My internet friend, Robert Kumpel, is a freelance investigative reporter and a home-schooling dad who used to live in California and did some great articles for the L.A. Mission and San Diego News Notes. He moved to Georgia and got into big trouble in his parish in Valdosta (St. John's) for protesting the inappropriate behavior of his pastor with the office manager, a woman (Isn't that a change?). To make a long story short, Robert ended up in court with a restraining order and was banned from setting foot in his parish. Valdosta, Georgia isn't exactly a thriving metropolis and the next closest parish is an hour away. So now Robert, who has four young children, can't go to daily Mass, can't take his children for visits to Our Lord in the tabernacle, can't be a member of the parish Knights of Columbus (or anything else) and is seriously inconvenienced even to go to Mass on Sunday. It has been a real hardship on this Catholic family. Ironically, the pastor is dead now; he was killed in a traffic accident. And the woman involved moved away, but Bishop Boland still won't let Robert and his family go back to church together. Is that uncharitable or what?
During the trial everyone who testified said Robert never did anything violent or threatening. And yet the bishop several years later continues to refuse to allow him to attend Mass at his local parish. Oh, his wife may go alone with the children, but not with their dad. What's with that? Shouldn't the bishop encourage intact families? They're a rarity these days.
What a tragedy for a bishop to be so unforgiving that two years after something occurred (which has since been overtaken by events) he continues to treat his spiritual son like a dangerous outlaw. I wonder how often the bishop preaches about mercy.
Robert's canon lawyer said he would win the case if he fought, but it would be years before resolution and cost beaucoup bucks which the Kumpels don't have. So what's a fella to do? The bishops always have a royal flush to your pair of deuces. Maybe that's why they call them princes.
Please pray for my friend. You can visit his blog and leave him an encouraging message. If you'd like to read more about what got him into trouble go here.
And if you really want to do his family a good turn, could you send a polite note to the bishop asking him to let the family return home. Remember the song Tie a Yellow Ribbon? Why not tuck one into the note.
Bishop Kevin Boland
Catholic Pastoral center
601 E. Liberty Street
Savannah, GA 31401
If you'd rather send an e-mail go here.
It was sad today to go to mass at St.John the Evangelist, Valdosta on this Holy day of Easter without my family. I would not have gone if I were not playing in the music group. I sat there thinking of the hypocrisy of the priest talking about the renewal, the resurrection, the hope of the future life and look around and see only my elderly daughter, age 10, in the audience. Robert had to go earlier this morning to Florida with the 3 younger children to mass without me.. It is a sad day in the church when they can preach forgiveness, unity, holiness, and continue to live as though they never said anything. The priests and Bishop Boland continue to give homilies in front of me about family, forgiveness, and love. They preach about consoling the worst criminals, prison ministry and outreach, yet no one in authority from that church has yet to even speak with us about this situation. They refuse to extend the hand of forgiveness, and refuse to practice love and allow for a family to go to mass on the most holy days together. They will allow murderers, con artists, and child molesters into their church but not Robert, with whom they simply disagree with his "brand" of catholicism. Practice what you preach Fr. Killips, Fr. O'Connell, and Bishop Boland. Let my husband go back into our parish church. What you are choosing to do is beyond reprehensible and you will have to answer for it to a higher authority than Bishop Boland some day. The Bishop is such a coward, he continues this denial of sacraments to my entire family by saying that he "can't drop the restraining order", when he knows this is a lie. The restraining order allows for Robert to go to mass, the bishop is personally choosing to ban him of his own accord and nothing else. I pray daily that my fellow parishoners will continue to withhold their money from this church as long as this travesty continues.
ReplyDeleteOne point of clarification, the woman involved did not just 'move away'. When the priest was moved to another city/parrish she followed him. Shortly after she arrived there, he was killed in an automobile accident. Despite this, that they 'moved together' some at St. John's are still in denial that there was an inappropriate relationship between them.
ReplyDeleteI am saddened to learn of this situation. I have emailed Bishop Boland and the Papal Nuncio and will encourage my email list to do the same. Blessings to the Kumpel family during this trial in their family life.
ReplyDeletePlease contact Robert Kumpel's Bishop here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.diosav.org/contact
Also, one can find the contact information for the attorney representing the Bishop here:
http://stjohnsvaldosta.blogspot.com/2009/04/not-your-parish-not-our-parish-its-his.html
Let them know how you feel.
