Editorial In Yesterday's Reporter

A visitor sent me a link to an editorial in yesterday's NCR Online that I think puts McCloskey in the right context. It makes so many good points that I can only highlight a few. Of his YouTubes, it says,

McCloskey's manipulative behavior with vulnerable women was certainly, in hindsight, telegraphed in things he wrote and in a series of interviews done for an ultraconservative presentation on marriage preparation for Catholics. For the discerning, red flags were popping everywhere (and YouTube provides abundant examples), but the sirens are blaring and lights are flashing in one particularly weird segment that can be found here:

. . . You see, he explains, in those regions of the world, while feminism has made "inroads," it is nothing like it is here in the United States. So that's why these truly Catholic men who "cannot find a good Catholic American woman who they would feel comfortable with" go searching for properly submissive women elsewhere. While those same men may not have looked hard enough around the home turf, often American women they find attractive are interested in careers, he asserts, not staying home and raising children.

That is the language and thinking of someone who became the face of one of Pope John Paul II's favorite organizations. McCloskey was a perfect model of what the late and hastily sainted pope saw as "heroic priesthood."

Further,

We are paying dearly for all of that right now. The peculiarities that came with John Paul's notions of priesthood — his insistence on rebuilding a cult separate and apart from ordinary people and the utter lack of judgment he showed in choosing his models for that project — became deeply woven into the fabric of an already corrupted clerical culture. What he advanced actually reinforced the worst characteristics of the culture.

It is not the sins of the individuals that should now be the focus. All humans fail; we are all capable of deception and worse. It is the institutional corruption that they came to represent. The failings hidden for years by the institution, in the case of McCloskey, Williams, Maciel and others. The power of money, in the case of Maciel and, more recently, of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, to buy them cover in the Vatican. The refusal on John Paul II's part, time and again, to listen to serious and credible allegations against Maciel and other abusers. He set the template in this era of scandal for how church leaders should proceed.

My regular correspondent had a similar take:

As you have noted previously, in the Mafia and other corrupt organisations they have something on everybody---that pay-off you accepted, that weekend getaway you expensed---and if it furthers the organisation's interests it will be exposed and punished at some point. This does not alter the fact that such activities are the normal way of doing business, and said exposure and punishment do not in any way signal a change.

Whistle-blowers in such organisations tend to be people who got on somebody's wrong side and can no longer count on being protected, going forward. Indignation ensues, not always very convincingly. The later history of Eliot Ness suggests to me that "charismatic change agents" harbour character traits which have a darker side. Deeper cultural change has to take place in the organisation as a whole, or history continues to repeat itself.

As I've expanded the scope of this blog, I've asked myself more and more why figures like Bernardin and Law rose as they did -- but before that, there was Spellman, who spent years as a confidant to Cardinal Pacelli.

A Template For McCarrick?

At least at first glance, what seems to be a fairly successful handling of the McCloskey case might give the Church a way to handle Cardinal McCarrick. Or not. My regular correspondent does make a worthwhile comment:

While the ghost-written book reviews etc seem like a pathetic stratagem on the part of Opus Dei, they are at least consistent with the long-term attempt to cover for Fr McCloskey, now apparently over. The alternative hypothesis ---that he doesn't have dementia, but is being sheltered behind a fake diagnosis---requires him to be kept out of sight for decades, potentially. To what end? His reputation has been pretty thoroughly trashed in innumerable recent stories.

I pretty much agree, he's been thrown under the bus after what seems to have been several years of covering up his status. Naturally, the easiest and best resolution, removal from the priesthood following an investigation into the potential delict in 2002, would have eliminated the need for all the extra effort now. As this commentator noted,

The variety and complexities of such adult cases means that superiors have to exercise good judgment, prudence and courage. But in an anti-authority environment where even the Pope concedes that bishops have lost their credibility, almost anything short of permanent banishment from ministry becomes suspect, as a consequence of religious authorities having lost the trust of the faithful.

