MINNESOTA
Brainerd Dispatch
By Chelsey Perkins on Apr 3, 2016
Nearly 50 years ago, a dynamic priest left an impression on parishioners at St. Christopher’s Catholic Church in Nisswa.
“Father (Alfred) Longley was a priest who had attracted a bit of a following in that when he showed up at St. Christopher’s, he was a dramatic presence,” said Rick Herder, a former Lake Shore resident who attended the church as a boy. “He wore colorful garb when he said the Mass. … He tended to gather a flock of acolytes around him, because he was an outgoing, colorful personality and an intellect. A very bright guy and a raconteur.”
Longley was memorable for other, more sinister reasons as well, recorded in a series of documents released as part of a successful lawsuit against the Diocese of Duluth by a victim of sexual abuse. The documents, including official reports from the Crow Wing County Sheriff’s Office, detailed interviews with juveniles staying at Longley’s Gull Lake residence, describing wild parties and sexual advances by the priest. Letters to and from the Diocese of Duluth also show church officials were aware of Longley’s chronic alcoholism and apparent homosexuality, for which he received treatment at a psychiatric hospital. In one letter, Longley’s case was described as a “very long and involved one” by the bishop of the Duluth diocese.
Although Longley was permanently removed from the ministry in March 1968 by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Duluth diocese granted Longley permission to celebrate Mass through the early 1970s. He is described as “Father” in all of the released documents, dated between April 1971 and May 1972. Herder, who shared his own experience of a 1970 sexual advance from Longley with the Brainerd Dispatch, recalled Longley serving as a substitute priest at St. Christopher’s in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
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