anything like complete or all encompassing. Because of that I think there were many, many failures. (Pastoral Care: Details of Peoples Lives) It called for too much communication about the details of peoples lives. You may have heard of this in the context of the pastoral chain. The concept was, I dont want to work alone, I want the covering of other leaders, and the idea was, if Im off on my own giving people direction or advice and Im really off the wall, I want a place where I can get checked and balanced, corrected or somebody else can give imput so I am not out there myself. That was the basic concept. In the practice of it you needed to communicate to other leaders and in that process, in my thinking, too much communication, too much talk about other peoples lives, too much detail, in order to fulfill that, in order to be responsible in the system you had to do that and I think that created a lot of problems. (Created Pressure to Conform) (38:54) I think it created a unhealthy pressure to conform. There wasnt sufficient respect for the autonomy of the individual, and the operation of grace and free will in peoples lives. There was this sense if you were a pastoral leader you HAD to bring about change in peoples lives, or that you had to call them on or challenge them. Again, those things in and off themselves sound ok, but when you feel like thats your responsibility the onus is on you, theres problems. So there wasnt enough respect for individual free will and response to the grace of the Holy Spirit and this whole sense in the pastoral system was we need to be changing in order to conform to this one way of life. (Overemphasis on Externals via Christian Culture)

Page 9 of 21 (39:40) It over emphasized externals, particularly the practices of having a Christian culture. The culture things go back at least in my experience- all the way to 1980. It might have been even before that. I dont know. But I first heard about when I went to a conference in the Sword no wait it wasnt even Sword of the Spirit yet it was 1980- it must have been an Elders conference of the Association of Communities- there was talk about establishing a Christian culture. And again the thought was gee there is so much out there support systems for Christianity- that have just fallen apart, that are just in ruins, we need to work harder on how we can support one anothers faith and we believed that having a Christian culture -a way of life more spelled out- that there would be more stability more strength that would come from it. Again it made sense initially but I think that because we relied so much on pastoring people in this way of life we ended up emphasizing far too much the idea that external conformity or practices, or all of us doing things a certain way, the same way the same time, which of course violates that principal I talked about of grace and free will. (Pastoral Care: Undervalued Women) I think our pastoral care system and leadership undervalued womens leadership, their imput and their perspectives. Again most of this wasnt deliberate or designed, at least from my point of view. [editors note: he obviously never read Steven Clarks epic MAN AND WOMAN IN CHRIST.] Maybe somewhere back there maybe somebody has a different perspective [ahem] I certainly never heard anyone who worked with me or dealt with me talk about these things deliberately, the things that I mentioned, or saying this was the design of the pastoral care system. But I think these are some of the results. Because it undervalued womens perspective on things and tended to say we want your imput but never quite ever get that connection the way it should have been and at the level it should have been, I think as a result our sisters felt not fully appreciated not fully respected not fully involved as they could have been in decision making and leadership in the Community. (Pastoral Care: Too Much Evaluation/Judgment of People) I think the pastoral care system required too much evaluation of people and too much judgment of character. You had this sense that your responsibility as a pastoral leader was to call people on, as Ive mentioned, but what that meant was evaluating them as to where they were in the Christian life, or where they stood on the journey. And again sort of just gradually and over a period of time that came through to people, and more and more people felt evaluated and criticized and judged and not accepted enough. (Passivity) I think it tended to create passivity in some members. There was this feeling that, especially as the community got bigger, that my individual contribution isnt that important, or my pastoral leader has been in the community a long time, I can trust his or her judgment more; and sort of this in the name of this submissive spirit and submission, becoming passive in an unhealthy way. I think our pastoral care system created the opportunity for that or created the tendency for it.

