Tom O’connell Requests a Visit with Pope Francis

By Randy Hanson
Hudson Star-Observer
September 4, 2015

http://www.hudsonstarobserver.com/news/region/3831599-tom-oconnell-requests-visit-pope-francis

Tom O’Connell has requested a meeting with Pope Francis during the pontiff’s visit to the United States later this month.

The Hudson funeral home owner would like to talk to the pope about his son Daniel, who was murdered in 2002 by a parish priest thought to be trying to conceal his sexual abuse of young boys.

It is widely believed that Daniel O’Connell was preparing to confront Father Ryan Erickson about the abuse when the priest came to O’Connell Family Funeral Home and gunned down the 39-year-old funeral director and 22-year-old student intern James Ellison.

Erickson hung himself in December 2004 at the Hurley church he was then serving. Hudson police detectives had interviewed him earlier and identified him as a suspect in the murders.

“I am asking for myself and my family to have an audience with your Holiness. I realize there are hundreds of others who would like to meet you and all have very great need,” the elder O’Connell wrote in his letter to the pope, dated Feb. 1, 2015.

“But I must ask because I feel my circumstances and situation needs to be heard, not just because my family needs to heal, but also because the tragic chain of events that led to the loss of three lives, damage to other young lives and damaged faith in God is being repeated over and over within the Catholic faith,” O’Connell continued.

O’Connell’s letter came to the attention of St. Paul Pioneer Press columnist Ruben Rosario, who wrote extensively about it and the 2002 murders in last Sunday’s edition of the newspaper.

In a call from a Star-Observer reporter on Monday, O’Connell said he got the idea of requesting an audience with Pope Francis from a Chicago reporter.

The reporter called O’Connell and asked him if was going to see the pope when he visits Washington, D.C., New York and Philadelphia.

“I said I wasn’t planning on it, and he said, ‘Well, if anyone is entitled to see him, you certainly are,’” O’Connell related. “Then I mulled it over for a few days and decided, well, I’ll give it a shot.”

“To tell you the truth, I was in one of those moods. I didn’t care where the apple fell,” O’Connell added later.

Pope Francis has expressed a determination to root out sexual abuse by priests.

“I feel compelled to personally ask for forgiveness for the damage priests have done by sexually abusing children. The church is aware of this damage. It is personal moral damage,” he was quoted as saying in 2014.

This year, the pope approved the creation of a tribunal with the power to punish bishops who failed to protect children.

The thing that bothers O’Connell is that he and his family have never received an official, personal apology from the Catholic Church.

Peter Christiansen, a Twin Cities priest who later became bishop of the Superior Diocese, did visit the O’Connell family several times.

O’Connell said Christiansen apologized for the crimes and consoled the family, but explained that he wasn’t there as a representative of the church.

Numerous lawyers contacted O’Connell after the revelations of Erickson’s crimes, encouraging him to sue the church. O’Connell refused to, saying he didn’t want blood money.

What he does want is an end to the sexual abuse by clergy and for those guilty of perpetrating it to be removed from the priesthood.

“This tragic and awful chain of events has damaged my family and the diocese,” O’Connell wrote to the pope. “We are an old Irish Catholic family with a faith as deep and strong as our heritage. Our faith has been our core that carries us through the positives and negatives of life, and guides us as we work and help others.

“Every day we care for people and their lost loved ones. We deal with sorrow, sadness, loss, pain, anger, guilt and grief with every family we help. We try to be as compassionate, caring and kind as we possibly can as families say goodbye.”

O’Connell said a blessing from pope would be healing for him and his family.

“I’m asking for strength, advice, understanding and a personal blessing from you because you are our pope,” he wrote. “You can change the problems, you can lead others to change, and your guidance can help me and my family and the diocese.

“That is my mission to ask for acknowledgement that there needs to be change to prevent more tragedies and damaged lives, for advice and strength to continue to share our story, and for guidance, prayers and your blessing to help me repair the broken links in my family’s faith and the faith of others in God.”

O’Connell hasn’t received a response from the Vatican.

He believes that if the letter ever gets to Pope Francis his Holiness just might give him a blessing.