Ugh.

The sad and infuriating story of Fr. Harold White continues to unfold. New items in the Denver Post give the impression this is going to get much uglier. The reports to date seem to emphasize individual incidents more than the pattern, so I here extrapolate a pattern from the information available to date.

So far there are published allegations of sexual molestation of boys during each of Fr. White’s first six parish assignments over a period from the early 1960s until either the late 70s or early 80s.

Other information goes to the Archdiocese’s response:

1. One accuser claims that he told his pastor (who has since passed away) about a 1965 incident. Shortly thereafter Fr. White was abruptly reassigned to a parish hundreds of miles away.

2. Fr. White’s then-pastor now says he reported an incident to Abp. Casey in 1968. Shortly thereafter, Fr. White was reassigned to another distant parish.

3. In 1981 Fr. White took a sabbatical. To date no accusations have been published alleging molestations after the sabbatical, during which time he served in five more parishes plus one parish in which he had previously served.

4. While Fr. White had been a pastor twice prior to the 1981 sabbatical, he was not again a pastor until after three terms as an associate pastor. To my knowledge, this was not common in the Archdiocese at the time.

5. The parish to which Fr. White was assigned immediately after his 1981 sabbatical – Good Shepherd – was the then-brand-new product of the consolidation of two other parishes. As such, it would have already been receiving some special attention from the Archdiocese. The pastor of Good Shepherd at the time – Msgr. Anderson – was highly regarded and reputedly a confidant of Archbishop Casey.

6. In 1988 an accuser contacted the Archdiocese and received a response saying that Fr. White would receive “an evaluation from competent personnel to determine whether there are recurring difficulties."

7. Fr. White left active ministry in 1992 (at about age 60) and was laicized eleven years later.

It is reasonable to conclude that the 1981 sabbatical and the immediately succeeding assignment may have been related to the allegation(s) known to the Archdiocese. The use of “recurring difficulties” in the 1988 letter is interesting as it implicitly admits knowledge of previous difficulties. We do not know why Fr. White left active ministry at such a young age, why he was laicized and whether either of those events are related to the evaluation mentioned in 1988.

Each day presents many more questions.