KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter
Oct. 9, 2019
By Peter Feuerherd
Her friends recall Marion Knott McIntyre as the type of woman who was quick to pick up the tab after Sunday post-Mass breakfast, and would spontaneously offer gifts, sometimes monetary, to people she felt had need. She rarely took no for an answer.
That legacy – Knott McIntryre died a childless widow in December 2017 at 86 years old – has long been in dispute. Was she simply naturally generous? Or was her generosity exploited?
Fr. Christopher Senk, pastor of St. Isabel Church here, was charged by his bishop with improperly influencing McIntyre, a St. Isabel’s parishioner, who gave him $25,000-30,000 in gifts over a six-year period, as well as naming the priest in her estate, to the objection of some members of her Maryland-based family.
“Please understand it is my obligation to exercise careful vigilance,” Bishop Frank Dewane of the Diocese of Venice, which includes St. Isabel’s, wrote to the parish after Senk was expelled from his rectory in October 2016. Senk, pastor at St. Isabel’s since 2003, was placed on administrative leave at that time.
The case has played out in an atmosphere both of distrust of the church hierarchy and, conversely, the response of bishops sensitive about criticism of failure to act against ethical lapses by clergy in the past.
A vocal group of parishioners who support Senk have long disputed Dewane’s vigilance. They say Dewane is guilty of railroading a popular pastor, known for opening his rectory on holidays to parishioners bereft of family, with the pastor cooking the meals.
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