The closing of Atonement Catholic Academy has re-ignited a rift between the archdiocese of San Antonio and an independent Catholic school, which is reaching out to families and teachers affected by the school closure.Lumen Christi Academy, founded in 2024, has marketed itself from the start as an authentic successor to Atonement Academy. In a Letter to the Parents and Teachers of Atonement Catholic Academy on the Lumen Christi website, Dan Sevigny, the school's president, says,In a June 2 archdiocese statement, Superintendent of Catholic Schools Marti West encouraged families to begin the enrollment process at one of the archdiocese's 35 other schools.
“In our schools, you will find Christ at the heart of all we do — through prayer, service, and the relationships we build together,” West said in the announcement.
The archdiocese also steered families away from Lumen Christi Academy, an unaccredited K-12 school that bills itself as "an independent school in the Catholic tradition."
Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller said Lumen employs "unauthorized priests, personnel, and volunteers" that "are not safe environment certified." He also referred to a spat early last year over the use of Sanctus Ranch in Pipe Creek, about 48 miles northwest of San Antonio.
Sanctus Ranch describes itself as a private retreat and conference center that also houses the sole Lumen school. Dan Sevigny founded the ranch and is president of the school.
In January 2024, García-Siller prohibited Catholic organizations from contracting with Sanctus Ranch for any official Catholic events.
He said the Lumen school was not an approved Catholic school.
“It is unfortunate that the situation with Sanctus Ranch has devolved to this point, but Sanctus Ranch, the Spiritual Retreat Foundation, and Lumen Christi Academy cannot be allowed to misrepresent their Catholic status to the public, while soliciting and accepting donations from the people of God in the Archdiocese of San Antonio,” García-Siller wrote.
Sanctus Ranch officials defended they operations, saying in a statement that they never claimed to operate as part of the Catholic church. They called García-Siller's prohibition an abuse of ecclesiastical power.
Yesterday, my heart was heavy when I received a phone call from one of your teachers telling me that your school had made the awful decision to close entirely. As a fellow parent who once walked these same halls with my own children at Atonement, I have always prayed for that institution's success, despite the many challenges it faced. I know that for you as teachers and parents, this is an extraordinarily difficult time filled with uncertainty about the future of your children's souls and education.The problem, of course, is that the Atonement Academy had a sketchy history. Its head from 1997 to 2016 was Deacon James Orr, about whom the Archdiocese of San Antonio published credible allegations of sexual abuse in 2019, only a short time after his death. I covered these in detail in this post from 2019 here. And while many were disappointed to hear of the Atonement Academy's closing, many others, students, parents, and teachers, remembered their experiences at the school under Orr and the longtime parish pastor, Fr Christopher Phillips, as nightmarish.My letter today comes from my heart as a father who understands your struggle. I want to share with you why my family and I felt so compelled by the eternal destiny of young souls that we stepped out in faith and began Lumen Christi Academy two years ago.
Nevertheless, Fr Phillips, the parish, and the school enjoyed remarkably good press, even as Abp Garcia-Siller moved to restrict Fr Phillips's priestly faculties in 2017. Another popular conservative priest, Fr Dwight Longenecker, wrote of this at the time,
Parishioners at Our Lady of the Atonement are justifiably mystified by their archbishop’s letter. Why, they wonder, would the Archbishop remove a good, hard working and experienced priest if he has done nothing wrong?The timeline of l'affaire Orr that the archdiocese eventually published in 2019 strongly suggests that Orr's retirement in 2016 was forced, and in fact, Phillips had been enabling Orr's abuse:Is he really simply asking Phillips to “dedicate some time to reflect on some issues” or is there something darker lurking below those innocuous words? The parish has issued a statement that the archbishop has, in fact, begun the canonical procedure to remove Phillips as pastor.
In 1992 or 1993, a child claimed that Orr had sexually abused him at a neighborhood pool, when Orr was a volunteer for the parish. It was only 23 years later that Father Christopher Phillips, the former pastor of Our Lady of the Atonement, acknowledged that he had received the complaint, but found it unfounded. He failed to inform the archbishop of the allegation, both at the time and later, when he recommended Orr for ordination to the permanent diaconate. In 2007, a second survivor came forward against Orr, alleging sexual abuse in 1995. Eight years later, in 2015, the Archdiocese was contacted by a psychologist who said that one of her clients had disclosed sexual abuse committed by Orr that occurred in the 1990s. Soon after, Orr requested retirement and resigned from active ministry.It's likely that Abp Garcia-Siller's restriction of Phillips's priestly faculties in 2017 was in this context, and it's very hard not to assume the archdiocese was acting in the interests of Atonement Academy students and parents. Phillips was able to evade Garcia-Siller's restrictions by having the Atonement parish transferred to the Ordinariate under Bp Steven Lopes, and Bp Lopes allowed him to continue as "Pastor emeritus" until 2019, when revelations of yet more reports of Orr's abuse that Phillips covered up emerged, and even Lopes was forced to withdraw Phillips's faculties and ban him from the parish property.