But a second- or third-best approach seems to be what Opus Dei took: temporize with the matter, however belatedly, and keep it quiet. However, when outside forces intervene, such as a complainant now requesting the matter be made public, throw the guy under the bus. (In effect, this is what the Diocese of Spokane also did with the hinky Jesuits.) Even so, as my regular correspondent put it,

Continuing to publish ghost-written reviews over the name of a man in the last stages of dementia is bizarre even before we get to the other stuff. As you point out, he can't have long to live. What were they planning to say he died of?

The ingredients for a successful crisis management in this case would be:

• A case that has already been resolved, but whose circumstances have now come to light
• A sympathetic spokesman who can appear to be sincerely transparent
• Sincere acknowledgement of errors
• A clear and sincere explanation of what's been, or will be, changed to prevent recurrence.

Opus Dei has been able to claim, though, that this is the first and only such settlement paid in the US. I don't think the Church has the same circumstances with McCarrick. It does appear that Pope Francis would like to dispose of the McCarrick issue definiteively before the February conference in Rome, but simply throwing McCarrick under the bus won't be enough. The differences include:

• Numerous cases over decades, already well-publicized
• A well-publicized history of coverup
• Unsympathetic spokesmen like Cardinal Cupich
• An unwillingness to address the real problem, gay networks in seminaries and chanceries
• No clear plan for resolving the problem, along with a perception that sincere efforts from places like the USCCB are not supported in Rome.

I think it's fairly plain that what will be needed will be a future strong pontiff, indeed, one stronger than John Paul II, who appears to have allowed the situation to reach its current point.

Is Fr McCloskey Suffering From Alzheimer's?

In his official statement regarding Fr McCloskey, Msgr Bohlin, the Opus Dei vicar in the US, said,

Father McCloskey currently suffers from advanced Alzheimer’s. He is largely incapacitated and needs assistance for routine daily tasks. He has not had any pastoral assignments for a number of years and is no longer able to celebrate Mass, even privately.

The visitor who studies Opus Dei commented,

Other reports say he is residing at the “Reston Residence” but they fail to mention that that’s an Opus Dei Study Center. I don’t think there is an advanced medical or hospital facilities there to care for a priest in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s.

The Daily Beast responded,

But The Daily Beast found dozens of complex articles he wrote in 2017 and at least one article he authored as late as 2018—a book review of Aquinas and Evolution titled “How Does St. Thomas Aquinas Approach Evolution?” in National Catholic Register in which McCloskey is identified as a “church historian who writes from Virginia.”

If Father McCloskey is truly incapacitated, as his religious order says he is, it is nothing short of a miracle that he can write about such complex topics. And if he's not, it is nothing short of a lie.

Press accounts say McCloskey is currently 64 or 65, which is early for Alzheimer's. According to the Mayo Clinic,

Of all the people who have Alzheimer's disease, about 5 percent develop symptoms before age 65. . . . Most people with early-onset Alzheimer's develop symptoms of the disease in their 40s and 50s.

Naturally, I don't want to minimize Alzheimer's or its effects on loved ones. But one question in my mind is whether, whatever McCloskey's current condition, there's been an actual medical diagnosis of Alzheimer's. There are many causes of dementia outside of Alzheimer's, including alcoholism. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Opus Dei spokesman Brian

Finnerty said McCloskey’s interaction with women “was very limited in Chicago” even after restrictions were removed. He said signs of “cognitive impairment” were detected in 2010 and that McCloskey “did have a problem with alcohol . . . and he received treatment for that.”

I think the best conclusion we can draw is that McCloskey was always overrated and was a creature of the media. However, he didn't perform well at Princeton, and he clearly became unable to handle temptations in Washington. He was presumably a source of vocations and donations to Opus Dei for as long as he lasted. Whatever his current condition, he's pretty clearly being protected, and the best thing for Opus Dei is to hope other events overtake this bad publicity.

