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July 16, 2021 | catholicnewsherald.com CATHOLIC NEWS HERALDI
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Lawsuit claims abuse in 1980s by former Glenmary Missioner PATRICIA L. GUILFOYLE EDITOR
(From left) Charlotte seminarians and St. Joseph Workers Ronan Ostendorf, Gabriel Lugo and Carson Cannon clean up the area surrounding the Marian grotto next to the rectory at St. Patrick Cathedral in Charlotte July 12. PHOTO PROVIDED BY JAMES SARKIS
‘A light to others’ St. Joseph Workers spend summer helping people, parishes in diocese SUEANN HOWELL SENIOR REPORTER
MOUNT HOLLY — Men from St. Joseph College Seminary have become “St. Joseph Workers” this summer, spending their time out of school to do yardwork, refinish floors, build a fire pit, and more. While not a formal aspect of their seminary formation, this work for people and parishes around the diocese aims to help build the seminarians spiritually and socially – another aspect
of St. Joseph College Seminary’s holistic approach to priestly formation, seminary leaders say. “We started the St. Joseph Workers back in the summer of 2018 as a means of providing college seminarians with continuity in their formation by allowing them to stay at the seminary, giving them access to the sacraments and communal prayer, as well as continuing to build their fraternity through sharing a common life and work,” explains Father Matthew Buettner, the seminary’s house spiritual director. One of the workers’ projects has been at St. Patrick Cathedral in Charlotte, where they have cleaned out and freshened up the area around the Marian grotto near the rectory. Father Christopher Roux, pastor and rector, says the workers have been incredibly helpful. “It’s terrific to have the young men here. Not only are we able to get a few extra projects completed, WORKERS, SEE PAGE 11
College seminary grad builds log chapel to honor Our Lady of Sorrows SUEANN HOWELL SENIOR REPORTER
MOUNT HOLLY — Nicholas Kramer graduated from St. Joseph College Seminary last month. But before he left, he wanted to leave behind a special gift in gratitude: a log chapel on the seminary campus dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, to whom he has a great devotion. “I wanted to give something to the seminary as a ‘thank you’ for the formation and education I have received here,” Kramer explains. “I also wanted to use my talents to do something concrete for the honor and glory of God.” He spent weeks on the project – preparing the area, felling pine trees and cutting them to size for a chapel large enough to accommodate three to five people. “Since the chapel is a pine log cabin, the vast majority of that time was spent hauling and notching the logs,” he says.
Inspiration for the name of the chapel came to him in prayer, he says. “I honestly had no idea (what to name it) when I started building. This project had been coming up consistently in my Holy Hour, but never with any sort of Kramer saint affiliated with it.” Later, he says, “it finally hit me that I should name it after Our Lady of Sorrows” – because of his personal devotion and because of the special role Our Lady of Sorrows has played in the life of the college seminary. Ground was broken for the college seminary on Sept. 15, 2018, the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, and the building was officially dedicated by Bishop Peter Jugis on the same day two years later.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY NICHOLAS KRAMER
“I love to work with my hands. Ever since I was little I loved building things, so this has been great for my discernment and growth in my spiritual life, because it allows me to use a skill set that I don’t normally get to use to glorify God,” Kramer says. “It also helps to keep me grounded in reality, because while it is important to spend time in prayer and to study, nothing teaches you humility and patient endurance like dragging a 600-pound pine log through the woods just to find out you mis-measured and it is too short.”
CHARLOTTE — A New York man has filed a lawsuit alleging he was exploited and sexually abused as a youth in North Carolina and elsewhere by former lay missionary Al Behm, who was assigned by his religious community to work in western North Carolina more than 40 years ago. The civil suit filed July 6 in Mecklenburg County Superior Court names as defendants Behm and his former religious community, the Ohio-based Glenmary Home Missioners, as well as the Diocese of Charlotte. The lawsuit alleges the misconduct began in the 1970s when the claimant was a minor living in Connecticut and continued into his college years at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. Glenmary assigned Behm to work as campus chaplain there from 1980 to 1984. The suit contends Glenmary and the diocese were negligent in supervising Behm. At the time of the alleged abuse, the Glenmary Home Missioners staffed communities in far western North Carolina where there were few Catholics, including Sylva. Behm Glenmary clergy and missionaries running the Sylva parish also maintained a presence on the nearby WCU campus. Behm was not an ordained clergy member but worked there as a missionary, or brother, on behalf of the religious community until 1984 when Glenmary assigned him to work in another state. Current leaders of the Charlotte diocese said July 9 they had no prior knowledge of this abuse allegation, and were reviewing the suit and praying for the claimant. In a statement, the diocese said its historical review of clergy personnel and other files in 2019 “found no record of any allegations of child sexual abuse by Al Behm during his time in North Carolina 40 years ago.” Glenmary President Father Dan Dorsey said in a July 9 statement, “I cannot comment on active lawsuits, but I can say that at times in the past Glenmary has failed to protect minors and vulnerable adults. Moreover, our response to victims LAWSUIT, SEE PAGE 11