Robert Kumpel brought all his problems on himself. He was sued
ReplyDeleteby the San Diego Diocese around 2002, when he stepped on a diocesen employee's foot as he put a camera in her face to take a picture.
I personally saw him disrupt a church event one evening in San Diego when a large gathering of people who had been involved in a church remodel job had gathered for a meeting. He passed out flyers on the priest speaker in an attempt to humiliate the priest.
He created a big scene and then left.
Lastly, I has one professional interaction with Mr Kumpel in which he lied to me and was about to print information he was not given permission to print.
I was able to terminate his entire
story, which was a good thing for him,as he would have had a major lawsuit on his hands from me.
He was envied by his peers at the newspaper where he worked, because
he reportedly had good tipsters and, I am told, often beat his fellow writers to big stories.
He writes that he is on great terms with most of the Catholics at the local parish he is banned from. I say....yeah right.
I'll add even more to the story from the coward who cannot put his/her name to his allegations.
ReplyDeleteYes, I was sued and the diocese dropped the lawsuit because it had no merit. Bishop Brom and I have since spoke about it and buried our differences and made peace.
If you were actually at Sacred Heart Parish in Ocean Beach, you will remember that I did not disrupt the event, because it had not even started yet. The "event" was an evening to praise a very controversial and much-opposed church renovation that stripped a beautiful old church of its art and turned it into an empty shell of its former self. I simply passed out information about the "liturgical consultant" that had already been published. His name was Rod Stephens, he WAS a Catholic priest and has since left the priesthood to live his homosexual lifestyle and he still collects money for ravaging churches for some alleged requirements of Vatican II. The material I passed out documented how he was living a luxurious lifestyle and traveling overseas with his gay lover off the money he was making by destroying churches. As I said, the event had not even started, but the pastor of the parish ran over to me yelling that he had called the police on me. If what I passed out was untrue, why wasn't the publication that printed it in the first place ever sued for libel? Or should Catholics just be kept in the dark and keep paying for such rot?
I don't remember the particulars of that evening, but I did not even go to the event to write a story, I went there to inform the poor parishioners who were taken in by this nonsense, because no one else would, so to boast that a "story" that I was allegedly writing was stopped is ridiculous.
I was hardly envied by anyone and the other reporters I worked with at the San Diego News Notes were colleagues who shared a vision of stopping the rot in the Church. We didn't do it for money--we could have never supported ourselves that way anyway--and we weren't competing with each other. The pay was miniscule for the effort required to write such stories.
I never claimed to be on "great terms" with any "majority"--I have simply written that I get along well with most Catholics here that I've met and that there is a select, misguided clique that hates me. Obviously, the person who wrote this is also filled with the same hatred. If you really WERE at the Fr. Rod Stephens lovefest, I think I know who you were. If you're who I think you are, I wouldn't use my name either.
My family is from Georgia,the Savannah diocese. We cannot say enough good about our priests.
ReplyDeleteOur family,friends and fellow Catholics stand behind Bishop Boland 100%.
I live in Valdosta, and you cannot know what small-town politics can be like unless you have experienced it. Sad to say, church communities are not immune from it, and this is just one example. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of good people in this town who are kind and decent, but there are many others that behave as though the power-plays and cliques from highschool should carry into adulthood. In the same manner, there are good priests in this diocese, but there are also those that would rather look the other way than to correct an injustice.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said, "I personally saw [Robert] disrupt a church event one evening in San Diego..."
ReplyDeleteGood for Robert! Church wreckovations were accomplished by manipulating parishioners into believing they had participated in "building consensus." Meetings were often run according to the Delphi technique, an unethical method where "facilitators" (change agents) maneuver people into a phony consensus that, in reality, squeezes out disagreement.
While I never dealt with a renovation manipulation, I certainly have been involved in plenty of sex ed meetings geared toward getting pornographic materials into the hands of children. They were ALWAYS manipulated to silence opposition.
All I can say is, "Meeting disrupters of the world unite. Take back our churches from the heretics and dissenters who are destroying the faith!"
God bless you, Robert.
what do TV shows like David Letterman, Maury Povich, Jenny Jones, Ellen, Jerry Springer, 60 minutes, 48 hours,
ReplyDeleteTMZ, Chelsea, and newspapers like Esquirer, Star, Globe, along with mazazines like; People, Vanity Fare and Cosmo all have in common.
They are all owned by non Christians, and they all base their storylines around gossip.
