EMAIL FROM CATHOLIC MOTHER IN ALASKA:

“Hello Bishop Pat,

I was surprised to find such detail regarding Glenstal Abbey, on your blog. I wonder if you might assist or offer guidance on background of a priest who fled his vows & put up a remote cabin in our figurative backyard ~ was it due to concerns in Ireland?

Three years ago we received a former monk named Fr Joseph McGilloway as pastor to an outpost church in rural Alaska. He was a political leader of Fine Gael, then left politics for the monastery – Glenstal Abbey, where he served as a teacher in the boys’ school.

We were contacted early this summer by a retired local detective named Deven Cunningham, who stated he was investigating Fr Joseph. He had yet to meet the priest but referenced sexual exploitation, grooming and predation being his specialty. He implied that he was an expert polygraph administrator and I inferred that he would be testing Father Joseph.

The questioning was fairly explicit and leads me to believe they have concerns over teen boys. We do know his online profiles (now set to ‘private’) were filled with homoerotic vulgarities, and he recommended salacious shows such as Game of Thrones to the parish youth.

I now feel foolish for agreeing to be interviewed over the phone. I should have inquired for clarity over who hired him — it was the archdiocese, and our chancellor has conveniently declined to share even a summary of the report. I’m now complicit in a cleanup job at the request of “safe environment” hacks, is the sense I get. I’d ultimately like to find out if he’s been ” hacks, is the sense I get. I’d ultimately like to find out if he’s been sent away from his home country because of any allegations.

Can you assist, or offer me guidance on how to proceed? Our Bishop is Andrew Bellisario, and Fr Joseph was under Mark Patrick Hederman, OSB –  I’m unsure who was in charge of his abbey previously.

I really appreciate the time and detail put into your site. The more I read, the more convicted I am that we don’t want castoff priests (or Bishops) sent our way ever again. I am an Alaskan of 42 years and hope to raise my family in the One True Faith 💔. Please accept my gratitude for any wisdom or networking ideas you might offer.

Sincerely,

Xxxxxxx Xxxxxx. Alaska

PS

The attached screenshot of the response I received after repeatedly requesting a summary of the report…. I want to challenge this chancery to exonerate him on paper…. is there nowhere they’re accountable, like little kings”?

Singing Irish monk returns to Alaska seeking to call it home

• PATRICIA COLL FREEMAN
• ALASKA NEWS
• MAY 2014

After spending a sabbatical here in 2009, Benedictine Father Joseph McGilloway of Ireland has returned to Alaska hoping to make the Far North home.

With the permission of his abbot of Glendal Abbey in Limerick and Archbishop Roger Schwietz of Anchorage, the 48-year-old monk and priest arrived back in Alaska on March 5 “to see if I’m going to stay,” he told the Catholic Anchor in an interview. If a 12-month parish assignment and discernment period goes well, Father McGilloway is slated to be incardinated in the Archdiocese of Anchorage. That means he would no longer be a Benedictine monk but a diocesan priest permanently attached to the archdiocese.

During his stay, Father McGilloway is serving as parochial vicar at Holy Cross Church. There he is learning everything from managing church finances and building maintenance to shepherding the myriad lay groups at work in the parish. Through this period, Sister Loretta Luecke will continue to serve as parish administrator.

The energetic Father McGilloway — who has spent most of his monastic life as an administrator and educator in his abbey’s boarding school — observed that “it’s going to be a big learning curve for me.” But he said, “I’ve got off to a really good start, so from my point of view at least, it’s going really, really, really well.”

To be sure, this is a venture Father McGilloway is embracing with vigor because he views it as an important next step in his life’s work.

“The goal of a vocation is to move towards God, and hopefully bring people with you on the journey,” he said. “So in the sense of what I want to do with my life as a priest, that doesn’t change because I’m in a new place.”

But Father McGilloway believes serving in Alaska, in particular, is the best way for him to fulfill his mission.

“There’s only so much time we’re given to do the best we have with,” Father McGilloway said. “I wanted to be in a place that I personally felt was good for me at where I’m at in my life at this time, as well as that I could bring something of value to where I’m going.”

Discovering the Last Frontier and its people during his sabbatical in 2009 was “fundamental” to his decision to return, he said. During his six-month stay, he served at parishes in Talkeetna, Trapper Creek, Dutch Harbor and Eagle River.

“I wouldn’t have gone home if I could have worked out the paperwork and everything from here,” he added.

“I was really so taken by working here,” Father McGilloway continued. “It’s challenging to work in Alaska, and that’s not got to do with the climate or anything like that at all. It’s challenging because the church is an interesting place to be.”

He noted Alaskan Catholics’ “great sense of community.” That’s an “aspect of church here I find very, very appealing, and a very positive way to live out that call to be Christian,” he explained.

In addition, he sees a great, spiritual “positive need” and a “genuine openness” among Catholics here that causes him to believe he “can be a part of solving the puzzle.”

He said he felt “I wasn’t just going to do something, but I was going to be useful somewhere…that I have a sense of purpose in what I’m doing and that the church wants you to be involved. It’s not just that you’re there as a kind of an ornament, but that there’s actually a need for you.”

At his first coming to Alaska, Father McGilloway said he was “awestruck” by the natural beauty of the state, but the kindness of local Catholics — especially at Holy Cross, in the chancery and among his fellow priests — has moved him the most.

“That’s always impressive when people make you feel welcome and make you feel at home and look out for you like family the way Christians are supposed to do,” he said. “That’s always appealing…and always hugely encouraging.”

Father McGilloway is a great music lover.

“Anything to do with music interests me,” he noted with enthusiasm. In fact, while in the monastery, Father McGilloway produced a music CD titled “Sanctuary” featuring a variety of genres from Irish musicians including Grammy award-nominated Moya Brennan, sister to Celtic singer Enya. In 2008, the CD raised $30,000 for charities helping victims of domestic abuse.
Previously a cantor for his abbey, Father McGilloway would like to share some monastic musical traditions with parishioners of Holy Cross. In conjunction with the parish’s music department, he said, “We’re looking at, maybe over a period of time, developing some Gregorian chant in part of our liturgy so that the congregation would get used to the parts that would be quite common.” Father McGilloway noted that most people “have it [chant] at the back of their mind even if they’re not familiar with it.”

For the past few years, Father McGilloway’s favorite pastime has been sacred harp singing — of four-part hymns and anthems — which is considered the oldest form of modern American music.

“It’s really a get-together for people who like to sing,” Father McGilloway observed. There are no instruments in sacred harp; the term “sacred harp” refers to the human voice “which is the harp that God gave us,” he explained in his own engaging Irish brogue.

Father McGilloway entered the Benedictine Order on Jan. 17, 1994. He was ordained a priest on Aug. 9, 2003. Before becoming a monk, he worked in a bar, a retail clothing store and a liquor store, and he sat on the governing board of Fine Gael, now the biggest political party in Ireland.

To learn more about Father McGilloway and see a video of sacred harp singing, go to holycrossalaska.net and click on “Father’s Corner.”

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PAT SAYS

QUESTIONS FOR COFFEY, HEDERMAN AND GLENSTAL

1. Why did Father Joseph McGilloway leave Glenstal?

2. Did he leave voluntarily or was he asked to go?

3. Was the matter concerning Fr McGilloway reviewed by the Garda or TUSLA?

4. Did Abbot Hederman give Fr McGilloway a reference or recommendation to the Archbishop of Anchorage?

5. Is it true that the Archbishop of Anchorage had a private detective investigate Fr McGilloway?

6. Why is the report of this investigation being hidden from Anchorage Catholics?

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