That said, Brian Finnerty has been doing a competent public relations job. He's been generally forthcoming about the details of the crisis, and he's outlined Opus Dei's measures to correct the problem, while also acknowledging errors. It's likely that subsequent stories of coverup won't emerge. The dioceses that are having to deal with other crises can take this one as an example, but so far, it appears they won't. (An exception is the Diocese of Spokane.)

I would give Opus Dei an A-minus in crisis management, while recognizing it did contribute to the crisis. The biggest flaw in the response is the ambiguity over whether McCloskey actually has Alzheimer's, but clearly he's best kept under wraps under any circumstance.

UPDATE: A visitor referred me to the last paragraph of this story, which suggests that Opus Dei submitted ghostwritten articles under McCloskey's name to keep up appearances. That may or may not be -- my impression is there was never a there there with the guy.

Maybe You Just Had To Be There

A visitor pointed out to me a few days ago that Fr C John McCloskey still has presentations available on YouTube. In the one here, he answers the key question in Catholic formation, "Do looks matter?" (I don't know if he later addresses the question of size.)

And for the spiritually troubled, he reassures them: looks matter if they matter. And he goes farther: one has to have the opportunity to get to know the person. Halfway through, he sums up -- these are truisms, but truisms are truisms because they're true.

I watched several of his videos. I really can't avoid thinking there's no there there with this guy. What was his appeal that the major papers of record in the 1990s and early 2000s were calling him some sort of clerical superstar? I'm a little puzzled at the list of converts he's allegedly recruited for the Church: Newt Gingrich, Robert Bork, Robert Novak, Alfred Regnery, and Laura Ingraham, among others. My first question is how many on this list and others still go to regular mass and confession, if they ever actually did.

Certainly McCloskey is no St Augustine, no St Bernardino, no Ven Fulton Sheen, not even Bp Barron. The strongest Catholic YouTubers I see now have the force of reason, if not flashing azure eyes: Fr Ripperger, for instance, or Prof Feser. I don't see that with McCloskey. In fact, in the clip above, he's talking to his audience as if they were 13-year-olds, which he tends to do generally. Even Fr Mike Schmitz, whose target audience is adolescents slightly older who are discerning vocations, doesn't talk down that way.

Several things strike me as I reflect on this. McCloskey grew up in Bethesda, which I know well because I went to high school there. Bethesda is an über-snobby suburb next to Chevy Chase, which is even more so. McCloskey was part of a Catholic prep school subculture that I didn't run with, but it was clearly a subgroup of the same franchise. Some in my circle went to Sidwell Friends, while my sister went to National Cathedral School. Washington is a deeply class- and status-conscious place, which is a big reason Trump doesn't fit in.

McCloskey went on to Columbia, which would be an important merit badge in that environment, and I've simply got to assume that the various Republican swamp dwellers and media mavens who were attracted to whatever McCloskey called "Catholicism" saw it as some sort of flavor-of-the-month, and they trusted McCloskey because he was attractive, he knew all the right people, and he'd done all the right things.

And it sounds like he told people what they wanted to hear.

Again, I'd be interested to know how many of the Republican celebrities he recruited go to regular mass and confession. Of Ingraham, for instance, Wikipedia says,

Ingraham has previously dated broadcaster Keith Olbermann and former New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Torricelli. In April 2005, she announced her engagement to Chicago businessman James V. Reyes, and that she had undergone breast cancer surgery. In May 2005, Ingraham told listeners that her engagement to Reyes was canceled, citing issues regarding her diagnosis with breast cancer. She has also dated political commentator Dinesh D'Souza and George T. Conway, attorney and husband of Kellyanne Conway.

She is a convert from the Baptist neo-tradition to the Roman Catholic faith. She has also studied Russian.

As far as I can see, she's Catholic as long as it serves her interests and doesn't get in the way. I can't imagine that McCloskey would have told her it was anything else.

Precisely, What Did Opus Dei Do About Fr McCloskey?

