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	Is Bishop Gracida Distancing Himself from Father Corapi? By Scott P. Richert About.com July 8, 2011 http://catholicism.about.com/b/2011/07/08/is-bishop-gracida-distancing-himself-from-father-corapi.htm From June 17, the day that Fr. John Corapi ("once called 'father,' now 'The Black Sheep Dog'") announced that he intended to abandon his priestly ministry, he has had no more high-profile defender than the retired bishop of Corpus Christi, René Gracida. Many of those who are convinced of Father Corapi's innocence have pointed to Bishop Gracida's support of Father Corapi, and his harsh words for the current bishop of Corpus Christi and the current leadership of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT), as proof. Bishop Gracida has confirmed that he suggested to Father Corapi "that probably the only way he could clear his name would be through a civil law suit filed against his accuser": I made the suggestion to Father James Flanagan, the Priest General Servant Emeritus, and Father Flanagan entrusted the message to Father Anthony Anderson, SOLT, who flew to Montana and personally delivered the suggestion to Father Corapi. In "My Final Comment (Hopefully) on the Case of Father John Corapi," however, Bishop Gracida makes it clear that "I have had no direct contact with Father Corapi in many years." Because of that, he admits that "Maybe [Father Corapi] deserves [the action SOLT has taken], maybe he does not, I do not know" (emphasis mine). And yet, His Excellency feels comfortable writing, "The statement seems to me to be nothing more or less than an effort by the SOLT leadership to 'throw Father John Corapi under the bus.'" What he does not feel comfortable doing any longer, apparently, is defending Father Corapi from the charges against him. Over and over again, at several points in ALL CAPS, Bishop Gracida states that "MY CHIEF COMPLAINT" from the beginning has been the process employed by the bishop of Corpus Christi and the superiors of SOLT, not the fact of the investigation itself. While many of Father Corapi's supporters point to this latest statement from Bishop Gracida as proof of His Excellency's continued support for Father Corapi, they seem to miss the implications of a central paragraph (perhaps because it is not in ALL CAPS): Instead of rushing to publicly suspend Father Corapi these people should have quietly launched an investigation into the accusations and, if they proved to be credible, they could have quietly removed him from active exercise of his public activities and then after further investigation determined whether or not to take more drastic canonical disciplinary action against him. In the next paragraph, Bishop Gracida states that SOLT and Bishop Mulvey (the current bishop of Corpus Christi) should have been concerned for the welfare of the thousands and thousands people who have either been brought to the faith or have had their faith strengthened by the man who, in spite of his having clay feet [emphasis mine], had been an effective teacher of the Gospel. These do not sound like the words of a man who is still convinced of Father Corapi's innocence, a man who, in a post that is no longer available on his blog, lauded Father Corapi as "a good sheep dog [who] will continue to try to protect the flock from the dangers of heresy, heterodoxy, and all other forms of untruth." (You can see Google's cache of the post here.) Nor do they sound like the words of a man who, in another post that is no longer available on his blog, urged his readers to contact the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States to protest the treatment of Father Corapi. (You can see Google's cache of that post here). Indeed, as far as I can tell, anything that Bishop Gracida wrote that could be interpreted as supporting John Corapi's innocence has now been scrubbed from his blog, and all that remains is his "Final Comment." Those who have attacked Bishop Mulvey and SOLT will no doubt see their sinister hands at work here, but to me the more simple explanation seems more compelling: Bishop Gracida sees the writing on the wall and wants to change the narrative. In case proof positive of John Corapi's guilt should appear, he wants to be able to say that he never suggested that Father Corapi was innocent but simply that the process is flawed. That is, however, not the message that Father Corapi's supporters took from Bishop Gracida, and with good reason: It was, until Tuesday, never the message that His Excellency was sending. Why the sudden change? Only Bishop Gracida knows for sure. And if his "Final Comment" is truly his final comment, we'll probably never find out.
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