Page 10 of 21 (Lack of Encouragement and Affirmation) I think it under emphasized encouragement and affirmation and acceptance, like I said. I dont know if you remember this but when we did our self evaluation, that 100 question questionnaire, one of the things was, what do you most want from your pastoral leader? What are you most looking for in pastoral care? I dont know if you remember the number one answer was encouragement. It wasnt teaching or correction or even wisdom, it was encouragement. And I think that was a sign, a barometer right there, that things werent in balance. (Pastoral Care: Too Functional) I think it tended to be too functional and not sufficiently relational. [Digresses into acknowledging that many people had the opposite experience, that it wasnt functional for them at all, and ...] Thats ok, and thats good. I think in more general terms there was a tendency to let things become functional especially in some of the structures we had set up. The pastoral groups were things that were supposed to be support groups for our personal lives, and as anyone knows relationships are built over time, and yet because of always adding new people to the community and all these other reasons (people changing ministries), pastoral groups would change regularly, and you sorta lose that confidence that gee my relationships are gonna stick around or Im going to be able to count on having this pastoral leader next year and all that kind of thing. Additionally I think the things like pastoral plans tended to get used too functionally. Again the initial idea was fine [collaborating with pastoral leader on goals for things I want to work on] seemed like an innocent enough thing, even a good thing, to have some goals. But I think it FELL into a measuring stick and an evaluation and that kinda thing where it was more like a check list of, are you living up to this and are you living up to that instead of the kind of relational oriented thing that should have gone on in pastoral care, should have been the heart of it. (Role of Pastoral Care in Christian Growth Overvalued) (46:15) And lastly in this list actually I could have made a much longer list- it over valued the role of pastoral authority in the overall process of Christian growth and change. What I am saying is Christian growth and transformation and change requires a whole set of things a pastoral relationship is a part of that, is someone you look to for advice and counsel and guidance- but our pastoral care system the whole way we were set up- overemphasized THAT ROLE in all of Christian growth. So you tended to find pastoral care being the thing people were moving to the quickest in order to bring about growth and holiness and change. And I dont think that was right I mean I know thats not right. (Dating) And there was some specific places where I think it had, made the most harmful effects. One was in the dating area where, when I first received teaching and principals of, in this area from the Sword of the Spirit, what I got out of it was: Dating has a lot of pitfalls in it, you know? Theres a lot of ways you can get hurt. Theres a lot of ways you can fall into sin, that its inadequate in building a base for Christian Marriage. We ought to as Christians be using the scriptures and the wisdom of the church to build some foundations so that dating can happen in a way that supports Christian values and protects from a lot of

Page 11 of 21 hurt and a lot of these kinds of pitfalls. It made sense. It seemed like a good starting point. But what I experienced then in looking in retrospect was that the solution or at least the primary thing to do about that was to have a pastoral approach. Now again it didnt hit me when that was going on but that seemed to be the first and be the primary way to respond to that valid problem. And so what happens? Well as people come into the community they hear about a dating approach. The approach has these parts to it and these steps to it. You start getting the feeling when you come into the community well gee if I just follow this approach Ill have this great marriage, Ill be protected from mistakes, I wont sin in courtship and who knows what else. You get this feeling like just follow the pastoral approach. And we contributed to that by the confidence with which we came across on this and said well yes this our way, this is our one way of life on this its not the only way to do things but if youre in Sword of the Spirit, if youre in Servants of Christ the King this is the way that we do it. So as a result people were really hurt in that dating process. People felt like maybe there wasnt the freedom to follow maybe the desires they would have in the whole process, with good valid motivations, they would say but I want to do it right and I want to do it in an acceptable way so there was a lot of guilt single people felt as they went through things, maybe even if they didnt experience it as positive but felt, well this is the right way to do it so Ill go along. By the same token pastoral leaders, coordinators and anybody else who were involved in all this, we over emphasized this pastoral approach figuring that it would accomplish a lot more than it did; and therefore in our care for people or seeing how their relationships were going, that would always come up as part of the discussion: well gee hows this pastoral approach going? Or how are you experiencing this approach? So I think thats why you hear people talk about failures in the dating system so much and how much they felt like they were part of a momentum and not so much going through a process of just discernment on Gods call in their life and responding