Well folks, we human creatures are all sinners and as Catholics we should never engage in the practice of exposing the sins, or faults of others. We call that gossip and it is a mortal sin. If there is a crime to report, call the cops.
Gossip is always wrong and sometimes the fallout of gossip can have major unintended consequences.
The talmud allows one to gossip and engage in a host of other sins catholics would find completely immoral.
If gossip is going to be the guiding light in a persons life, they need to admit it is the talmud they follow and not the bible.
First a point of clarification. All gossip is not a mortal sin. Revealing the hidden MORTAL sins of someone would be a mortally sinful act of detraction.
ReplyDeleteBut the situation here is not gossip. It is discussing a public scandal and public injustice which needs to be redressed.
With regard to the behavior of the two principals, Fr. O'Brien and his secretary, it was already a source of public scandal in the parish which needed to be addressed. Bishop Boland was notified and ignored it.
What happened afterwards raised the level of the scandal.
Fr. O'Brien and his secretary's behavior was imprudent at best leading to gossip. The bishop should have handled it before it escalated. Unfortunately, these things blow up when they are ignored just like the sex abuse scandals.
But perhaps anonymous thinks revealing those evils was "gossip" as well and keeping it hushed up was justified.
I hope not.
I am not sure of the point that "Anonymous" is making. First an extensive list of TV shows and mass media names are given which are claimed to be owned/controlled by "non-Christians."
ReplyDeleteThen "Anonymous" mentions that the Talmud allows gossip..... Is "Anonymous" implying that our media is owned/controlled by persons of the Jewish faith?
Ya think ?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous is so funny..... Calls gossip a mortal sin - says that it is always wrong... and THEN spreads the standard garbage about Jews controlling the media....
ReplyDeleteBesides... I want to find out where in the Talmud is gossip condoned???
It was the Jewish faith that gave us the commandment NOT to bear false witness... and that accusations had to be verified..
So where is gossip condoned?
Dear Danny,
ReplyDeleteYou can do the research yourself if you doubt but I assure you it is the Jews who control or own:
CNN, CBS, ABC, History channel, MTV, Paramount, United Artists, People magazine, Time Magazine,
Bloomberg, CNBC, Nikelodeon,
US News world report, Barrons,
Disney, Time Warner, Universal Studios, viviendi, AOL, Prentice Hall, Simon and Schuster, Pocket books, Barnes and Noble, Borders,
Dream Works, SKG, MCA, Miramix films, Ramdom House, Crown Books,
Newsweek, Western Publishing ( childrens books) New York Times,
Washington Post.
I am not about to debate particulars of the Catholic faith with those who obviously know so little.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who spends a few minutes looking, can find at least 5 passages in the bible that rebuke the gossip monger. Matthew and 1Tim are two such areas.
Anonymous, I know that the Bible teaches that gossip is wrong. You stated that the Talmud ALLOWS gossip - I am asking where in the TALMUD are those passages?
ReplyDeleteAlso, if you are so worried about Jews controlling the media - watch EWTN.
I've been watching this conversation for some time, and I guess I'll jump in, if only once.
ReplyDelete1) I am absolutely sickened by the anti-semitic drivel that some are posting here. I grew up around Jewish people and, quite frankly, I am probably more comfortable around them than I am most Catholics. While I do not share their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah, I find them to be intelligent, hard-working, generous to a fault and superior in their sense of humor.
2) All this stuff about the Talmud and the Bible are irrelevant, since anyone knows that gossip is sinful. I will not start splitting hairs about which gossip is venial or mortal sin, because that's not even the issue.
3) What I was investigating (which I am forbidden to mention) always struck me as gossip. However, when the sources became too credible for me to doubt, I sought to verify it. I did not publish "gossip" or for that matter ANYTHING about this. The party that went public with this was the one that I was investigating and it happened after I shared what I had found in a very private communication with someone in authority. It was never my intent that this become a public issue at all and it was my hope that this could all have been handled quietly and privately. The door of making it public was opened by someone else who would have been much wiser to keep quiet about it.
5) Speaking of gossip, I myself have been the subject of some pretty wild gossip too. Among some of the colorful rumors that have been going around about me (all false) are:
• I was kicked out of my parish in San Diego
(If that's the case, why would the priests there write letters of support for me and baptize my children?)
• I was hauled away from a house here at 3 am buy the police after screaming and banging on windows
• I was in the military in San Diego where I investigated military chaplains
• I was "kicked out" of California (could that really be done? Maybe by the INS if I were an undocumented alien).
