Former priest to serve life for 1960 murder in Texas

December 13, 2017 CNA Daily News News Briefs 2 Print

Brownsville, Texas, Dec 13, 2017 / 05:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Nearly 60 years after Irene Garza disappeared after going to confession in her Texas hometown, the last person who saw her – who was a priest at the time – has been convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

John Feit, an 85-year-old former priest has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Garza on Holy Saturday, April 16, 1960.

Irene Garza was a 25-year-old schoolteacher, former beauty queen, and figure in the McAllen Tex. Catholic and Mexican-American communities. Friends and neighbors remember her as a young woman of faith.

“Remember the last time we talked, I told you I was afraid of death?” Garza wrote to her friend mere days before her death. The letter was later published by Texas Monthly. “Well I think I’m cured. You see, I’ve been going to communion and Mass daily and you can’t imagine the courage and faith and happiness it has given me.”

Six days later, Garza went to go to confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church before Easter services. She never returned. Her body was discovered days later in a ditch.

Later, police determined that she had been raped, physically restrained, and beaten for several days before suffocating to death.

Feit, who was a 27-years-old visiting priest at the time, was a main suspect early on in the case: he was the priest who heard Garza’s confession, and his portable slide viewer was found alongside Garza’s body.

Suspicion grew after Feit was charged and pled “no contest” to assaulting and the attempted rape another young woman, Maria Guerra. Guerra was attacked while she was praying at another church in a nearby Texas town only three weeks before Garza’s death.

However, Feit was not charged with Garza’s murder until over five decades later.

Feit left the priesthood in 1972, and afterwards married and worked for the St. Vincent de Paul charity in Phoenix.

After Feit left the priesthood, two priests told the authorities of their suspicions that Feit murdered Garza, with one claiming the priest had scratches on his face after Garza’s disappearance, and another saying that Feit told the priest that he had murdered a young woman, and offered details on how he committed the crime. At the time, however, the then-priest (who himself also left the priesthood) did not know the crime Feit described was Garza’s murder.

After the priests’ statements to authorities in the 2000s, the case was re-opened in 2015. Feit was arrested and charged in 2016, and the trial began Nov. 28, 2017 after several setbacks. He was sentenced Dec. 8.

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The genius of woman: Redefining the strong, independent woman

July 27, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Denver, Colo., Jul 27, 2018 / 04:00 pm (CNA).-  Today CNA says farewell to our summer intern, Lizzy Joslyn. In her final week at CNA this summer, Lizzy offered “The Genius of Woman,” a four-part series of interviews and profiles, based on Pope St. John Paul II’s “Letter to Women,” and interviews with seven Catholic women from very different walks of life. Today, she offers her own commentary on the “feminine genius.”

As a young woman immersed in popular culture, especially via social media, I have heard–and often joined–the battle cry for women to be “strong” and “independent.”

Taken at face value, these are great qualities to possess. Of course, every woman–every person–should strive to be strong and independent.

But what exactly do those words mean in the context of some modern feminist viewpoints? I’d like to pinpoint the specific shade of each word as it applies to culture’s tagline of the “strong, independent woman,” then re-adjust the hue of their meanings to their purest and most original form–what it means to be a “strong, independent women” according to the Church.

There are women who think that being strong in the world has to mean hiding her femininity, lest she be judged by the world to appear weak or soft. And women sometimes do face social pressures that lead us to feel nearly obliged to avoid any semblance of gentleness or emotional warmth.

 It’s true, of course, that women have spent years battling glass ceilings, sexual violence and lacking representation in many spheres, and these battles rightfully continue. It’s true that women have to be prepared for those battles.

Despite this, women, I have discovered that we do not have to hide or throw away the warm, gentle side of our nature–or any part of our nature, for that matter. In fact, we shouldn’t.

Strength, in God’s eyes, means having the courage to embrace our womanly qualities, not to stifle them. We shouldn’t have to be embarrassed for our keen social skills and sensitivity to others’ emotions. We shouldn’t have to conceal our desire to care for others or our instinct to nurture. To grow the world’s appreciation for what women are: this is the true battle, the one worth fighting.

Independence, for women, is sometimes attached to the idea of “not needing” men, specifically in the context of romantic relationships. There is actually some truth to this. Women should not hold the concept of marriage as the ultimate goal in life, and neither should men. God does not call every woman and man to marriage.

But the idea of independence is most meaningful in the sense that women should focus on the unique path God is creating for them.

Though women’s lives do not hinge on men (or vice versa), they do, and should, depend on each other to bring their respective strengths to the world’s needs. This is the beauty of complementarity that John Paul II wrote about.

While I acknowledge that each woman has a different personality and a different set of gifts, I argue that these differences are varying reflections of the feminine genius. Some women may be more or less emotional or inclined to nurture than others. Women are called to work in various areas of the workforce; some are called to be mothers, some to both. Some women are more soft-spoken and gentle, others, perhaps, more vocal and audacious.

But no woman lacks the feminine genius, and no woman escapes its serious responsibilities, however it manifests itself in each woman’s highly specific calling. God made women different from men for a reason, and it is this we must embrace in order to live the feminine genius to its fullest.

So, my fellow sisters in Christ, let’s be strong in God’s plan for us, and independent on our search for his purpose for our lives.

 

 

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2 Comments

  1. Did this ex-priest break the seal of the confessional when he was a witness in
    Fe;t’s trial?
    ”
    SEAL OF THE CONFESSIONAL

    At trial, Dale Tacheny, a tax adviser in Oklahoma City who had been a priest at a Missouri monastery where Feit had applied to live in 1963, said that Feit had confessed to him that he had murdered a young woman. Tacheny said it wasn’t until years later that he learned that the woman Feit had described was Garza.

    Reply

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