But let's fast-forward to 2025 and the Lumen Christi Academy. The archdiocese posted a letter dated January 30, 2024, in which Abp Garcia-Siller made a particular objection:
The presence of priests on the Sanctus Ranch who do not possess faculties from their dioceses nor a status of good standing from their respective bishops. They are also not in possession of the required faculties nor required permission to exercise ministry of any kind in the Archdiocese of San Antonio. These priests have been disciplined by their respective bishops, yet they are exercising unauthorized ministry at a privately owned business, without supervision and without canonical authority.So who are the "unauthorized priests" at Lumen Christi? The only priest I can find on the Lumen Christi website is Fr David Wagner. His official biography there says
Fr. Wagner’s journey to Lumen Christi is a long and winding road. Born and raised in northeastern Ohio, Fr. Wagner was baptized and raised in the Episcopal Church. At 19, he enlisted in the Air Force and after his discharge he earned his BA in Philosophy with a minor in English at the University of New Mexico.This account leaves out several intermediate steps. According to this 2016 announcement,Several years later he met and married Carol Anne Castillo. In 2002 he discerned a vocation to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. He attended Nashotah House seminary in Wisconsin, and took his first parish, St. John’s, in Kewanee, Illinois in 2005.
A friend he met at Yale Divinity School who also was an Episcopal priest converted to the Roman Catholic Church and had been encouraging Fr. Wagner to do the same. Eventually, he did, when in 2008 the Wagner family, now including son Joseph and daughter Natalie, moved to the San Antonio area.
Fr. Wagner began the Pastoral Provision process in 2009, but transferred to the Ordinariate when it was launched in 2012. In 2014, he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. His Ordinariate assignment was a mission called St. Gilbert’s, and masses were done at St. Peter the Apostle in Boerne.
In 2016, Fr. Wagner left the Ordinariate to become Pastor at Notre Dame Catholic Church in Kerrville, where he served until June 2022, when he retired from active ministry. Since then, he has been serving as a supply priest at several parishes in the Fredericksburg Deanery, as well as other venues, one of which is Sanctus Ranch.
Born on March 28, 1958, in Ravenna, Ohio, and baptized that April, he lived in Ohio before enlisting in the United States Air Force in 1978, assigned in Albuquerque, N.M., and Germany. In 1988 he graduated from the University of New Mexico with a BA in Philosophy, then studied Library Science. From 1994-1996 Father David studied at Yale Divinity School, graduating with the degree of Master of Arts in Religion.Exactly where and how this conversion took place is unclear, although it seems that if he'd moved to San Antonio, Fr Phillips and Our Lady of the Atonement must have been involved. The same source continues,. . . In 2002 Father David responded to the interior call to ministry, entering the Episcopal Seminary in Nashotah, Wisconsin, and finishing his studies with a Master of Divinity degree. He was ordained an Episcopal priest on June 12, 2005.
. . . Out of a deep conviction of faith, Father David renounced his Episcopal Holy Orders and left the Episcopal Church in 2008, moving to San Antonio, Texas, and converting to Roman Catholicism. In November 2009.
Father David applied for ordination to then-Ordinary Monsignor [Steenson]. While waiting, Father David taught Philosophy, English, and Theology at Northwest Vista College, the Mexican American Catholic College, and St. Mary’s University, all in San Antonio, Texas.Atonement Academy isn't mentioned here, but other sources suggest he taught there as well. Of his ordination, this post says,
His Excellency Gustavo Garcia-Siller, M.Sp.S., Archbishop of San Antonio, ordained Fr. Wagner to the priesthood in the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter at 3 p.m. on Sunday, August 24, [2014] at St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church in Boerne, Texas.Note the discrepancy with the source above on the conversion date -- but it's also worth noting that converts to the Catholic Church are normally received at Easter, and neither date would correspond with that. Nevertheless, this puts him in Boerne for six years workng in some vague way toward the Pastoral Provision before he was ordained to the Ordinariate. We have no further details on how this redirection took place. A comment from 2017 at Fr Hunwicke's blog gives somewhat more detail about Wagner's time in the Ordinariate:Fr. Wagner, a former priest in the Episcopal Church, served as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Kewanee, IL, from 2005 to 2008. He and his wife Carol and their two children – Joseph, 13, and Natalie, 8 – converted to the Catholic Church in June of 2008 and moved to Boerne, Texas.
