Upstaging the Vatican
The priest at Holy Family Catholic Church in Edinburg, Texas, was arrested this weekend. He was caught on tape drilling holes in the tires of one of his former parishioners who went to the bishop to ask for help after Father Eusebio Martinez wanted to kiss him on the mouth.
Martin Villanueva says he left Holy Family and went to another church.
“I wrote a letter to the bishop,” Villanueva said. “It made me feel sad because he told me it wouldn’t be right for him to meet with me. Then he tells me only the authorities that can fix this situation. The church is very strong with lawyers so that’s why I decided to go to the media.
Next thing he knew, his tires kept getting drill holes. A man of modest means, Villanueva finally set up a camera to catch whoever was doing it. And there ya go, the priest.
I guess he wanted to drill Villanueve one way or the other.
And in Houston, there’s more.
A well-known Catholic teacher at St. Thomas High School has resigned after allegations of misconduct. Father Jack Hanna was been with the all-boys school since 1981.
“He has acknowledged that he behaved inappropriately and will be receiving extensive residential treatment at the facility. He has expressed deep regret for any harm caused by his behavior,” the statement said in part.
Since 1981? That’s 32 years and nobody saw nothin’? No smoke signals?
Sadly, in the pantheon of misdeeds by Catholic priests this one ranks in the lower half. I doubt this kind of behavior will be good enough to receive recognition by the Vatican.
1I round number, the kat-lick church has had to pony-up $3 Trillion in law suit settlements. Might be time to pass the hat, a big hat, again.
2The bishop said, “it wouldn’t be right for him to meet” with the victim? That’s a double attack on the victim by a church that is supposedly trying to clean up its house. At least the bishop told him to go to the authorities. Yay that he caught the priest vandalizing his car. Good job on setting up the camera.
3I think the one thing that has been learned is that victims should go to the police and let the bishop find out when it comes out in the paper.
4I just hope the new Pope will use his new powers to start kicking some a**. That secret report Pope Benny left for the new guy is supposed to be a doozy!
5Exactly WHY would it not be right for the parishioner to meet with the bishop? I’m not a Catholic so I don’t understand this.
6I hope the school is investigated too.
NYS has mandated reporting and if that situation occurred, here and any school personnel knew about what was going on and failed to report it, they can be fined and/or jailed.
So glad I left the church. I was a school nurse for a long time and sex abuse is one of the cruelest things an adult can do to a child.
7Hou Chron alleged that mis-behavior not w a student? We’ll see. Also @Marge, if any of the other Catholics out there can explain Bishop Joe, I’d be grateful too! His stock just plummeted here, for sure!
8Looks like “thou shalt not commit passive-agressive acts of minor property damage” didn’t make it into the top ten, commandments-wise.
9Not a laughing matter I know but Juanita, you made me pee in pants with “I guess he wanted to drill Villanueva one way or the other.”!
10Another upstanding priest with a different kind of drill…………………how quaint.
11As a recovering Catholic (much better now, thanks for asking!) these stories make me wonder why anyone would want to continue to support that organization? If any other club, group, or business had these kinds of systemic pedophelia and abuse issues going back for hundreds of years, people would be up in arms to punish the guilty, and no rational person would want anything to do with that club, group, or business.
Yet the world waits at the Vatican’s gate to see who the new Poohbah is going to be.
“Meet the new boss- Same as the old boss”…(and we all get fooled again)
12The bishop should be indicted.
13@Squatio, eggggggsactly! Makes me shudder to think what that super secret letter says.
14JESUS, MARY, AND JOSEPH! … That expletive still OK?
15Sorry, but there’s more than a whiff of homophobia about the story from Edinburg, and perhaps anti-clericalism is clouding our judgement. IF Rev. Martinez said he wanted to kiss a man on the mouth, so what? Gay men … and those perceived to be gay… are still terrorized in small towns. Even if Fr. Martinez made an overture towards Mr. Villanueva, they’re both adults and, not having done anything to Mr. Villanueva that would even come close to inappropriate ACTS under Church law, going to the Bishop sounds a lot more like trying to terrorize the priest, or at least discredit him… smacks of “gay panic” to me.
The Bishop suggesting Mr. Villanueva and Rev. Martinez not contact each other makes perfect sense, with Martinez not doing anything that would require the Bishop’s intervention, and Villanueva apparently running around town spreading allegations about the priest. I can easily see how that escalated into some pretty stupid and criminal acts.
16I’m all for the “nun on the bus” for Pope. Anyone with me on this?
17Dear Carlo, w enthusiasm! And Edinburgh isn’t in my diocese, so I can continue to hope that if Bishop Joe is confronted w something like this he will do the RIGHT thing, not what this other bishop decided to do! @ richmx2, priests are not supposed to be running around acting upon their carnal urges like the rest of us do. The pedophiliac urges are particularly appalling because they result in CRIMES! Little children and older ones too are maimed by thesecdestructive and criminal acts. But urges to pursue ANY other person, however society at large views them, are not meant to be acted upon. Ixnay on the exsay, without exception. It’s one of the more difficult and incomprehensible things about the priesthood. @ Squatio, I’m still trying to be part of the mystical Body of Christ. Only semi-sane reason to remain Catholic. Glad you got better though!
