ARTICLES

It's All in Her Head

Past Consensual "Relationship" No Bar to Ministry in Oakland

By Phil Sevilla

In June, SueDee McClelland filed a lawsuit with the Alameda County Superior Court against Father Brian Joyce and the diocese of Oakland, claiming Father Joyce started an affair with her in 1964 that lasted approximately 38 years. She claims she went to him for family counseling in the 1960s when he was a priest at St. Augustine's in Oakland. Their alleged secret affair, according to McClelland's lawsuit, contributed to her failed marriages, bouts with depression, hospitalization, and attempts at suicide. Father Brian Joyce is the pastor of Christ the King in Pleasant Hill, one of the wealthiest and largest parishes in the Oakland diocese. Despite McClelland's accusations, the diocese of Oakland will not put Father Joyce on administrative leave.

In a June 28 telephone interview, McClelland told me, "it wasn't until last year in June at the bishops' meeting, when a priest said that he had been molested as a young altar boy and had been very suicidal, that it all clicked with me. I first confronted Brian [Joyce] and then I contacted the diocese. The diocese even encouraged me to sue." McClelland said that when she went to see the diocese last year, she asked for monetary compensation for what she had been through and she was turned down. She then went to see an attorney.

During a phone conversation with Father Brian Joyce on June 27, I asked him about McClelland's press statement in June swearing her relationship with him lasted from 1964 to 2002. Father Joyce said that he hadn't seen her in years. "Apparently she sat in front of the TV when the bishops had the meeting in Dallas and felt that all the problems in her life were caused by me and I guess she's arguing that the relationship was going on until it stopped in her head. I didn't see her in 2002, 2001, 2000. There was an improper relationship back in 1968. We still knew each other and were friends. It was an improper relationship on my behalf and I confessed to that years ago and terminated that years ago."

I interjected: "And nothing has ever happened since with anybody?" "That's all I can say," Father Joyce replied.

McClelland claims Joyce is lying and the diocese is covering up. She stated that the last physical contact she had with Joyce was in 1998 or 1999. "We met for dinner and I went to his motel room," she said. She's very concerned that in spite of what the bishops said last year about no more secrets, this case has been swept under the carpet. "This has affected my entire life. John Cummins is way deep in denial. He and Brian have been very best friends for a long time, since the '60s."

According to the June 23 Catholic Voice, the Oakland diocese's newspaper, diocesan chancellor Sister Barbara Flannery and the Sensitive Issues Committee concluded that the relationship between Joyce and McClelland was "consensual and not abusive," involving "no predatory behavior on the part of Father Joyce." The San Francisco Chronicle on June 12 quoted her as saying that the diocesan committee determined Father Joyce and McClelland were involved in a non-sexual, consensual relationship. The Contra Costa Times on June 12 reported that a seven-person review board concluded the relationship was consensual and not abusive. Sister Flannery, clergy personnel director Father Paul Schmidt, the diocesan lawyer, and several other diocesan personnel are members of the committee.

In his June 14 apologia to Christ the King parishioners, Father Joyce admitted he became emotionally involved with an adult woman who was a friend, co-worker, and parishioner. He suggested that the diocesan committee listen to both sides and judge the allegations of abuse to be false.

I asked Sister Flannery in a phone interview on June 27 about complaints against Father Brian Joyce. She said her statements to the press were accurate. "We had no other sexual complaints against Brian Joyce. I did not say we had no complaints against him. I do know that we have complaints.. about his liturgical practices. [Father Joyce is well-known for his clown Masses.] What the independent review board was asked to look at was the issue of abuse or manipulation or, you know, had this woman been coerced into this relationship. That's what was reviewed. The decision of the committee was that she entered into that relationship as an adult, a healthy adult, and therefore it was consensual. We were not asked to give an opinion about the rightness or wrongness of that. Those issues are canonically between the priest and his bishop."

Sister Flannery and Father Joyce insist his affair with McClelland was not abusive and was consensual. But it seems the relationship may meet the definition of clergy abuse, according to the official policy of the diocese on clergy sexual abuse. According to the diocese's website, sexual misconduct by a priest is defined in part as "consensual sexual activity with an adult of either sex which adversely affects the spiritual and psychological health of the adult, the ministry of the priest, or the reputation of the Church." (www.oakdiocese.org/misconduct.htm#preamble) In the diocesan brochure produced for survivors of clergy sexual abuse, the following question and answer is provided: "Can Clergy Sexual Activity Ever Be Consensual On The Part of the Victim? NEVER! The Power Differential in the relationship automatically puts the Priest (or Deacon) in the position of power. Therefore, there can never exist a true mutually consensual agreement. It is the obligation of the priest (or clergy) to hold the sexual boundaries in all relationships." (www.oakdiocese.org/survivors/inside.pdf)

Another inconsistency involves the statements of the diocese and Father Joyce about how the Oakland chancery, which has projected publicly an open and compassionate attitude to victims of clergy abuse, treated McClelland's accusations. McClelland said Sister Flannery's press statements that the review board had interviewed both McClelland and Joyce were "triple baloney." The board never interviewed her, she said. "The only persons I spoke to were Sister Flannery and a priest from the diocese [Father Paul Schmidt]. Because I didn't get a response from the diocese or from Brian [Joyce], I sought out an attorney."

Though I told Sister Flannery that, in the past, other priests in the diocese were put on administrative leave amidst accusations of sexual impropriety, she responded that the bishop did not intend to put Brian Joyce on administrative leave. "This particular case happened in the late '70s and there are no other complaints of sexual interaction or anything inappropriate on Father Joyce since the early '80s. The committee did not make the recommendation to remove him."

In his bulletin of April 14, 2002, Father Joyce wrote his parishioners about the "painful issue of sexual abuse." He recounted how he and a working group of parishioners gathered to question the Church and her bishops' policies. They "expressed sadness, anger, and dismay" -- sadness for the victims, anger at the bishops who maintained secrecy to avoid scandal. The one item raised most frequently according to Joyce was the issue of "mandatory celibacy." Last summer, Joyce leading his own parishioners and those from neighboring parishes, sent the bishops meeting in Dallas a petition criticizing the episcopal handling of the sexual abuse scandal and suggesting, among other things, that the bishops address and encourage the public debate on mandatory celibacy, ordaining women, and homosexuality.

Father Joyce told me he did not feel there was any hypocrisy in his public criticisms of the bishops meeting, considering McClelland's accusations and his own admission of an "improper relationship" with her.

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