ARTICLES
January 2003 ARTICLES
Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
Everyone Says He's Wonderful
Suspended Medjugorje Priest Gives Retreat in Thousand Oaks
By Maria Kennedy
A priest, against whom numerous allegations of sexual misconduct have been leveled, gave a "mini retreat" at St. Paschal Baylon Catholic Church in Thousand Oaks on November 13. In addition to the allegations of sexual abuse, Franciscan Father Jozo Zovko, the original pastor at the church in Bosnia-Herzegovina where the alleged Medjugorje apparitions took place, has had his faculties removed by the Bishop of Mostar, the diocese where Medjugorje is located, for allegedly sexually assaulting women pilgrims.
A book, The Medjugorje Deception, deals in part with the allegations of sexual abuse by Zovko. In an interview with this reporter, the book's author, E. Michael Jones of South Bend, Indiana, said that Zovko "was suspended in 1989 for sexual abuse with the daughter of someone who was involved in organizing pilgrimages." Jones pointed out that Zovko also sexually abused a woman pilgrim in the rectory of the church where he was the pastor. In his book, Jones outlines how one man, Mark Waterinckx of Belgium, became friends with Zovko in 1989. That same year, "an American woman came to him and told him that Zovko had sexually assaulted her." According to Jones, Waterinckx confronted Zovko with the charges and Zovko denied them, but seemed ill at ease. Waterinckx now states that he knows 12 women who were sexually abused by Zovko.
A letter by a Franciscan priest, Father Svetozar Kraljevic, to Jones, however, calls the allegations against Zovko "unfounded" but bases his defense only on Zovko's record for good works. In his 1998 letter, found on Medjugorje Web, Father Svetozar says that he has watched Zovko "as his superior, for three years at Sirocco Bridge, from 1994 to 1997." Zovko, said Father Svetozar, "works and prays with the pilgrims for hours on end, day and night" and "takes no money for himself." He also helped a number of orphaned children during the war in Bosnia through the International God Parenthood Program, said Father Svetozar, and began building a "Renewal Center, which in its first phase will provide for a convent and a school where sisters will educate girls without parents and with no other possibility of education." Father Svetozar concluded: "I suppose it is unavoidable, being that he [Zovko] is in the public eye and doing so much good, that there would be gossip, hearsay and various unfounded allegations against him."
In a November 22 interview, St. Paschal Baylon pastor Dave Heyney told me that he had received assurances from the Franciscan order in Mostar that Zovko had faculties. Later, in response to a complaint, Father Heyney inquired as to the validity of Zovko's faculties. "The diocese [of Los Angeles] said that everything was fine," he noted. Additionally, Father Heyney said that the archdiocese of Los Angeles had given Zovko faculties.
On the day of the conference, the parish secretary of St. Paschal Baylon told me, "there will be a healing Mass. A lot of people will be coming, it should be interesting. Everyone says he's wonderful," she said about Zovko. Although the event was scheduled to begin at 5 p.m., by 3:30 p.m. busloads of people were arriving at the church. Outside, in the churchyard, tables had been set up with books, videos and other religious items relating to Medjugorje.
Many of the people milling about the church and the churchyard were elderly and infirm. One elderly Latina lady from Chino thought that the Gospa (as Our Lady is referred to in Bosnia) was Our Lady of Guadalupe. "No, no," her friend told her. "Our Lady of Guadalupe is more Indian looking than this."
The November 13 event in Thousand Oaks had a standing room only crowd. In addition to the church building, two other rooms were filled with people eager to hear about "the woman," as Zovko referred to the Virgin Mary. In his opening remarks, Father Heyney told the audience that he was "proud" to host Zovko at his church. After reciting the rosary, Zovko addressed the mostly female crowd in Bosnia while translators spoke in English and Spanish. Both Zovko and his English translator, a woman from Canada, spoke in dramatic tones: "this church, St. Paschal's here, is like the hall of the Last Supper. Open my eyes, open our hearts and souls, open our lives. that we completely surrender to you. Come Holy Sprit. you who pray in human hearts, come tonight and pray in my heart," she said. When the translator related Zovko's account of the story of how the "children" had been whisked away from the police soon after they first started seeing the Gospa, she spoke in hushed tones, emphasizing the drama of the scene. Zovko on the other hand was almost shouting his part of the presentation.
Though Zovko had a Latino priest translating most of the talk into Spanish, the Latinos in attendance, by and large, seemed uninspired. One man, who sat in an overflow room with his two young daughters, dozed off during the talk.
When time for the rosary came, volunteers passed out beads and "holy cards" of Gospa. During the rosary, many stood up, with their eyes closed, holding up their rosaries. Later, when Zovko was vested and ready to process into the church to celebrate Mass, retreat participants were pressing the rosaries and "holy cards" to his vestments.
In addition to Thousand Oaks, Zovko's speaking tour took him to Texas, Kansas, Chicago and Massachusetts. Although some Catholics tried to warn their bishops about Zovko and the controversy surrounding him, not one bishop was willing to forbid Zovko from appearing in his diocese. The tour was scheduled to conclude with a "retreat" at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. In an eleventh-hour decision, however, the National Shrine issued a statement saying that Zovko would not be allowed to speak or celebrate Mass at the November 21 event. Peter Sonski, spokesman for the archdiocese of Washington, D.C., said that the diocese had prohibited Zovko from celebrating Mass because it had been informed by Zovko's bishop that he did not possess faculties.
The organizer of the Washington, D.C. event, Father Jerry Petta, was very guarded when speaking to me. "It's not something that you can elaborate on," he said in a telephone interview about the canceling of Zovko's appearance. "I don't think there was adequate communication [between Mostar and Washington, D.C.]. there was too little communication," he noted. When I asked if Zovko would return, "oh sure," he replied
It may seem ironic that Zovko's speaking tour of the United States coincided with November's meeting of the United States bishops' meeting in Washington, D.C., where they discussed the issue of clergy sexual abuse. The bishops' conference, however, does not have an official policy regarding foreign priests who are guilty of sexual abuse, according to Bill Ryan, the conference's spokesman. "In every case it would be up to the local diocese to implement any policy," said Ryan. When asked if the bishops' conference had taken a stance on Medjugorje, Ryan said it did not have an official policy, that it was up to the local ordinary.
To verify that the Los Angeles archdiocese had granted Zovko faculties to celebrate Mass in Thousand Oaks, I called the archdiocesan office of the vicar of clergy. No one returned my calls for comment.