Some people evidently think that gossip is sinful, unless that gossip originates from the parish office.
I forgot what number 4 was, but it was a good point, I'm sure.
ReplyDeletewhere is it anti semetic to post a fact about the American media owned and controlled by Jews. How is it anti semitic to write the truth. Jews are also the dominate forces in porn, abortion,
ReplyDeletegambling, etc. The Jews will not dispute that, why would a Catholic? In short, we can understand this if we understand once the Jews rejected logos, 33 a.d. , they were left with only one option, revolution. It is not a biased comment to note Jews were behind Bolshevikism, communism, socialism, etc. How many hundreds of millions died in those movements. Is Jesus anti semitic when he said in John 8-44, you are of your father, the devil. Jesus called all Jews off spring of the demon. The gospel says Jews are adversaries of all men.
Catholic are the true Israelites of the gospel. Catholics hold the one true faith which was opened to all on Pentecost Sunday, when the One True Church of Jesus was established. Anyone who rejects that faith is following the adversary of God, the father of lies. That is pure Catholic theology.
I would remind people that 99% of self identified Jews of today are not semitic. 99% of American Jews are descendants from the region of Khazaria where they converted en masse from pagans to Jews in 700 a.d. They migrated over the centuries to Eastern, then Western Europe. A Jew himself Arthur Koestler documents this in his book, the 13th tribe. The point is this group has no connection to the middle east and are not Semitic. Yet, from this group comes modern day Zionism, which through the barrel of a gun has taken land from the native Palestinians and continues a campaign of ethnic cleanings in a region they never lived in. Supporting this movement is a claim of having 1/2 of their population wiped out in the ordeal of World War 2. If you review the clips of these claims you will find there exists zero forensic evidence to support them and one who doubts that in 11 europeon nations will spend 10-15 years in prison. Google 'one third of the holocaust' which proves beyond a reasonable doubt the claims of mass gassings are impossible, just as the claims of bears eating jews was untrue, steam chambers was untrue, burning pits was untrue, human soap was untrue and lampshades is untrue.
Elie wiesel wrote his book " night" in 1956. He forgot to mention gas chambers at auschwitz. He cliams he spent 14 months there. He wrote of burning ditches, where people were burnt alive, - a definition of holocaust. But that was a problem. Auschwitz is built on a swamp. water table is 100 cm. Opps. Yeah, a BIG opps. He dropped the burning trenches myth in 1962 and inserted gas chambers. So we should not always assume things are as they seem.
The Talmud is irrelevant? well, dozens of Popes disagree with that idea. The fact is the Talmud teaches that Jesus is in H--- and boiling in human excrement. It teaches the BVM was a prostitute. It teaches that it is Ok to lie and steal from a gentile. It teaches that the lives of 1000 palestinains are not worth as much as a fingernail of a Jew. the talmud is a compilation of rabbinic teachings which has nothing to do with God, or the
ReplyDeleteteachhngs of Moses. In fact, parts of the Talmud say that the Rabbi is smarter than God,and teaches God certain things. Modern day judaism is a manmade construct which place the rabbi on par with the Divine if not ahead of the Divine. It teaches utter contempt of non Jews. It is the height of hypocrisy that the one people who scream and cry tolerance at every opportunity are
indeed the purveyors of hate towards non Jews.
What I meant specifically was that the Talmud was irrelevant to my specific issue. But thanks for all the info. I think I'll drop out of this now and let the rest of you fight it out.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous... You do realize of course that all this propaganda, and gossip, and rumors, that you are spreading are just lies, that are, in fact, part of a super-duper-secret plot by the zionists to make it SEEM as though there are anti-Jewish feelings among reasonable society.
ReplyDeleteYou have been duped into being an unwitting agent of the very group you disparage.
You should definitely stop helping THEIR cause!
There are good Catholics and bad Catholics, good Protestants and bad Protestants, good Jews and bad Jews. People point to Hitler and say "he was a Catholic." He was baptized Catholic, but obviously did not believe anything the Church teaches. Just like Obama claims to be a Christian while violating everything Christ taught.
ReplyDelete"By their fruits shall you know them." Rabbi Yehuda Levin is a man I admire greatly and a champion of the unborn. Lawrence Lader was a jewish architect of abortion on demand who was willing to lie to get it.
This thread has gone far afield of the original point and I'm shutting it down.