STEUBENVILLE (OH)
Patheos [Englewood CO]
August 8, 2024
By Mary Pezzulo
I just want to say a few words about a lawsuit filed several years ago, with serious allegations against Father Michael Scanlan, which has been publicly reported about for the first time.
And this is your standard warning that I’m going to mention some horrifying sexual abuse in this post, so stop reading now if you don’t want to hear it. I’m not linking to the lawsuit itself, but it’s easy to find in a simple google search.
I don’t have any private information about this lawsuit. I only know that it exists, because the podcaster who just published about it mentioned me rather extensively at the beginning of his video, and so somebody contacted me with the video and a copy of the lawsuit to tell me I’d been talked about. I’m reading the lawsuit for the first time now. This information is about an hour old to me as I’m trying to type it, though it’s been publicly available since 2020. I want to draw attention to it so people will know it exists. So many people trusted Father Scanlan, we have to have a record of all he’s accused of having done. The truth needs to be known.
This is the video where Kennedy Hall details the lawsuit against Father Michael Scanlan, the famous Charismatic Renewal leader who was responsible for launching Franciscan University of Steubenville to so much fame and success. The victim’s name is blacked out in his screenshots, which I appreciate. I am not aware that Scanlan was ever accused of sexual abuse before, though we all know his alleged history of cover-ups of his confreres’ sexual abuse, as well as students’ sexual abuse of students, at Franciscan University. We have extensive information about his involvement with the Servants of Christ the King Community, which was shut down by the bishop as a cult in the early nineties. I had wondered if there was more to this story and it seems I was right. If this information is true, he wasn’t just an accomplice to sexual and spiritual abuse. He was an abuser, in a horrendous way.
I don’t know anything about Kennedy Hall, and I get the impression I wouldn’t agree with him on much politically. But he seems to have done a lot of research and his presentation seems solid, and I’m thankful to him for reporting on this. I’m shocked no one noticed it earlier.
The lawsuit that Hall quotes and screenshots has been public information for four years now. It has been alleged that Father Scanlan sexually abused a minor, a nine-year-old boy, more than once, in ways I’m not going to repeat on Patheos, at the “Jesus 78” gathering of a Charismatic Catholic community called “People of Hope” at Saint Antonius rectory in Newark, New Jersey, in 1978. This lawsuit was filed in 2020 because of a law that became effective in 2019 extending the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits.
If this is somehow all untrue, I’ll be relieved. But I believe the alleged victim is telling the truth.
I can’t imagine what the victim must have suffered through all these years. I’m glad the statute has been extended so there can be a modicum of closure. My heart and prayers go out to them and their family. I hope that they can receive compensation. I am, once again, angry at the Catholic Church for not protecting students and others from the Franciscan Third Order Regular friars of Loretto, who have again and again been caught redhanded in so much misconduct. I am angry at the Charismatic Renewal. I wonder how long this is going to be allowed to go on. I am more and more certain that the Charismatic Renewal was a barely disguised ring of narcissistic abusers all along.
Mr. Hall quotes my three-year-old article about my experiences with Father Scanlan pretty extensively in the first part of the video there, so I want to mention that yes, in retrospect it seems very odd that a priest would give somebody a wet kiss on the forehead and a stroke on the cheek and call her “sweet” during deliverance prayer, and he’s right to point it out. But I have mentioned that those types of boundary violations are common in the Charismatic Renewal. I have also made my opinion of deliverance prayer abundantly clear. At the time, I had no idea. And I don’t think I’m alone.
I hope that any further victims will step forward and share their story.
I hope that everyone involved in this horror is brought to justice.