to His call in their life. (Marriage) (50:30) I think in the marriage area this came out a lot, that pastoral care was emphasized over all the other aspects of Christian growth. One of the main things you can do for people is to give them pastoral care and thatll be the best thing you can do for their marriage, and then the obvious short-comings of that. (Lack of Critical Assessment of Teachings from the Sword of the Spirit in the area of Youth) I think in the youth area was another area where over emphasis on pastoral goals and all that kinda thing and pastoral care; didnt allow for young people to feel the acceptance and uh, be embraced into the life of the community UNLESS they were living certain things or living up to certain things. There is nothing wrong with holding up ideals. There is nothing wrong with saying, the gospels has standards and so forth, but I think what we did with it was, we took this teaching from the Sword of the Spirit, we just sort of applied it in our lives, we were in a process as you know of formation we tended Im saying now as local Coordinators- we tended not to evaluate much what was coming to us, not picking out a lot well we said we are in a process of formation, we asked to be a part of this so were going to carry it out

Page 12 of 21 so we tended to be not all that critical in our thinking and missed some of this stuff, and the resultant hurt and harm that was done in young peoples lives. (51:58) So I think you can guess that I fully support Bishops statement that pastoral care needs to be radically altered. And again I want to say that I am sorry for failing you in this area, that, well, um, I mean I can almost go through the whole list, and maybe I should maybe I should. Just to be able to say it even for those who might hear it on tape, to know that I am sorry for the hurt that was caused through the system and for the harm that was done to peoples lives. (False Confidence) Im sorry for the way in which we gave you the confidence -Ill speak personally- the way that I gave you the confidence in my role as a leader that this was going to work. Now admittedly I did think it was going to work, so it wasnt like I was telling you it was going to work and then thinking all along well I know this has about a fat chance. I mean I really believed it was going to help and it was going to work, but I guess I never realized the depth in which a leader can influence peoples lives. I never thought of myself as affecting people lives very much, even in all the years of leadership I always felt like I am an ordinary joe, I tried to always act that way and treat others that way I never tried to put myself in a different position but I never realized that a lot of other people that said that well, hes the leader, and if hes giving this teaching, and if he says it with this confidence, Im going to put my trust in it or Im going to follow it. Its certainly put a lot more fear in me, fear of God, in any roles of leadership that I ever might have in the future and realize it really does affect people, or again people might say well you shouldnt put that much trust in leaders and they shouldnt follow that much. Well, may be. But I can only say from my point of view I sure have a more sober understanding of the effect of leadership and its statements. (Leaders: Dont Quit. Be Honest.) I think in one way I can see where the temptation would be would be for anybody whos experienced this to just, get out of all leadership and thats the way to spare yourself from hurting others or harming others, to not lead. I think very quickly wed have a church with no leaders so I dont think thats the answer. I think one of the answers is that when leaders realize theyve had impact and its been a negative one they should take responsibility for it and thats part of what I am trying to do tonight and what Ive tried to do in other talks to the community, to apologize, to repent when I see that I made a mistake and ask for and expect and hope for your forgiveness. (Critical of self? Critical of Others.) So I realize I wasnt the only leader, I realize I am not the only coordinator, but for my part I am sorry for the painful effects and the damage and the hurt. Im sorry and apologize to the women who felt slighted and the sisters who may have felt that we did not appreciate or did not value their imput and their perspectives. I am sorry for the evaluation that I may have put on some of you. I know as I learn more about myself that this could have been one I was particularly vulnerable to because thats how I treat myself. I tend to evaluate myself pretty critically. And I tend to well I told you this a couple years

Page 13 of 21 ago at a publicly committed dinner- that there is perfectionism in me that I had recognized for a little while and that I was really working on, but you know, I was probably trying to work on it perfectly. [Laughter from crowd] I know that I had that tendency in me so this would have fed my problem; do you see what I mean? Looking too critically at my wife, looking to critically at my children, looking too critically at myself or others that I would have been responsible for, and therefore, even in a nice way, the way it would come across is, Well Danny you know what you need to work on in your life is x or What do you want to change next in your life? You know there was that sense of not being accepted as you are. So I know particularly that I want to apologize and repent, say that I am sorry to those I may have evaluated way too critically and anyone that experienced that from me, I am sorry. (Lack of Affirmation and Encouragement) I am sorry for the lack of or certainly the