The archbishop [Abp Garcia-Siller] ordained Fr. Mark Cannady over 4 years ago for St. Gilbert Ordinariate community, which held services at St. Peter in Boerne (less than 20 miles from Our Lady of the Atonement) where he was also worked as an associate pastor. Over two years ago the archbishop also ordained Fr. David Wagner for St. Gibert's and gave him work at various parishes. With Fr. Cannady retired, the archbishop allowed Fr. Wagner to relocate St. Gilbert's to Notre Dame parish in Kerrville (some 45 miles away), as he had family there. While the St. Gilbert community (whatever that might be besides Fr. Wagner and family) meets at St. Peter Upon the Water retreat center, Fr. Wagner has taken over as the pastor of Notre Dame with the previous pastor becoming an auxiliary bishop. It wouldn't surprise me if there aren't folks that would drive past St. Gilbert's to attend the Latin Mass at Our Lady of the Atonement.The 2016 announcement linked above regarding Wagner's assignment to Notre Dame Bourne concludes,
[B]ecause there are more priests than people in the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, Archbishop Gustavo and Bishop Lopes have made an agreement to bring Father David Wagner and his family to Notre Dame Catholic Church and School.This raises another question. Wagner proceeded to fill a six-year term as pastor at Notre Dame Kerrville, at first under some type of agreement between the archdiocese and the ordinariate. He was reincardinated from the ordinariate into the Archdiocese of San Antonio as of June 3, 2017, per an announcement from the ordinariate. Thus he came under Abp Garcia-Siller's exclusive authority.Then in 2022, at the expiration of that six-year term, he said in a 2024 interview with Lifesite News that he was "forcibly retired":
He served as the pastor of Notre Dame Catholic Church in Kerrville for six years and then was “forcibly retired.”It appears that based on the general practice in Catholic dioceses, Wagner had been placed for a six-year term at Notre Dame Kerrville on July 1, 2016. As of mid-2022, with his six-year term as pastor expiring, Abp Garcia-Siller had several options:“Others have told me it was political. It was because of my orthodox and conservative views, my being a traditionalist. It was for those reasons,” he told LifeSiteNews.
For a year after his “retirement,” Wagner worked as a supply priest, but he says this employment dried up.
. . . Wagner says that after he was “retired” as a priest, he received no salary or redundancy payment from the archdiocese.
- Renew the term
- Transfer the priest to another parish or other administrative job
- Accept his retirement, if he is 70 or 75, depending on the diocese.
- Place him on leave, although this would not necessarily be related to the end of his term, and is up to the bishop.
In his 2024 letter regarding Lumen Christi, Abp Garcia-Siller referred to the school employing "unauthorized priests", which can only have meant Fr Wagner by mid-2025. However, there is no specific Catholic definition for "unauthorized". Abp Garcia-Siller may have meant "suspended", but this would have involved a different action from "retired", since retired priests maintain the faculties they had when they were active and can continue to celebrate mass and hear confessions.
The strong implication of Abp Garcia-Siller's remarks is that Wagner's priestly faculties had been suspended at some point either in connection with or following what Wagner characterizes as his "forcible retirement". However, Wagner is quoted in the 2024 Lifesite News article linked above saying he was originally asked to say Mass and hear confessions, but then he was asked to teach full-time. It would appear that as of 2024, he did not have the faculties to do this at that time, nor even the ability to wear clericals, although his school photo has him wearing a cassock.
In response, Lumen Christi Academy has declared it does not operate under diocesan jurisdiction and is not representing itself "in the name of the Church" but rather as a community of Catholic families. However, in the Catholic Church, priests do not function without the authority of a bishop or superior. A priest who doesn't operate within the jurisdiction of a bishop and with the bishop's authorization is not a licit priest outside of very exceptional circumstances.
According to the Fatima Center,
If a priest violates Holy Mother Church’s norms for a Sacrament, then although the Sacrament may be valid, it is illicit. A Sacrament performed illicitly will most certainly affect the effectiveness of the sacrament’s grace in the life of a soul (the principle ‘ex opere operantis’). This alone is sufficient reason for a Catholic to avoid any and all illicit Sacraments.It's difficult to reconcile the claims of Sanctus Rancb and the Lumen Christi Academy that they are providing "authentic Catholic education" if in the process of doing so they're knowingly encouraging their charges to receive illcit sacraments from an unauthorized priest. They are committing mortal sins themselves, as well as scandal by setting the grave example.However, there is even a more compelling and necessary reason to avoid illicit Sacraments. Because the Sacraments are most holy and require the greatest reverence, an illicit Sacrament is always ‘grave matter’ (in other words, when done with sufficient knowledge and consent, it is mortally sinful). Thus, a priest should never knowingly offer any Sacrament in an illicit manner. Likewise, no Catholic faithful should knowingly participate in illicit sacraments.
I'm told that one of Wagner's functions at Lumen Christi Academy is to clebrate the Latin mass. Supporters of the Latin mass need to recognize that this sort of freelance celebration with unauthorized priests is one of the factors that's making some Church authorities hostile to even licit celebrations of the Latin mass.
The Atonement Academy was a sad chapter in the history of traditionalist Catholicism that went some way to damaging its reputation with mainstream bishops like Garcia-Siller, who from everything I've learned appears initially to have been favorable to the parish and school. Strategies like those of Lumen Christi that claim to follow the lead of Atonement Academy will only damage the movement further.
I will be happy to add corrections, clarifications, and any relevant additional information to this entry.