The Opus Dei spokesman who announced the settlement later sat for an interview with the Washington Post, which reported,

Finnerty said among his regrets was that the complaint came to Opus Dei in November 2002 but the community did not remove McCloskey from the Catholic Information Center until December 2003. He said he personally “hated” that decision. “The reality is he was around for a year after we were informed,” Finnerty said. “That’s the reality. It’s not good. But we may as well own it.”

The woman who reached the settlement with Opus Dei in 2005 told The Washington Post she began seeing McCloskey for spiritual direction at a time when her marriage was crumbling and she was experiencing serious depression. The priest groped her several times during tight hugs, she said. She said she expressed shame and guilt about it to him during confession and he absolved her.

It does appear that, although the Opus Dei reaction was delayed, McCloskey was eventually taken out of the public eye. For instance, a gay blogger asked in May of last year, probably sensing that there were unstated reasons, Where is Fr C John McCloskey?

Where is Fr. C. John McCloskey III? For roughly a decade, 1997-2005, the handsome, dashing, charming Opus Dei priest was storming the Beltway in his black soutane.

. . . In the years since he left D.C., Fr. McCloskey, 64, has kept a much lower profile. He’s still writing and doing pastoral ministry, but not on a secular stage. McCloskey lives in Menlo Park, California, home of Facebook, Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers, Sequoia Capital, Silver Lake Partners, and many Fintech companies. Perhaps Opus Dei and McCloskey have moved on to the new power elite?

However, the original mystery remains–what happened? Why would Opus Dei transfer Fr. McCloskey out of his Washington, D.C. powerhouse–the Catholic Information Center on K Street–and pack him off to obscurity in Chicago?

Opus Dei's statement about the disposition of McCloskey's case said that he would variously not be permitted to "get faculties" after his removal from Washington, and that he would need to deal with women only in the confessional, although hearing confessions, in the confessional or outside of it, would require that he have faculties. In addition, Opus Dei priests hear confessions only in the confessional in any case.

However, Opus Dei relies on other modes of counsel like "fraternal correction" that take place outside the confessional and, not being the sacrament itself, do not have the seal of confidentiality. And of course, you can't hug anybody through the confessional screen.

McCloskey, as we've seen, spent an unknown time in England after his belated removal from Washington, where he was clearly free to travel on his own and doesn't appear to have mentioned any restrictions to Fr Longenecker when he visited him. Later, he went to Chicago, where accounts differ on what his precise restrictions were. According to the Washington Post,

In 2005, the community reached the nearly $1 million settlement with the woman. (The Washington Post does not identify victims of sexual assault without their consent.)

That year, McCloskey went to work in the Archdiocese of Chicago. That’s where the diverging accounts begin.

The woman says Opus Dei leaders told her they were asking the Chicago Archdiocese’s permission for McCloskey to practice there. Opus Dei priests anywhere in the country remain under the auspices of Opus Dei, not of the dioceses they work in, but they do need a letter of permission from the local diocese to fulfill some priestly duties.

The woman says she was told that Cardinal Francis George, then the archbishop of Chicago, was informed about her case and said he would only approve the transfer if he spoke to the woman.

So she spoke to the cardinal. “I was blunt and explicit,” she said on Wednesday. She got what she thought was a clear response. She said George told her there was no way McCloskey would be allowed to minister without restrictions. “I said, ‘I don’t want him to ever do this again.’ He made a commitment to me.”

The Rev. Peter Armenio, assistant regional head of Opus Dei for the Midwest, told The Post on Tuesday that George agreed to restrict McCloskey from direct ministry with women for one year; Opus Dei ensured that he followed the restriction for two years, he said. Finnerty said on Wednesday night that Opus Dei has records of McCloskey’s assignments in Chicago that show they were designed to uphold those restrictions, but he would not immediately provide those records.

In George’s own files, the archdiocese said Wednesday, he made no note of the call with the woman. Nowhere in any of its files could the archdiocese find any mention of any restrictions, of the prior settlement or of any other allegations of sexual misconduct involving McCloskey.

