MESA (AZ)
East Valley Tribune
By Lawn Griffiths, Tribune
November 23, 2005
By 2003, Monsignor Dale Fushek’s star was rising so fast, the Tribune named the Mesa priest one of the "10 People to Watch" in the coming years. It may have been prophetic. The pastor of the dynamic St. Timothy’s Catholic Community was preaching to 8,000 a weekend.
He had just gained the coveted monsignor title and had been been advanced to vicar-general for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix. He oversaw construction of the stately Diocesan Pastoral Center. He co-founded the international Catholic youth program, Life Teen, and launched the highly
respected Paz de Cristo homeless kitchen and ministry in Mesa.
He designed the worship service for Pope John Paul II’s Mass in Tempe’s Sun Devil Stadium in 1987, then chaperoned Mother Teresa in 1989 in her Valley search for a Missionaries of Charity house site.
And it looked as if Fushek, with his sparkling credentials and personable gifts, was the heir-apparent for bishop appointed by the pope for this diocese.
It was not to be.
Now, the 53-year-old priest is under house arrest in his Phoenix apartment, ordered to have no contact with youth, stripped of his passport, and no longer holding an assignment in the diocese.