insufficient- affirmation, encouragement, that was prevalent in the body. I guess I am particularly cognizant of that last one, putting too much confidence in the pastoral authority as something that would bring about Christian change. And so I want to repent to you for that say that I am sorry for misjudging that, misreading that and for the hurt that may have come through that, through me specifically. And ask your forgiveness for that. [prolonged silence] (Negative Influence of the Sword of the Spirit) The last area I mean theres a lot more that could be said about all these areas, its not going to be complete- but the last area that I mentioned that came out in Bishops conclusions had to do with our relationship with the Sword of the Spirit and some of its influence on us. So again there is something I want to say about that. Theres a lot of things Ive said about the Sword of the Spirit and my concerns about the different aspects of it over the last couple years so I am not going to repeat those. So you have to take those as givens, things Ive said at Gatherings, things that had to do with various aspects of it, Ill briefly just mention a couple things then hit the ones I think are more pertinent to our experience. (Exceeded its Jurisdiction) One of the ones Ive said before, I certainly believe in looking back that Sword of the Spirit exceeded its jurisdiction as intended by God. That it tried to accomplish something that was beyond its jurisdiction; the idea that being one international ecumenical covenant community, the fact that it was the third attempt at networking with other communities, other covenant communities [that] should have told us something. I mentioned this in my testimony and I would say it here again because I think its important. The original call that I heard a lot of leaders in the Sword of the Spirit eventually [it became] the Sword of the Spirit- I heard talk about back in 1977, so this is 5 years before the Sword of the Spirit started. It was at that time an association of Communities or the beginning of the Association of Communities, and I was at a Conference with Fr Mike [Scanlan, TOR], with the leaders of this group and they were outlining

Page 14 of 21 their intentions, their hopes, their dreams for the Association, and Steve Clark was giving the talk at the time and he says specifically, that the desire of the leaders of this Association was to completely respect the autonomy, the individuality of each community; that these communities remain autonomous, that their unique creativity and their gifts should remain intact and we should NOT be looking for some kind of unification so there would be an emphasis on conformity and so forth. (1:00:42) I listened to that again on a tape just this past year just to make sure I remembered it right. And I think thats why I initially responded with a lot of desire, I said yeah I want to be in relationship with other communities, I want to learn, I dont want to be by myself, I dont want to be out here in Steubenville making all our own mistakes when we can learn from others. [Reflects on what he just said and laughs with the crowd] Yeah were perfectly capable of [making] our own mistakes! So I believe that was the original intention and call of the Lord, to be in a relationship with other communities, to benefit one another but not to be joined together structurally. And so as I look back I believe that the Sword of the Spirit as it was founded then, as one community with one set of teachings as one way of life and so forth, sorta was really doomed from the start as I look back. It exceeded the jurisdiction that was given it. (1:01:42) (Arrogance and Elitism) You know there was talk throughout the Visitation about arrogance and so forth, although we didnt conceive the Sword of the Spirit here in Steubenville, didnt design it or anything like that, we joined it, and I believe there was arrogance under the surface that I experienced at least [break in tape to turn it over probablyresumes here:] pride that we got accepted by the Word of God just to start with back in 1977. It would be important to know that I really see the two as one: the Word of God working with us back in 77 and the Sword of the Spirit in 82. They are not two different groups. They are basically one stream and so what began in 77 in our formation was simply carried on in the Sword of the Spirit. The Sword of the Spirit was just a reincarnation of the Word of Gods approach to building Christian Community. But I believe that that crept into us, the feeling of being connected to the best or this just seems to be the most radical thing going on, there was a pride that went with that I just clearly see as the flesh. And again, just one other thing. Ive told you many times about the ecumenical approaches that became inconsistent with Catholic Teaching and practice and probably lead to much of the criticism that Sword of the Spirit has received about being fundamentalist or being non-denominational in its identity and so forth, I think. We did see that a number of years ago and talked to you about that. But like I said you can hear me talk about those things in some of these other presentations. (Arrogant towards Bishop) What I would quickly like to move to is to bring it down to the day to day level of our experience in community life. And the first thing would relate back to the very first thing I told you tonight. In our way of relating to the Bishop, in our way of deciding to communicate with him, and the position that we took, I believe there was an arrogance in that: that we could be the ones to decide what he should know

