More On Our Lady's Dowry

It's worth noting that Dcn Orr has retired, and while there's smoke in the matter of his conduct with boys, so far, there's no fire. The "civil demand" mentioned in the letter from the archdiocese would refer to a stage in litigation that leaves the door open for negotiation. It's entirely possible that, especially with Dcn Orr retired, the archdiocese will settle for an undisclosed amount and keep the matter quiet. (Part of the mischief with these cases is that less substantiated "me too" claims can then arise, leading to further settlements. This is partly why there's a Virtus program; "innocent" pats, rubs, and smooches can be misconstrued. More than Dcn Orr, Fr Phillips is culpable for doing nothing about reports that were clearly made to him over the years.)

But whether there's a there there or not for Dcn Orr, Our Lady's Dowry, as far as I can gather from accounts by parishioners and public records, would have been a terminable offense for any corporate officer who did the same thing. And an officer who did such a thing wouldn't just be walked out the door, there'd be a team of auditors and attorneys on the case like white on rice. I'm not sure if the amounts involved here are enough to be worth a US attorney's time, but we're certainly looking at the possibility of fraud in misusing a tax-exempt organization.

What Fr Phillips and Dcn Orr seem to have connived in doing was to set up a separate entity to pay Dcn Orr off the parish books. A question I still can't answer is whether Dcn Orr was receiving a salary from the school in addition to the nearly $70,000 he netted from Our Lady's Dowry. Another question would be how Mr Ott, Dcn Orr's successor, is paid. The third, much bigger question is why this was done.

UPDATE: I'm told that Orr's salary was entirely paid by Our Lady's Dowry, and Mr Ott's salary comes from the parish, although both had effectively the same job but at different times. This strongly suggests the purpose of Our Lady's Dowry was to conceal something from the archdiocese.

A visitor refers me to the archdiocese's policy on employment of deacons:

Here is a link to the Archdiocese of San Antonio's "Policy Handbook for the Permanent Diaconate." Under the employment section it reads:

3.3.1. Permanent deacons who are employed by the diocese, by a parish, or by an agency may only be employed to do work that is not specific to their diaconate ministry. Deacons may not be employed by the parish or agency to which they have been assigned to minister as deacon Any past practices to the contrary are specifically prohibited and must be resolved in communication with the Director of Diaconate Ministry and Formation on or before the date that these norms take effect.

3.3.2. Permanent deacons employed by the diocese, by a parish, or by an agency are to receive remuneration commensurate with the salaries and benefits provided to the lay men and women on staff for that particular occupation.

There shouldn't have been a problem for Deacon Orr to receive a paycheck for his work as business manager, teacher and school administrator/headmaster under the Policy. Of course, it might be that the Archdiocese had asked that Deacon Orr specifically not be employed.

That's one possibility. Another could be that Fr Phillips meant to pay Dcn Orr more than "remuneration commensurate with the salaries and benefits provided to the lay men and women on staff for that particular occupation," and the Our Lady's Dowry salary was a pretty good one for San Antonio.

The same visitor sent me a pdf of Our Lady's Dowry's IRS Form 990 from 2014. I can't find a way to link it, and it's far too big to give screen prints, but if anyone would like a copy, send me an e-mail and I'll be happy to forward it. The visitor says of it,

Page 1 shows over $98K in donations, with $1,700 of program service revenue from book sales and "other revenue" of $650 being rents.

Move to page 7 and see James P. Orr received a salary of over $68K. Page 10 shows that and the related payroll taxes as the total salaries paid out, there are not other employees Also on page 10, line 24B is a $3,000 expense for "columbarian".

The balance sheet on page 11 shows the ownership of real estate at $80K, which is broken down on page 2 of Schedule D between $65K for land and $15K for "other" than buildings. Also on the balance sheet on page 11 is a total liabilities of $13,729 (which has been consistent for the previous 2 returns), with the breakdown on Schedule D showing all but a $500 loan being owed to a "pilgrimage fund".

Schedule A is interesting in claiming to be publicly supported, receiving broad public support. Line 5 shows that no person gave more than 2% of the total contributions. For that to be true (and they may have just reported wrong) they'd be receiving donations from at least 50 different people or a significant amount from another public charity such as the parish or school.

I wouldn't expect there to be 50 different people aware of "Our Lady's Dowry" being there to receive contributions. One possibility is that who ever purchases a niche in the Columbarium might be asked to make out their check to "Our Lady's Dowry", and that is then recorded as a donation. Another possibility is that checks related to pilgrimages (one at least every couple of years) are made out to Our Lady's Dowry, though that doesn't make much sense since they're not reporting any costs. Perhaps an initial nonrefundable deposit made out to the Dowry, with further checks made out to the tour company? Any of those possibilities would seem to require more variance from year to year, whereas donations have come in at a fairly regular pace.

Another visitor notes,

Interesting that on corporation wiki, Our Lady's Dowry has a warning message on top that states "warning: contains records that have been removed from public view per our opt-out policy" Reading about the policy on the corporationwiki website, this indicates that an individual has requested that their name be removed from the profile.

While the organization had other small-scale activities, its main purpose was clearly to pay Dcn Orr a generous salary, apparently to keep it off the parish books.

Why? I outlined the circumstances to my wife, a retired attorney. While realistic about what people do -- in her corporate career, she had experience with sexual harassment cases -- she's not predisposed to think badly of clergy. Her reaction to Our Lady's Dowry:

"Sounds like Orr had something on Fr Phillips."

Are there things about Fr Phillips we don't know? If I were a detective, that's one avenue I'd pursue.

UPDATE: A visitor replies:

Gosh, every time I think I'm going to tell you something new, you figure it out already (in this case, your wife!).

"Deacon Orr has something on Fr P", this is what has been mentioned many times over the years. So many families have left OLA because of Deacon Orr, people ask themselves, why doesn't Father just get rid of him? They concluded that he must have something on him. And there's probably more than one thing.