Abandoned Altars

This just in: After a three-week trial over a horrific killing a quarter of a century old, Fr. Gerald Robinson has been convicted of the ritual murder of Sister Margaret Pahl. He was immediately sentenced to 15 years to life in prison, although his attorney has already said they will appeal.

If you never heard about this before, you shouldn’t be surprised. Despite the spectacular nature of the crime, it hasn’t exactly made front page news.

Nor is this really that odd. Church apologists often demoan the media’s attention to priestly crimes, claiming that those with a bias against Catholics play up the most lurid elements, distorting the truth to sell papers and advertising. The way they put it, one would think there’s a major industry of vicious anti-Catholic propagandists making a mint off of exaggerating clerical crimes at their regular meetings in Dan Brown’s basement…

If so, where they’ve gone this week then? Getting ready for The Da Vinci Code premiere? Coverage of this case has been scarce – beyond the local coverage in The Toledo Blade and CourtTV, there have been few mentions in the major media anywhere until this verdict. Instead of being trumpeted broadcast high and low, the case is being played down, even by the prosecutor.

A prosecutor [Dean Mandros] told jurors in summations that the murder was not a satanic or ritualized killing, but an expression of Robinson’s anger about his stalled career. He had wanted to be a military chaplain. Prosecutor Mandros said that Robinson performed a “bastardized version of last rites” on Sr. Margaret Ann, a strong-willed, opinionated woman whose religious order ran the hospital, “to degrade her, to mock her, to humiliate her, to bring her down to the lowest point he possibly could.”(CourtTV, emphasis added.)

Sure – job frustrations and being picked on by an elderly penguin sound like perfectly good reasons enough for a murder like this:

• It was committed on Holy Saturday. This day, between Christ’s death on Good Friday and his Resurrection on Easter Sunday has long been regarded as an evil day when Satan’s power rules unchecked.
• It was committed in a sacristy. The sacristry is usually just the room the priest and servers dress for Mass. However, during the period between Good Friday and Easter, and only then, it has another function – the consecrated Hosts, Christ’s own Body in Catholic belief – are stored there. Thus the crime occurred in the very holiest of sanctuaries at the most solemn of times.
• Sister Pahl was strangled and while yet alive, stabbed repeatedly. 31 to 36 times total, 9 times through an altar cloth with a sinister-looking sabre-like letter opener. Some of the stabbings were in the shape of an upside down cross, as if a cross had been laid on top of her and the stabbings done in an outline. Of course, the inverted cross is a well-known satanic symbol.
• Her forehead was smudged with her own blood, as if in a mock anointing.
• Sister Pahl’s underwear were rolled down around her feet and her genitals exposed. Though male DNA was found, there was apparently no evidence of rape.
• Some sort of ritual was performed over the body. Why would a priest perform a “bastardized version of the last rites”, when he would have easy access to the proper formula, (which by the way, can be done very quickly in an emergency) — unless it was done purposefully?

Thus, we have a murder committed in a sacred place at a special time to a (presumed) virgin, whose corpse is deliberately defiled and displayed in a distorted version of a Christian ritual, as if in a mockery of Christ’s sacrifice and entombment. If that doesn’t sound like a satanic killing, what in God’s name would?

Could the killer have set it all up deliberately, as an attempt to throw off suspicion? It’s possible – though there is some very disturbing information the jury didn’t hear:

• S&M allegation. In 2003, a nun told a diocesan panel that she was sexually abused by Robinson when she was 15. She claimed that another priest paid her father to let Robinson engage her in sadomasochistic acts involving a whip. The same woman also alleged she was raped repeatedly as a girl during satanic rituals led by priests. Authorities have not been able to substantiate or disprove her charges. See here for more background allegations.
• Occult book. When police searched Robinson’s home in 2004, they found a pamphlet entitled “The Occult.” Many passages were underlined, including one describing a black Mass in which “an innocent” was used as an altar. The booklet was published by a Catholic group in the 1970s, before the murder, but it was unclear whether Robinson obtained it before or after the murder.
• Swiatecki’s pleas. When police interviewed Robinson about two weeks after the murder, the other hospital chaplain, Rev. Jerome Swiatecki, accompanied him to the station. According to the detectives, Swiatecki — the son of a police officer — emphatically and repeatedly urged Robinson to “just tell them the truth.” Some in law enforcement have speculated that Robinson confessed to Swiatecki, but that Swiatecki would have been bound by the seal of the confessional not to reveal any details.
• Coffin photos. Police officers searching Robinson’s house in 2004 found hundreds of photos of corpses in coffins. Some appeared to be very old and European. Although taking pictures of dead relatives is common among some ethnic traditions, the sheer number in the priest’s house suggested that not all of the dead were family members. (CourtTV)

Could it be that this case provides insights into a truth about the Church so horrific that nobody wants to believe them? So much so it seems that even Court TV’s coverage is muted. Note the “S&M allegation” in their quotation above, like it was consensual sex-play rather than ritual abuse and torture of a child.

We may never know why the priest really killed the nun. Had she discovered his secrets? Was she a sacrifice of some kind? Was he part of a cult, as seems very likely, or acting alone? How had he escaped for a quarter of a century?
Horrific as this trial has been, as difficult as it has been for me to follow as a clergy ritual abuse survivor, I had rejoiced at it taking place. Finally, it seemed, a crack in the wall of silence had opened, the secrecy was slowly crumbling. The fact that after twenty-five years a sentence had been handed down at last is encouraging.

Maybe so, but much more patience is obviously required. I long for the day when crimes like this get the attention they deserve, but I should be glad that at least a little justice has been done here.

Seems to me that a little sensationalism is sometimes deserved.