18Carlo ~ The ‘nun on the bus’ would make a great pope, but scare the b-jesu out of the cardinals & bishops as well as most priests I’ve ever known.
Btw… I ran that vid 2x & looked carefully at the priest. Still wondering what the priest saw in Villanueva that he could possibly be attracted to. Being a straight woman, I’m about as handicapped as priests are when it comes to their understanding women. Also wondering if the cops found a cap like that in the priest’s possession when they arrested him. Telling evidence would help corroborate video evidence.
19The media’s love affair with the Vatican & coverage of the conclave is a testament to the power of the Vatican Press Office. Happy to have left the Church as a young mother in mid-60’s just over their birth control stance & how oblivious the priests were to the plight of poor parishioners. Later realized what birth control meant to the church in terms of money. Funny, the US media is finally just getting around to exposing the church’s financial empire for what it is.
20@ Moms Hugs aka Eve: “What birth control meant to the church in terms of money” ? Was the RCC anticipating a drop in big donations if they accepted their own committee’s recommendation to get behind birth control? Tell me more! Or provide a link, please?
/resume lurking and loving this professional political organization
21Birth control=fewer Catholics=fewer donations.
22WeeMaryanne: You got it right. In 2 generations, Catholic families went from an average of 8 kids who had an average of 5 kids, to my generation with an average of 2 kids. The average total adults in a Catholic family donating to the church dropped from 50 [2+8+(8*5)] to 17 [2+5+(5*2)] after the pill arrived in 1964. The impact of family members who have left the church because of BC ban magnifies the results.
My parents had 6 kids & 16 grandkids, but only 4 out of the total of 22 are practicing Catholics. Using $100 as today’s average monthly donation of Catholic adults, the lost revenue annually from just one family is $21,600 (18 x $1200) or $216,000 in a decade if nothing changes.
The Catholic Church’s financial statisticians would have looked at this impact in just the USA of:
1 million families = $216,000,000,000 and
10 million families = $2,160,000,000,000.
$2.16 TRILLION is a heckuva lot of money!!
Unfortunately, at the same time families were having fewer kids & therefore higher disposable income, which could have translated into increased donations, the Vatican then doubled down on the BC ban causing those fewer kids to turn away from the church as adults.
Add financial settlements from decades of child sex abuse, which are the tip of this iceberg, and you begin to understand why the church faces grave financial troubles today.
See: MomsHugs.blogspot.com
23The most amazing thing is in the original newspaper column to which you have linked. The Comments section appears to be stuffed full of people who are trying to point the blame at Martin Villanueva instead of the priest accused of vandalism. Some people are completely warped down there.
24Sorry, JJ, this answer is l-o-n-g! Hope that’s okay.
WeeMaryanne: You got it right. In 2 generations, Catholic families went from an average of 8 kids who had an average of 5 kids, to my generation with an average of 2 kids. The average total adults in a Catholic family donating to the church dropped from 50 [2+8+(8*5)] to 17 [2+5+(5*2)] after the pill arrived in 1964. The impact of family members who have left the church because of BC ban magnifies the results.
My parents had 6 kids & 16 grandkids, but only 4 out of the total of 22 are practicing Catholics. Using $100 as today’s average monthly donation of Catholic adults, the lost revenue annually from just one family is $21,600 (18 x $1200) or $216,000 in a decade if nothing changes.
The Catholic Church’s financial statisticians would have looked at this impact in just the USA of:
1 million families = $216,000,000,000 and
10 million families = $2,160,000,000,000.
$2.16 TRILLION is a heckuva lot of money!!
Unfortunately, at the same time families were having fewer kids & therefore higher disposable income, which could have translated into increased donations, the Vatican then doubled down on the BC ban causing those fewer kids to turn away from the church as adults.
Add financial settlements from decades of child sex abuse, which are the tip of this iceberg, and you begin to understand why the church faces grave financial troubles today.
See: MomsHugs.blogspot.com
25Oops… JJ, can you please remove that 2nd one? Don’t know how that happened. Thank you!
26@AggielandLiz…you write “priests are not supposed to be running around acting upon their carnal urges like the rest of us do. The pedophiliac urges are particularly appalling because they result in CRIMES!”
How does pedophilia relate to the allegations by Villanueva against Martinez? They’re both adults (and an expressed wish is not “acting upon” anything… unless, maybe, you’re of the “lust in my heart” frame of mind). And, as it is, this is just “he-said, he-said” gossip-mongering that escalated.
No one is defending Fr. Hanna. Other than like Fr. Martinez both are Roman Catholic clerics in the state of Texas, the two incidents are separate events. Making the assumption that Mr. Martinez is a pedophile because someone claimed he said something that might be construed as suggesting he is gay is to say “gay = pedophile” … and, yes, that is extremely homophobic.
27Well, as a recovered Catholic, my Catholic Mom, now 83 yro had FIVE kids – in turn, her FIVE kids gave her 4 grandkids – WE believe in birth control~and CHOICE, thanks, Mom – her joke is that birth control pills were invented 8 years too late~
28How funny, Eykis… Mom used that same joke when she told all her daughters to get on that pill! All but one of us had 2 kids & that 1 exception has 6 so she obviously didn’t get the joke. 😉
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