Page 15 of 21 or what he should hear, or didnt know rather than submitting it fully and letting him decide. Again, not intentional, not deliberate, but looking back and, that was there, I think it was a part of it. (Elitism) Theres been talk about elitism. I sure dont think that we had teachings on elitism or talked about being elitist, but much in the same way that I guess people make a distinction between sort of theoretical heresy and practical heresy, I think there was a practical elitism that snuck into our Community. (1:04:41) You know, things like, in the leadership area, people saying to me, I really dont feel like I am at the front lines, or serving in the most radical way unless I am a leader in pastoral care. When I first heard that it really puzzled me like, why would you think that? We never said that. We never said, now everybody knows that the best way is to be a leader. But I think in practice, some of the things that helped me see, they said well, who has all the extra sessions? you know you have a monthly session just for the pastoral leaders. And [apparently speaking on behalf of a community member discussing the issue with him] we feel like what happens there is extra formation, more challenging things, kind of like the higher rung of the ladder, we feel excluded from that, so we kinda feel like theres this underlying tension that, to REALLY move ahead, you need to strive to be a leader. Another one would have been Public Commitment, and I know I spoke to the publicly commitment members about this back in March of 90 but, I still think it, and that is that the Public Commitment itself even though the concept was, well you need time to discern whether youre really going to stay and we need sort of a core of people to identify the long term members and so forth; what gradually happened was you had to decide well, whos going to make a public commitment? Then youve got from the Sword of the Spirit criteria for making public commitment. And then you were measuring people on their criteria and pretty soon, there it was again, this sort of practical elitism where Im not really a member of the community unless I get approved to be publicly committed. (1:06:33) Or Im not fully there. Im something, Im something LESS. Even with statements weve made over the years about hey theres no pressure to be publicly committed if youre here a long time thats fine, keep discerning. (Practical Elitism) On a practical level I heard from enough people who said I experienced it as being, you know, not quite THERE, if I wasnt publicly committed. So theres probably more areas but, well, the Training Program would be another one. You know, this goes back again to 1980, or 81? But we only did one of these but the process for it, again, sorta belied this practical exclusion of people when youd say, um, and I know this is the point where we were at as a community, we were saying you know it seems like the publicly committed people need to be challenged. They feel like nothing knews been given them for awhile and so forth, so when Randy [Cirner] talked about this training program from the Word of God we said yeah well maybe thats it, maybe that would be the thing, the next thing that could challenge us. But then we started to get into the process and we saw what was involved in inviting people to a Training Program, and it was the same sort of thing, like the Public Commitment: like, you had to end up evaluating people, in their readiness; thats the way we thought about it as evaluating their readiness.

Page 16 of 21 But people experienced it as being evaluated personally. So if I didnt get invited to the training program then I guess I am not seen as the most radical or the most whatever. So by all this I am simply saying I think there was this PRACTICAL experience that people had of elitist tendencies and exclusion and selection and everything that I never would have intended but I know hurt people. (1:08:39) (Failure and Weakness in Members) The last thing on this area would be sort of an unwritten, unspoken, lack of tolerance or low tolerance for failure and weakness. Because there was so much on the other side, what I mean is there was so much affirmation for strength and ability and gift and everything, even if you DIDNT say anything about weakness, implicitly we felt, many people felt, well I guess you sorta, the weaknesses [went?] under the rug, where you dont talk about those except with certain people you can absolutely trust. So I believe this whole idea thats been talked about the lack of compassion for weakness and everything, at least from my part, it wasnt so much a lack of compassion, in fact that got me in more trouble than anything, I mean I had compassion for everybodys situation on all sides of the fence, on all sides of issues and I burned myself out in the process. But I do identify this low tolerance or this kinda over emphasis on strength and growth and transformation, again because thats some of the ways I look at myself. You know I wouldnt have much tolerance for my own sins and weaknesses. Ive learned a lot about myself especially these past six months and its really been a great help to me and a great help to my relationship with Madeline and the kids. [I have arbitrarily omitted the next few minutes of this talk as it pertains mostly to Toms personal life and is not relevant to this transcription and the public posting of this document.] (1:10:18 to 1:13:25) When it comes to weakness and failure in our community I really believe that there were ways built into our way of life as well as our own personal propensities as leaders that gave people a message about their weaknesses that was not helpful and kept problems pent up and kept problems from being handled. (Bring Your Grief To God) So again I am sorry for the results of this, I am sorry for the effects it may have had on those here or those in the community that are not here. For many of these things the best thing I can do is to bring my grief to God and join my sorrow with his so that its not wasted sorrow. There is that book that my mother gave me years ago that I never read, DONT WASTE YOUR SORROWS, and I thumbed through it, picked out a couple pearls of wisdom and never saw it again, But I hope that the sorrow that I have experienced in seeing some of these things, and seeing the hurt that its caused people, would not be wasted sorrow but would be the kind that would be joined to the Lords and bring about His Plan more fully. (This is What I Have Been Given To Do)