On one hand, it's plain that McCloskey was taken out of the public eye after 2003, to the extent that more than one Catholic writer wondered what had happened. (Now we know.) On the other, it isn't entirely clear how McCloskey functioned within Opus Dei after that. It appears that after his return from England, he lived in Opus Dei residential facilities in Chicago, Menlo Park, CA, and more recently Reston, VA. I believe that there is strict sexual segregation in those facilities under any circumstances, and he doesn't appear to have had the level of freedom he had in Washington to counsel and hug women from the general public outside the confessional.

On the other hand, he has in fact functioned as a priest. This post refers to a 2009 Opus Dei retreat in Valparaiso, IN where McCloskey celebrated mass, heard confessions, and also did counseling outside the confessional. It isn't clear if women were involved in outside-the-confessional sessions. A visitor tells me her daughter was in a similar retreat with McCloskey in Los Angeles in 2013. Whether the Diocese of Gary or the Archdiocese Los Angeles gave McCloskey faculties isn't clear.

In addition, the Washington Post account suggests that any restrictions placed on McCloskey by Opus Dei were for only one, or at most two years. Subsequent to that time, while his access to the general public was more limited, he does appear to have had access to women in vulnerable situations within Opus Dei -- and given the control Opus Dei exerts on its members, potential victims would be unlikely to complain. Thus the woman who made the 2005 settlement public clearly had reason to feel uncomfortable and question whether the assurances she'd been given were sincere.

This in turn leaves out the additional question of whether McCloskey had committed a delict in 2002 by encouraging the woman to commit what she regarded as a sin, but then absolving her of that sin in the confessional. I assume that a canonical trial would be the forum to resolve this, but nothing like it appears to have taken place.

This episode convinces me that the appropriate remedy for clergy abuse is laicization, following appropriate canonical due process, while encouraging offenders to request it voluntarily.

More Trickles Out About Fr C John McCloskey

In light of this new chapter in the Second Crisis scandal, we actually know very little about Fr C John McCloskey. Fr Longenecker's account of his encounter with him probably reveals more than Fr Longenecker intended: the chronology he gives -- he'd been waiting for ordination for eight years -- puts McCloskey in England post-2003, when McCloskey had finally been eased out of his post in Washington under a cloud.

Yet based on Fr Longenecker's version, McCloskey, who should certainly have been feeling troubled himself at the time, made no mention of his own trials. Instead, they went riding a la Kenneth Grahame on a spontaneous tour through Somerset to visit Ronnie Knox's grave, among other things. But during what must have been concurrent discussions with McCloskey's victim, she was being assured he was on a "very tight leash". Sounds more like like a fun extended vacation to me. I certainly sympathize with Fr Longenecker -- it can be a struggle to recognize people you've trusted have manipulated and betrayed you.

What's slowly coming out so far covers three areas: McCloskey's time at Princeton from 1985 to sometime after 1990; the exact nature of Opus Dei's response to the credible complaint from his 2002 victim and the actual restrictions that were placed on him after 2002; and whether he is currently suffering from advanced dementia, as Opus Dei's US vicar has publicly stated. But I suspect much more will come out. Someone who wants to remain anonymous said, "McCloskey must be their only heterosexual groper. You'd think they'd know how to deal with him." Apparently not.

There are enough questions about what happened at Princeton that I'm going to take the rest of this post to discuss them. A local Princeton-area paper reported in 1990,

The Rev. C. John McCloskey III, the Opus Dei priest whose presence at Princeton University has created strife among campus Catholics, has been removed as associate chaplain and will not be replaced by another Opus Dei priest, university officials said yesterday.

The Rev. Vincent Keane, director of the Aquinas Center where the Catholic chaplaincy at Princeton is housed, told McCloskey on Dec. 8 that he would be dismissed, McCloskey said yesterday. McCloskey said he will stay on as associate chaplain until commencement on June 12.

. . . A group of Princeton Catholics, who call themselves “liberal” or “progressive,” say that Opus Dei is moving to create two Catholic chaplaincies and the basis for an authoritarian Catholic community. The Aquinas Institute on Stockton Street has ministered for decades to Princeton’s liberal Catholics.

