For excommunicated group, Bishop Conley discusses path to unity

February 1, 2018 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

Lincoln, Neb., Feb 1, 2018 / 04:38 pm (CNA).- Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Neb. is in talks with local members of the dissenting Catholic group Call to Action to lift a two-decade-old excommunication if they sincerely profess the Catholic faith.

“Bishop Conley is not trying to be soft on dissent with in the Church,” clarified Father Nicholas Kipper, a spokesperson for the Lincoln diocese.

He noted that the bishop “has serious reservations against positions held by Call to Action nationally that would be in contradiction to the teachings of the Church.” However, some members may disagree with the national group on these issues, and may be in adherence with Church teaching.

“What [some of the members] wanted to do was to be in union once again with the Catholic Church,”  Fr. Kipper told CNA. “Bishop Conley, of course, wants this as well. His goal as a bishop is to bring people to the Church, thus bringing them to union with Christ.”

Call to Action took inspiration from a 1976 conference that was an initiative of the U.S. bishops. The group was eventually taken over by leaders with more extreme views who fought against Church doctrine. The national organization has backed dissenting theologians and often rejects Church teaching on women’s ordination and sexual morality, among other topics.

Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, Conley’s immediate predecessor, placed an interdict on members of the national Call to Action group and the local Nebraska chapter in an April 15, 1996 announcement. Excommunication took effect for those who persisted in membership one month later.

Several other groups fell under the excommunication: members of the pro-abortion rights groups Planned Parenthood and Catholics for Choice; Masonic groups and their affiliates; the pro-euthanasia group the Hemlock Society, now known as Compassion & Choices; members of the Society of St. Pius X and its local affiliate, Saint Michael the Archangel Chapel.

“Membership in these organizations or groups is always perilous to the Catholic Faith and most often is totally incompatible with the Catholic Faith,” Bishop Bruskewitz’s message said.

Call to Action members appealed the Lincoln diocese excommunications, but the diocese was upheld in 2006 with a ruling from Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Congregation for Bishops.

For several years, the Lincoln diocese has been in discussions with some local members of Call to Action about the possibility to returning to full union with the Church. To Fr. Kipper’s knowledge, Call to Action is the only group among those affected by the 1996 excommunication that has come forward.

Fr. Kippur stressed the importance of Catholic teaching.

“As the Church has taught, forever, and reminded in the Second Vatican Council that in matters of faith and morals the bishops speak on behalf of Christ, and the faithful are to accept and adhere to that teaching,” he said. “That remains the case.”

At the same time, the bishop wants to discuss the possibility of rescinding the excommunication “for members who are maybe not prepared to leave Call to Action, but do sincerely hold the teachings of the Catholic Church,” Fr. Kippur said. “That would mean professing the faith in the form of the Nicene Creed and professing all that the Church teaches and believes and proclaims to be revealed by God.”

He said that Bishop Conley and the diocese will have dialogue with any member of Call to Action Nebraska who would want to be in full union with the Church, not just the five members mentioned in press reports.

“This is a delicate and sensitive matter that we hope will unfold organically,” Fr. Kipper said.

J.D. Flynn, editor-in-chief of Catholic News Agency, previously served as special assistant to Bishop Conley and director of communications for the Lincoln diocese. Flynn has recused himself from coverage of this story to avoid a conflict-of-interest. He was not involved in the assigning, reporting, editing or oversight of this story.

 

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Former New Orleans priest gets 25 years on sexual assault and rape charges

July 12, 2023 Catholic News Agency 0
Stephen Sauer was formerly a Jesuit priest in the order’s Central and Southern Province. / New Orleans Television/YouTube April 8, 2019

Boston, Mass., Jul 12, 2023 / 14:15 pm (CNA).

A former Jesuit priest has pleaded guilty to sex crimes committed in and around New Orleans, in which he was charged with drugging and raping 17 adult male victims, many of whom were visiting the popular tourist area. 

Detectives also believe that there are more than 50 victims who remain unidentified.

Stephen Sauer, who reportedly left the Jesuit order by his own request in 2020, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on July 7 in front of a Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, judge. He will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life and is barred from contacting 12 of the victims for life. 

The former priest pleaded guilty to 13 counts of sexual battery, nine counts of third-degree rape, 17 counts of video voyeurism, and 16 misdemeanor charges of possessing drugs without prescriptions and possession of drug paraphernalia, the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office said in a statement July 7.

Sauer, 61, would meet his victims in the French Quarter neighborhood of New Orleans, specifically targeting intoxicated men or those who were lost and in need of help. He would drug the men, sometimes by placing narcotics in their drinks at bars.

After some of the victims passed out, Sauer would use an eyedropper to feed the men “sleep-inducing substances,” the district attorney’s statement said. 

He would then take the unconscious men to his home in Metairie and take photos and videos of them, “in various stages of undress,” with his phone, the statement said. 

Then, Sauer would molest some of the men and “pleasured himself,” the statement said. 

Sauer would drive the victims to their hotels or other locations the next morning. The investigation discovered that he shared and traded the images of his victims with others through email.

According to the statement, many of Sauer’s victims were not locals and were separated from friends or lost when Sauer offered to help them.

Sauer’s crimes were committed over two years between 2019 and 2021. 

The former priest’s LinkedIn profile says that he served as the pastor of Immaculate Conception Jesuit Church in New Orleans from 2008–2012. 

CNA inquired of the Archdiocese of New Orleans if Sauer had other positions in the area but was referred to his former Jesuit province. 

Therese Fink Meyerhoff, a spokeswoman for the Jesuits’ Central and Southern Province, confirmed that Sauer served in the province and said: “We learned through media reports that Mr. Sauer pled guilty to charges involving adult men. We encourage any person who has been harmed to notify law enforcement.”

Sauer’s LinkedIn account also says he worked as an assistant professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, a Jesuit school, from 2006 to 2008.

Records on the university’s website show that Sauer, who taught theology there, earned his bachelor’s degree at Georgetown University in 1983; his master’s degree at the University of Minnesota in 1991; his bachelor’s of sacred theology degree at Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Rome, in 1997; his licentiate in sacred theology at the Institut Catholique de Paris in 1999; and his doctorate of sacred theology from The Catholic University of America in 2007. 

According to Sauer’s LinkedIn account, he was a faculty member at the Jesuit University of San Francisco from 2013 to 2016; however, his name did not appear in search results on the school’s website.

WDSU6 reported in 2021 that Sauer served as executive director of Arc of Greater New Orleans, a nonprofit organization that serves children with intellectual disabilities, but after his December arrest that year, Sauer was no longer employed by the organization.

Authorities began investigating Sauer in June 2021 after he sent a computer hard drive to be repaired by a company in New York. 

An employee at the company discovered hundreds of images on the hard drive showing that sexual assaults had appeared to have taken place.

Authorities in New York referred the case to the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office after determining the origin of the photos.

Many of the victims were able to be identified by the detectives because Sauer photographed their driver’s licenses and other forms of identification.

When detectives searched Sauer’s home, prescription pill bottles that had the name of a sex offender in Missouri were found. 

Zolpidem, which is known as a “date rape” drug, was found as well, the district attorney’s office said. 

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