Page 17 of 21 I guess for all of us, everyone of us is going to have expectations about what the right thing to do, whats gonna change things or whats going to reconcile things, whats going to heal things, and I have my own set just like you. But the underlying thing of it all, the foundational think I have come to at least up to this point- is the deepest realization I have ever had in my life, that human effort, and human expectations, and human solutions, fall so far short of the Wisdom of God, the Understanding of God, the Vision of God, that I am going to stop trying to come to some conclusions about the best alternatives or even mediocre alternatives. I am going to do just the thing set before me and let God do the rest, and let Him put the priorities back in order, let Him rebuild the community, and hopefully not have to go around this mountain too many times. I am sure aware that through weakness and sin we could go around the mountain many times before we learn but Im praying that during this time that, this whole process including all thats gone on with the Visitation and all that went on before that in the prior months, that as a community were learning and changing. So whatever I have offered that can be of help, I am grateful for, whatever Ive not done, whatever is lacking or missing here, Im sorry, this is what I believe and what Ive been given to do. Maybe the Lord will show me more as time goes on. (1:17:13) [applause followed by questions] Commenter: [Can we reach out to former members who were seen as rebels and/or feel ostracized or blamed for bringing disunity to the Community?] Tom: I know that I have not called people rebels or said they were contributing to the disunity of the Community. In fact I took a lot of heat for doing the opposite. I know I did not satisfy a lot of people with my responses. But my commitment all along was to stand in the gap, I always pictured myself in that way, I know that what this person is telling me is valid, I may not have the same conclusions they have but they have to be listened to, this person over here doesnt think anything they are saying is valid, and sees it as attacking their security and stability, If I can hang in there long enough and tell this person to be patient, tell this person you need to listen, somethings going to happen eventually. And that is what I felt I was attempting to do. What I saw in the end was that [his efforts] certainly was inadequate, that it failed, that it didnt, and people needed to, at the point where they felt Im not being heard enough or its taking too long, they had to make a decision on whether they should continue or not and I had to let them make that decision, and I know some of them interpreted that as ignoring them or whatever, cutting out, but I know that I certainly cant say that I repent for calling someone rebel because I didnt. [Member repents for putting so much on the leaders, expecting so much from them, setting them up for a fall, repents for allowing you or enabling you There is a two way responsibility here, not just the leaders.] Tom: Thanks. [Same Member likes facts, wants facts. Says that all the allegations were true except for the alleged financial improprieties but yet there werent any facts. Its hard for me to know, that the actual facts

Page 18 of 21 involved, brought about the conclusions that the allegations were valid. I just dont know what was accomplished by the review process, and thats my question] Tom: I can say one thing, I mean I wasnt responsible for the process, didnt have the ins and outs of it so I obviously cant answer them or am competent to answer. But I think one thing clearly that the Bishop had on his mind was the fact that people came to him in his Diocese that he was responsible for, with these complaints and with these allegations and with these reports of hurt, and felt like they werent getting the hearing they needed and we werent responding adequately and they had to go to him to oversee it, and so I think part of his motivation was to be able to say back to them, in our reading of things, your experience was valid. Youre not dreaming on some of these things, they did happen etc etc. so that he could respond to them and not say gee I dont know if it happened or not, we could initiate a process that could enable a response of some sort. [Member: I guess I have difficulty understanding why it was said to the world. Everybody knew about it, it was EVERYWHERE. I dont know what conclusions can be drawn from it except that there were big problems.] Monsignor Foys: This is going to sound defensive only because it is [laughter throughout the room]. We never meant to say it to the world. You have to keep remembering that. We neverI mean the Diocesenever meant to say it to the world. And if we had our way it never would have been said to the world. It would