Resignation Comes to the Bishop
My honest and direct reflection on the departure of the Third Bishop of Knoxville, Richard F. Stika, who ordained me.
It behooves me to begin this particular Substack post by declaring that the opinions which I express in this article are my personal views and mine alone. Of course, I believe that most of my readers understand this, but the reason which causes me to make that declaration is that I'm going to discuss subject matter which I would not have otherwise discussed were circumstances different. By now, the news discussed in this post is old news for many in the Catholic world and even the local press here in East Tennessee. For me the news is about two weeks old as I am writing this. My instinct was to write about it as soon as it happened, because there were already many thoughts in my head. Prayerful consideration caused me to pause and reflect on exactly what to say. Doing so doesn't necessarily mean my thoughts will have a filter, that is to say that I don't intend to water them down. However, my words are likely to be a bit more careful than they would have been had I written this on the 27th of June, when my thoughts were far more raw.
Archbishop Shelton Fabre, who is acting as the Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Knoxville while we await the appointment of a new bishop, said in his first homily to the people of the diocese that we have the right to feel what we feel and to “be where we are” regarding this story and the events which have led up to it. The words written here represent where I am right now.
On June 27th, Bishop Richard F. Stika, who conferred Holy Orders upon me as a deacon, and who at fourteen years was the longest serving Bishop of Knoxville, resigned his office. He cited concerns about his health, his ongoing diabetic and other physical problems, as the primary reason for his departure. He did admit, however, that ongoing and increasingly public questions about his leadership did play a role and compounded his stress. When he resigned, he said he had come to the decision in the last month.
The journalistic reporting of others, however, would seem to indicate that at the very most the bishop was telling what we would call a half-truth. I have no doubt that the Bishop's health played a role in the situation of his departure; his health has been an ongoing issue from nearly the moment he arrived in East Tennessee. Very shortly after his consecration as Bishop, Stika experienced diabetic complications so severe that he slipped into a diabetic coma. There were concerns that he might not survive. He has since had bypass surgery and other heart complications. If His Excellency were going to resign for health reasons, he has had ample reason to do so long before now.
There has been a great deal of good accomplished under Bishop's Stika's tenure here in East Tennessee. Our number of priests has increased and continues to do so, we continue to have more than enough priests to cover our parishes. The Bishop's support of the diaconate program means that our diocese now has an abundance of deacons. Many dioceses are closing parishes or merging them; our diocese erected new parishes during Bishop Stika's period of office. It can even be argued that despite the enormous financial cost, the building of the new Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was a net positive, since the need for a new facility was very real.
Of course I am most thankful that Bishop Stika gave me the opportunity to enter formation for the diaconate, and ultimately to be ordained when other bishops may not have taken a chance on me. He baptized my eldest child. My initial experiences after ordination were certainly positive and I have seen some of the best of the Bishop's pastoral ministry, so I do believe that for all of his faults, he still has a pastoral heart. However, I began to hear from some that I trusted that all was not well, and that included some of our priests. I never sought out such information, and that which was told to me involved a heaping helping of opinion at first, and I certainly wasn't going to share anything that I thought might genuinely lead to calumny or detraction. One of the things that I did hear was that the bishop could be very autocratic, and that he would do what he wished to do sometimes against the advice and good judgment of those around him.
When the bishop began to regularly post on social media, I initially thought that this was really a wonderful thing, and it was a way for him to reach out to the flock. Eventually, not only did the bishop become quite outspoken, but many of his posts went well beyond spiritual issues. At first, I overlooked this apparent fault. After all, as someone with a political science degree, I often post on social media about political or community matters, and I don't expect everyone to agree with me. Sometimes I would note that the bishop would get into lengthy discussions on Facebook or Twitter about statements or posts that he had made. He once criticized me for making a political post on Facebook that he did not particularly like, even though he himself did this routinely. From the view that I was observing, the standards which he wanted others to abide by did not seem to apply to him.
The ultimate reason to be disturbed by this is the reality that we as clergy swear a promise of obedience to the bishop in front of him when we are ordained and swear a very serious oath of fidelity and obedience in order to be ordained. Any brother deacons or priests who know me know that I take my oath of fidelity and obedience extremely seriously. Implicit in this promise and oath, however, is that in return for our obedience, our bishop and those in authority over us will do their best to live as public examples of the faith, that they will not bring disrepute on the Church, or on us who serve alongside them and share in their ministry, since they themselves have sworn the same oath and made the same promise. In the words of St. Paul on the the qualifications for the episcopal office, a bishop must be “above reproach” and among other things (cf. 1 Timothy 3:2-3)1 a bishop should be:
no drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and no lover of money.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Diocese of Knoxville, like many other dioceses, implemented strict protocols to prevent transmission of the virus. After a time, the bishop began to receive a great deal of public criticism from parishioners in the diocese on social media who believed he ought to ease up on the restrictions. I did not comment on many of these social media posts, but my wife did. She was definitely of the opinion that the bishop should begin to lift restrictions after they had been in place for many months. She had no trouble letting the bishop know her opinion on social media since he was so free with his, and after all she didn't make a promise of obedience. My wife was publicly humiliated by the bishop in our Parish parking lot for having disagreed with him on social media. I did not think that this was the appropriate time or place for that kind of confrontation, especially since my wife had not done anything wrong but disagree with the bishop on Facebook, and unlike me, she was not obliged to obedience at the level that I am. She felt hurt and humiliated by this and thereafter, she didn't feel comfortable attending functions with the bishop. It was with this experience that I learned that the discussion and rumors of the Bishop's overbearing nature might be more than mere gossip or idle chatter to be avoided.