Central to their call for McCloskey’s removal last year were 12 signed letters from students complaining about McCloskey that were collected and presented to Keane. The letters described upsetting encounters between students and McCloskey. Opus Dei officials have strongly denied the allegations in the letters.

The nature of the encounters with the students isn't spelled out, but the story mentions that what appears to have been a second petition, signed by 12 faculty members as well as a number of students, complaining that McCloskey had impaired "academic freedom", strengthened the first group's hand and seems to have tipped the balance for McCloskey's removal. According to a 2015 article in America, a Jesuit publication, by Fr James Martin, SJ, himself controversial, (the Jesuits are sometimes regarded as in general opposition to Opus Dei):

The two priests mentioned earlier, who studied at Princeton University and worked with campus ministry, described Opus Dei’s involvement there in the 1980’s. According to both men, an Opus Dei priest, the Rev. C. John McCloskey 3d, presented himself to the campus ministry group, which welcomed his offer to assist with chaplaincy duties. Soon after beginning his work, Father McCloskey presented to the other chaplains a list of the number of communions he had distributed and the number of confessions he had heard—as an objective way of measuring whether a priest was doing his job. Said one of the ex-chaplains, “He came to the rest of us and said, ‘I don’t think the chaplaincy program is doing this work. You should be doing what I’m doing’.”

Later, Father McCloskey began interviewing all entering Catholic freshmen, over the objections of some of the staff. It was at this time that the problems began. According to both sources, Father McCloskey asked questions about students’ sexual practices, among other things, and about their parents’ religious activities. In addition: “Some of the students claimed he coerced them into having the sacrament of reconciliation, or confession, as he called it. He would say, ‘You really need to go to confession. The chapel’s right around the corner and I’m available now.’ Now I can’t cite you a line in canon law, but one is never coerced into a sacrament. I found it outrageous, and a lot of other people did, too.”

But a commentator notes elsewhere,

Note two overlapping and disturbing details in Father Martin's report in 2012 and what the woman sexually assaulted by Father McCloskey has reported: the seemingly invasive interest in the details of the sexual lives of those to whom he has ministered; and the use of the sacrament of confession in a coercive way — it seems, in the case of the woman reporting abuse by Father McCloskey in D.C., to control and silence her. There are at least suggestions of this in her reports as captured in the Washington Post article about this story yesterday.

The best we can say is that the details of the "upsetting encounters" with Princeton students have never been made public, but priests, or at least priests-in-formation at Princeton, independently found his activities of concern, and McCloskey was eased out of campus ministry. These stories were also made public well before the Washington Post published its story about the settlement.

What we frequently see in clerical abuse cases is a pattern of behavior that's repeated but consistently minimized, with the perpetrators shunted around but effectively enabled to continue. I see no reason to think we won't continue to see this pattern emerge in McCloskey's case.

Fr C John McCloskey

News of a near-million-dollar settlement paid out in 2005 by Opus Dei based on credible allegations from 2002 against Opus Dei star Fr C John McCloskey came out a few days ago. Two hooks on the story grabbed me: the first was comments by Fr Longenecker, who admired him and thought he was a friend (apparently a great many people did), and the other was that he was a predecessor of Msgr Stetson as director of the "Catholic Information Center" (i.e., bookstore) in Washington, DC.

If, like me, you were slow on the uptake with this story, here are the basics from the Washington Post story linked above:

The global Catholic community Opus Dei in 2005 paid $977,000 to settle a sexual misconduct suit against the Rev. C. John McCloskey, a priest well-known for preparing for conversion big-name conservatives — Newt Gingrich, Larry Kudlow and Sam Brownback, among others.

The woman who filed the complaint is a D.C.-area Catholic who was among the many who received spiritual direction from McCloskey through the Catholic Information Center, a K Street hub of Catholic life in downtown Washington. She told The Washington Post that McCloskey groped her several times while she was going to pastoral counseling with him to discuss marital troubles and serious depression.