have been contained here in our community, in the Diocese of Steubenville. So that was never our, to say, well, we got a great story here lets expose this community. It didnt do a whole lot for our image either you know. Commenter: looking back over the whole process, people who were in leadership people who were making decisions, the basic indictment of the whole community over certain things, two different things Ive been wondering is, investigatively, was there a smaller group of people more responsible for the abuses? Yes we had a pastoral system structure that lent itself to the abuses, yes intentions were good but then could it have depended on the pastoral leader you had? Can the abuses and certain decisions be traced back to maybe a handful of people who were the main culprits in bringing about the abuses? And are those people identified? If we are going to make a new community and develop a new leadership, who are those people who should not BE in leadership? For 12 years if you talked about other people and their lives, didnt any pastoral leader, didnt anybody say my god we shouldnt be talking about people like this. This is confession stuff! And if you didnt put a stop to it is there somebody who convinced you that you were still right to be talking about people? Tom: What I was saying earlier that the pastoral system had a structure, had a pastoral chain that gave too much opportunity to discuss peoples lives, I wasnt saying that everytime everybody got together they were, there was wrongdoing, that every discussion was violating someones conscience or something, I wasnt saying that at all, I was saying that it was structured in such a way that in order to report back on how you were carrying out your responsibilities, there were ways in which you just talked about the details of peoples lives unnecessarily. In the context of that, the other thing you talked about, individuals may have been more responsible for abuses or for violations and things like that. But

Page 19 of 21 no one sat around blindly going through this process not realizing what was, that something was going on. What I would say about this area is what I would say about many areas: when initial things come to you you got three to four hundred people- when initial things come to you, even if some of the things are very serious, if its only coming up once or twice or its coming up in an isolated instance, your first response my first response- was lets handle that individuals circumstance, not jumping to a conclusion that this is probably something thats out there elsewhere, Im going to start running it down. It was only after there was more of it that I would get more concerned. So um yeah, if there were isolated, over the months, if there were individuals coming to me saying this happened to me and it shouldnt have happened and I would say yes right it shouldnt have happened, lets see what we can do about it, to me that would have been an individual instance that wouldnt have required any more attention. Thats about the best I can do on the last part. I certainly have I mean if I were contributing to the discussion, I would have opinions on people who did a good job in leadership and people who didnt. Now I dont know where my input would come in, and I know it wouldnt be all inclusive, there would be things that come up about the Visitation. Commenter: Did the committee; is there anything in that big report that was done for the Visitation? Monsignor Foys: Yes one of the reasons that the report isnt made public is that names are mentioned. When the community uh, I would think as the community is going through its restructuring process, if they ask us for specifics, we would be willing to set down with them, as the community restructures, we didnt want to dump this on everybody right away and indict somebody but we would be more than willing to work with the leadership of the community during restructuring to address your specific concerns. Commenter: Msgr. Foys before you sit down I would like to clarify that bottom line. In other words if we come to you and we say we have this list of people wed like to put in leadership, youre going to say to us well you know we had problems with that person in the past. You might want to re-think this one. Is that what I am hearing? Msgr. Foys: (groaningly) Yes. Commenter: Tom I just want to thank you for doing this. Its important to me to hear the things you are saying. I feel the same as ____, I think in some ways we are all responsible, and we all let the system get too far. The question I have though is about this big word going around: dysfunctional. Ive heard it used as far as a lot of people who had problems with the community in the first place. Ive also heard it said that the whole system is dysfunctional. I think some of the things were addressed in the letter Keith [Fournier] sent out. The way I feel is that I really dont know any families that arent dysfunctional. [laughter from the crowd] My question is, what is your feeling about dysfunctional, do you think there was a dysfunctionalism in the system? Tom: Well you know terminology has become a huge thing in this whole process and again, Ive learned a lot about it. One of the things Im learning when people use a term is to ask them what they mean. [cites a personal example]. So when you talk about dysfunctional I think there are a lot of different