The Catholic news publication The Pillar was the outlet to first break the stories publicly regarding the problems with the Bishop’s abuse of authority, mismanagement, and most importantly the alleged accepting of a Polish seminarian, Wojciech Sobczuk, who already had a questionable track record when it came to sexual misconduct, and then covering for Sobczuk when he was expelled from St. Meinrad Seminary, and then later when he was accused of raping the former organist of Sacred Heart Cathedral. The bishop is alleged to have derailed a serious investigation into the matter. Then, Sobczuk was sent to St. Louis University to avoid falling afoul of immigration law, and according to a Church Militant investigation (embedded in this article), this was done at diocesan expense. Bishop Stika said that he "knew in his heart" that Sobczuk did not do the things he was accused of, this despite Sobczuk's previous track record.
It is entirely possible that Bishop Stika was willing to give Sobczuk the benefit of the doubt, even in naivete, and that he wasn't purposely covering for an abuser. However, in this present age of the Church's life, the very appearance of impropriety in matters of sexual abuse or the sheltering of sexual abusers cannot be seen to be tolerated, and it should never be tolerated again. This and other credible sexual misconduct allegations give the appearance at the very least of a Shepherd who was not fully aware of the potential consequences of his very obvious actions, and at worst, believed that there might not be any consequences for his own conduct. Whereas if I as a deacon had knowingly covered for an abuser in our parish, the great likelihood is that my faculties to minister would likely be suspended, perhaps permanently (and in such circumstances, that would be deservedly so).
Allegations also surfaced regarding financial mismanagement in attempting to cover and pay off the debts in the building of the new Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I have always been an outspoken supporter of building the new cathedral, and I remain so. I remember what the old cathedral was like whenever we would have any kind of diocesan function, there were times that it literally felt like we were sardines jammed into a can in the old building. However, it is very important that the financing arrangements be done properly, and the bishop and the diocese should have been forthright with people about the potential for the cost, and always give the people the highest estimate.
We were initially told the cathedral would cost around 30 million dollars. The first time I ever saw the new cathedral was on the morning it was dedicated. I entered through one of the side entrances which was being reserved for clergy that day. I arrived early because of the need to vest, and I wanted to step in and see the newly completed temple of God for myself. My first thoughts were what a marvelous, fitting, and beautiful House of God this is, and it certainly is that. But then my second thoughts were "there is no way on Earth this only cost $30 million." That is a concern because no small number of our parishes in the diocese are outside of our two major cities (Knoxville and Chattanooga), and a number of those are small rural parishes, including my own, often the only Catholic parish in their respective counties. Many of our rural parishes are just getting by, some barely able to meet expenses. Much of our diocese is rural Appalachia, after all. Many of these counties aren't just poor, they are PO,' adding the additional OR on the end of the word costs too much money.
The Bishop insisted on "taxing" parishes after the cathedral was built in order to pay off the debt, a debt we were told that the HOME campaign, which was launched to help build the cathedral, would largely cover.
The bishop was not known to take constructive criticism very well. Father Peter Iorio said in a homily that made the local press on the day that Bishop Stika resigned that "I believe in my heart that Bishop Stika didn't know how to relate to the truth."
Despite all of these things, from the very depths of my heart I wish Bishop Stika nothing but well in the next part of his journey of ministry and in his own personal walk with Jesus Christ. I will never stop being thankful to him for being the man who accepted me and ordained me, and gave me the opportunity to be in Ministry myself, even if my physical capacities are limited. Indeed, after I received his notice sent to the clergy that he was resigning I sent him a note wishing him and Cardinal Rigali the very best, and telling him thank you. I understand that we are sinners, and I trust the Lord in his Mercy that Bishop Stika will take the opportunity that the Lord gives to him, as the Lord gives to all of us, to turn away from our sins, to repent, and to embrace the Gospel anew, making a fresh start. It is my fervent hope and prayer that the bishop will use the chance that this change gives to him to embrace the constant conversion and repentance that the Lord calls all of us to.
There are times in our walk with the Lord that we must take a new turn on the road, turn a page in the book of our journey. The Diocese of Knoxville has reached such a point, and truthfully we collectively have been there for a while. If I had a wish for a new bishop it would be that this person be a holy priest that is local to us, even though I know that is probably unlikely. At the very least, I pray it is a man who is faithful, orthodox, and fears God far more than he fears damaging the Church's earthly reputation. It is better to tell the truth and to live in it, than to conceal the truth-even for the best of reasons-and have to give an account before God for doing something that places the Gospel in disrepute.
The Biblical text both as translated and in the original language indicates that in the earliest days of the Church, some bishops were married when they were ordained, though the practice ceased fairly early in both the East (where married priests remain common) as well as the Western Church. The full text of 1 Timothy 3:1-5 [RSV] reads:
”The saying is sure: If any one aspires to the office of bishop, he desires a noble task. Now a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher, no drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and no lover of money. He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way; for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God’s Church?”