The guilt and shame over the interactions sent her into a tailspin and, combined with her existing depression, made it impossible for her to work in her high-level job, she said. She spoke to him about her “misperceived guilt over the interaction” in confession and he absolved her, she said.

Opus Dei is still investigating other allegations. The chronology isn't entirely clear, but since Msgr Stetson became director of the bookstore in 2004, it sounds as though he was sent there to keep the lid on the scandal. (From my own observations on Stetson's personal style here, you can get an idea of how he'd do it.) Opus Dei's reaction is disturbingly unclear in its official statements.

After leaving Washington after the complaints, McCloskey was sent to England, and then Chicago and California for assignments with Opus Dei. The woman in the settlement said she was told by church officials in Chicago when he was sent there that McCloskey would not be allowed to “get faculties” — or permission to fully function as a priest — and would be put on a very tight leash.

She became worried last year when she came into contact with someone else who knew about McCloskey and heard he may have been working as a priest in California.

In the statement Monday, Opus Dei said that after the settlement, McCloskey was told to only give spiritual direction to women in the confessional — meaning separated physically from them. In Opus Dei, a traditional community of Catholics, that is the norm for priests working with those they are counseling. McCloskey had an unusually public, free role at the Information Center.

In interviews in 2014, McCloskey was identified as working in “spiritual direction and pastoral ministry.” In a 2014 piece for the Jesuit magazine America, he said he was a “spiritual consultant.”

As a result, the woman in the settlement said, a lack of clarity about McCloskey’s role all these years haunted her, and she wants to be sure any other women potentially harmed by the priest know they aren’t alone and can get help.

Here's Fr Longenecker's reaction (link above):

McCloskey was a good priest. He befriended me when I lived in England and was very low. I’d been waiting for ordination for eight years at that point and I kept getting beat up by members of the hierarchy. CJ took me out to dinner, listened to my story and prophesied that I would never be ordained in England but would return to my native USA and have a ministry there which would be far greater than if I had ever been ordained in England. We stayed in our home and spent an afternoon touring Somerset. We went to Bath, Downside Abbey and while zooming down one road he saw a signpost to Mells and said, “That’s where Ronnie Knox is buried! Let’s go find his grave.” So we did. He stayed in touch and eventually (I think but am not certain) helped move my paperwork forward in Rome so I could be ordained. If he is guilty of the allegations, we should remember the good things he did, not just the bad.

Here's a random, gushing encomium I found on Google, written after he was shipped out of Washington but well before any public knowledge of the scandal:

A few years ago, McCloskey was assigned by his order, Opus Dei, to Chicago. So he was only back for a visit. He has been missed. Many of us are still wondering what he is doing in Chicago.

. . . I walked into Fr. McCloskey's office and introduced myself. Within minutes were talking like old friends and wondering how we had missed meeting each other growing up in D.C. The priest who baptized me? Fr. C. John had graduated with him at seminary. A famous actor who was making a movie about Jesus? Father had just talked to him. My grandfather was a baseball player? Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn was a friend.

Apparently he was charming and manipulative and, as he apparently did with Fr Longenecker and the writer here, he could convince people he was their BFF shortly after meeting them. If they were troubled spiritually, they understandably reacted with openness and trust.

It does appear that McCloskey followed a common pattern for Opus Dei numeraries: the sketchy biographical info on Wikipedia suggests he "worked on Wall Street at Citibank and Merrill Lynch for a number of years" as a low-profile numerary before being quietly tapped to pursue ordination at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, the Opus Dei seminary. The visitor here who studies Opus Dei tells me that seminarians there have minimal supervision and are frequently ordained on a schedule faster than normal.

It sounds as though the guy was a psychopath, and quite possibly if he'd had normal supervision at a diocesan seminary, he'd have been identified and told to leave. A bit of wisdom I picked up in my secular career is to beware of flashy, attractive people on the fast track.