BishopAccountability.org
	Lujan Quits Gallup Diocese As Chancellor By Elizabeth Hardin-burrola Gallup Independent March 19, 2009 http://www.gallupindependent.com/2009/03March/031809lujanquits.html GALLUP — All the king’s men just lost another member. The Diocese of Gallup announced earlier this week that Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, the current apostolic administrator for the diocese, has accepted the resignation of Deacon Timoteo Lujan, the chancellor for the diocese and one of several chancery officials most closely associated with former Bishop Donald E. Pelotte. The announcement was made on Monday in the diocese’s online newsletter that is e-mailed each week by Communications Director Lee Lamb. The very brief announcement stated Lujan has been replaced by the Rev. Matthew Keller, who has been appointed as chancellor pro-tem. Based on Keller’s temporary title, diocese observers expect incoming Bishop-elect James S. Wall will appoint his own chancellor after his ordination/installation ceremony on April 23. Lujan will continue to work as an administrative assistant to Olmsted for the next several weeks, and he has been assigned to pastoral ministry as a deacon to the Catholic parishes of his home area of Grants and Milan. Before becoming chancellor, Lujan served as a deacon in those parishes. Lamb declined to provide any more information about the circumstances of Lujan’s sudden departure from the diocese. Lujan has been a controversial figure since Pelotte first appointed him to the chancellor’s position in July 2001. His replacement of his predecessor, local Catholic Sister Consolata Beecher, was not popular with many across the diocese. Beecher’s appointment in 2000 garnered national Catholic attention because she was a Native American woman from Laguna Pueblo, and she was a member of St. Katharine Drexel’s Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament. In contrast, her quiet departure in 2001 — after differences with Pelotte — was not announced to the media. Lujan proved to be a staunchly loyal member of Pelotte’s staff who adopted Pelotte’s biases and prejudices. Although Pelotte could be very friendly and charming in public settings, he had his favored inner circle of staff members and priests, and he waged very private and very aggressive campaigns against those who dared to express contrary opinions. Lujan quickly became very unpopular with many priests because of his adoption of Pelotte’s tactics. Over the last two decades, during a time when most Catholic dioceses across the country lost many aging priests to retirement and death, Pelotte compounded the problem in the Diocese of Gallup by pushing out of the diocese many popular and hardworking priests who angered Pelotte by raising concerns about the tolerance of sexual misconduct within the diocese, the lack of diocesan financial accountability, the sale of church assets, and Pelotte’s own personal problems. Lujan was thrust into the national spotlight in 2007 when he reportedly discovered a critically injured Pelotte in his Gallup home on July 23, 2007. Lujan did not call 911 for assistance but rather reportedly transported the bishop to the Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital’s emergency room in a private vehicle. An ER physician, believing Pelotte the victim of a beating, requested Gallup Police interview and photograph Pelotte. In a telephone interview, Lujan admitted to the Independent that his own initial suspicions were that Pelotte had possibly been beaten, and he said he and others in the diocese immediately suspected the possible involvement of a young man who had once allegedly threatened to kill Pelotte. When those statements attracted national attention, Lujan denied the comments. In recent weeks, Lujan’s role in Pelotte’s inner circle has surfaced again in the clergy sex abuse allegations against Diocese of Gallup priest John Boland. Last month Olmsted placed Boland on administrative leave pending an investigation. Olmsted discovered a 1983 newspaper clipping in Boland’s personnel file that reported Boland’s arrest for allegedly committing a lewd act with a child under 15. Court documents from Navajo County, Ariz., have since been obtained that provide details about Boland’s arrest and prosecution 26 years ago. In 2004, Lujan told the Gallup Independent that he had personally twice reviewed the personnel files of all current priests in the diocese. In 2005, Joe Baca, a representative of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, gave diocese officials — Lujan, Pelotte and Victims Assistance Coordinator Sister Mary Thurlough — a list of priests’ names that network officials thought might be possible abusers. Boland’s name was on a similar list provided to the Gallup Independent at that time. Diocesan officials promised the list would be investigated — something that apparently never was done until now under Olmsted’s order.
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