Page 20 of 21 people who mean a lot of different things by it. One of the things I had difficulty with early on, was that some people were saying to me, well the Sword of the Spirit is dysfunctional and all the leaders in it were formed in it so youre all dysfunctional, therefore, everybodys out. The conclusion was, youre not trust worthy you cant help me anymore, you cant be a leader because youre you know And I really felt, that really sorta violated my individual person, Im a person in this, sure I am open to seeing that I might have some co-dependent patterns in all of it that really contributed, but to just write me off because of this term, didnt seem right. So Ive been working more and more on understanding it, and talking to people about what they mean. Just the other day I pulled out the dictionary before some of the current trends in the literature were out, this was a dictionary from 1980, and it said: dysfunction impaired or incomplete function. And I thought yeah, I can apply that, I could say that in my family, growing up, there was some impaired function. There were some things that were incomplete about it, and I suffered because of it. So in that way, yeah, I think Ive got a dysfunctional family setting. But does that mean, ok, my family was dysfunctional, theyre sick, I dont relate to them anymore. NO! And no therapist would say well now that you realize you were in a setting that had dysfunction in it, what you need to do is go after those people until they say, until they repent for every way they hurt you. They [therapists] wont tell you that. Theyll say deal with you! So I believe that, when you use the terms about the Sword of the Spirit, or try to apply them, to the extent they help you understand what was wrong, if it helps you, if you say, I can use this term dysfunctional and apply it to the Sword of the Spirit and it helps me understand what went wrong, then I think its valid, and I think you can use it. If it leads you to say, therefore Im a victim everybody else is the cause, then I think its a misuse of it. You asked me specifically: do I think the things that I mentioned describe a dysfunctional situation. Certainly, given the definition that I gave about it impaired and incomplete- yes. I think there were definitely ways in which the pastoral structure specifically, and other things, were inadequate, harmful, and in that sense were dysfunctional and hurt people. Does that mean that EVERYTHING that happened in the Sword of the Spirit can be compared to a dysfunctional family and all the dynamics are the same, that you gotta find someone in the Sword of the Spirit that was the abuser, no, I dont think that works, personally it doesnt work for me. Commenter: Appreciates everything you said tonight. Tom has been the persons coordinator for 12 years, feels like things said tonight have helped them piece together what has happened. Question to Msgr.gr Foys as well: the people who have left the community, how were they invited here tonight? Do you think there is a better way that reconciliation can take place? For the people here this has been really great. Msgr. Foys: How were they invited? I dont know. Tom: Thats my responsibility. When the [Servants of Christ the King] Council said I could call a meeting, on my terms and so forth, but not at a Gathering, I only had two choices: call everyone up or put into the bulletin and let it get around through the grapevine, so thats what I did, I put into the bulletin and figured that anybody who would want to come would come, or if they couldnt come, they would get the tape. But I also want to say, you may have thought it was good, maybe somebody else didnt, or somebody else felt that there were a lot of things that werent touched. So you cant assume that one

Page 21 of 21 presentation by one coordinator handles a lot of issues. So I still prefer to see this as one piece of an ongoing thing. I think it actually hurts the situation to set up something too much, to be thee reconciliation, cause I dont think its going to work that way. You could say that all the former coordinators are going to have a meeting and all talk about everything, and that still could be very inadequate. So I think we, rather than set up this is going to be a certain reconciliation meeting or this is going to accomplish something, Id rather see it as this is one piece and, to the extent that it helps, it helps. Same Commenter: I dont see why it was left up to you to contact former members Tom: Probably Joe or Don, someone whos here from the [Servants of Christ the King] Council could say something. Don: [Explains if they had set this meeting up for Tom, then anyone in the community could have said they want to do the same thing. And they would end up coordinating the meetings anytime someone wanted a meeting.] Commenter: When Fr Mike would talk to us about the Sword of the Spirit I was drawing pictures on my notebook. I didnt know what he was talking about but I trusted him, and I trusted that he knew what he was talking about. And I am real mad at myself. I am mad at myself for not being a responsible person; to know what he [Fr Scanlan] was talking about, till it came to this, even up to last year. Msgr. Foys: One last question. Commenter: I felt funny when you were saying Please forgive me for this and we werent responding, and Id like to say that you are forgiven. [Extended Applause] Tom: Thank you. Commenter: I want to refer back to your comment about how you stood in the gap, and you ended that by saying it was totally inadequate, and I want to tell you it was NOT totally inadequate, that you stuck with us whether we agree with you, whether we see things the way you did, and whatever, you stuck with us, youre standing there tonight, whether any of us stay or any of us go, you were there, and it is greatly appreciated and it was not inadequate. [more extended applause] Msgr. Foys: Lets close by praising God. (1:43:55) [End]