The Strange Case of Fr. David Jaeger

by Peter W. Miller

"And whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me; it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea." (Mark 9:41)

Within weeks of the commencement of the bishops' conference in Dallas, The Seattle Times revealed that the long-time local homosexual activist Fr. David Jaeger would be subject to dismissal under the new "one-strike" policy. Predictably, Fr. Jaeger, who has enjoyed a number of leadership positions throughout his career, considers such measures to be excessive.

"Crossing a Boundary"

In a 1997 lawsuit involving convicted child molester Fr. Paul Conn, Fr. Jaeger admitted to touching eight to ten boys at Camp Don Bosco in the late 1970's.¹ Although we are assured that Fr. Jaeger is filled with regret for his past actions and realizes now that what he did was wrong, his statements indicate more the rationalizations of someone still seeking to evade accountability or downplay the seriousness of the matter. His molesting of boy campers is euphemized by Jaeger as "crossing a boundary":

"I didn't think that (touching) the buttocks and legs - that that would be crossing a boundary ... I'm not inclined to cross those boundaries (now) and haven't for 24 years." ²

Even one of the boys he molested who has "sought personal reconciliation" with Fr. Jaeger maintains that "Father Jaeger continues to minimize the abuse even today": ³

"There's an undertone to what Jaeger said, that 'What I did wasn't that bad,'" [Patrick] D'Amelio says. "What I'm saying is that it was that bad." ⁴

Additionally, Patrick D'Amelio's recollection of the events he experienced at Camp Don Bosco differs from Jaeger's:

as he felt the priest's hands rubbing his legs and back, his buttocks, then moving under the leg bands of his underwear, the boy became confused and terrified.

What is he doing? I want him to stop.

He says the priest brushed against his genitals and touched his rectum. He was aroused - and ashamed.

I want him to go further. I'm going to be in trouble.

He doesn't remember how long the touching went on. It could have been a few minutes. "It felt like forever." ⁵

According to Jaeger, the roots of the problem lie not with a dissident morality which rejects Church teaching on sexual matters, but with his "repressive" upbringing. In 1958, the 15-year-old Jaeger was enrolled at St. Edward's Seminary in Kenmore, Washington. Jaeger found the seminary, among other things, "lonely and confining":

The Sulpician priests who ran it isolated students from the outside. Secular magazines and newspapers were limited. "Grand silence" was observed from evening until breakfast, the better to hear God. Calling home was allowed only for good reason.

Also forbidden were "particular friendships" - especially close relationships between boys that were "to be avoided because there was a fear that they could lead to a sexual relationship" ... Students were encouraged to have a wide circle of less-intimate friends.

Classroom discussions of sex were limited to biblical references to sin and to teaching the norms of the church (sic).

That repressive system "caused all kinds of wreckage," says the Rev. Christopher Coyne, an instructor at St. John's Seminary near Boston. "You're basically dealing with people who, when they leave seminary, are adolescents in terms of development." ⁶

Given that such a "repressive" pre-Vatican II seminary environment was the cause of so much confusion on the appropriateness of a genital/rectal massage of priests upon children, it's a wonder that every priest in the 2000-year history of the Church didn't turn out to be a child-molester. Can the "limitation" of seminary studies to "biblical references to sin and to teaching the norms of the Church" possibly be more responsible than the rejection of those same teachings by a priest who continues to make a career out of undermining Church teaching on sexuality and today considers himself an "abstinent homosexual"? ⁷

Jaeger claims that at the time he believed these massages to be a "safe outlet" for his "years of sexual repression":

"Never really having touched much in a caring way, this was something I could do that would not get carried away ... A massage feels better direct than through material - that's what I was thinking ... I couldn't have known the experience of a 13-year-old boy because my adolescence was completely asexual ... If I brushed against the genitals, it was not deliberate, and I don't remember it. That would have been across the line I had set. It meant a lot to me that at least I had a line, at least I had a conscience, you know, even though it was functioning poorly and was poorly informed." ⁸

It is not an encouraging sign that Fr. Jaeger and those responsible for overseeing his "treatment" seem to have bought into the moral quagmire known as modern psychology. For the secular therapist, sin, free will and natural law are disregarded or relegated to environmental and genetic "factors" and "frameworks" which dictate every aspect of one's existence. Add to that the shameful and controversial surrender of the American Psychological Association to give into political pressure and declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder, it's no wonder that the reliance upon psychological "treatments" and "expertise" contributed so significantly to the modern clerical sex-abuse crisis.

Psychologist Richard Peterson, a "state-certified sexual-offender-treatment provider", would conclude in a letter to Archbishop Hunthausen:

"The most compelling framework in which to understand Father Jaeger's sexualized contact with children in 1978 is that he was a sexually naïve, sexually repressed individual who became aroused by the physical contact he had with minor males. Not uneranding his intense feelings, having few coping skills to deal with these feelings, and in an environment which he saw as encouraging repression and encouraging secrecy regarding sexual feelings, Father Jaeger attempted to explore his feelings in a way which he felt would not injure others nor be discovered." ⁹

This backwards tendency for the American Catholic church to treat sin solely with psychoanalysis has provided ample justification for Fr. Jaeger and hundreds of priests like him to minimize and rationalize their past behavior. It doesn't take a psychology degree to realize that a 35-year-old man educated by an extensive seminary curriculum (which included years of Moral Theology) claiming that he did not see anything wrong with sticking his consecrated hands down young boys' underpants is ridiculous. That someone with such clear inability to differentiate right from wrong is walking the streets, much less employed in the service of the Catholic Church is outrageous.

Hunthausen's Favorite

Fr. David Jaeger has enjoyed what some have referred to as a "favored" status, due to his youth and the degree with which his views meshed with those of his superiors. He went from Director of Seattle's Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) to Director of Seminarians - a position during which he approved and promoted for ordination since-convicted pederast Fr. Paul Conn.

After the revelations that resulted from the Conn case, Fr. Jaeger was sent to the Southtown Treatment Center in Canada, the same facility that "treated" convicted child molester Fr. John Geoghan. Fr. Jaeger would return to become Coordinator of the archdiocesan AIDS Ministry. According to Auxiliary Bishop George Thomas, Jaeger was given this assignment so that he would have a "limited ministry, directed to adults ... so as not to have sustained contact with minors." Furthermore, the archdiocese hired a state parole officer to monitor Jaeger.¹⁰

Contrary to claims that his role in the archdiocese has been strictly limited to an "Administrative Role," Fr. Jaeger has been filling in for various parishes, including St. Louise in Bellevue - a parish which features a LifeTeen program.

The favor granted to Jaeger by Hunthausen was clear to all:

Jaeger, who was ordained in 1969, went on to make a name as a progressive who participated in anti-nuclear protests and counseled prison inmates. His values made him a favorite of the liberal Rev. Raymond Hunthausen, Seattle's archbishop from 1976 to 1991. Hunthausen made Jaeger director of the archdiocese's CYO, then director of seminarians and head of the AIDS Ministry.¹¹

Although it was suspiciously omitted from the first couple Seattle Times articles which detailed his career, Fr. Jaeger is best known for his work with the archdiocesan "gay/lesbian ministry," a task that he has shared with Fr. Paul Waldie St. Benedict's. This work included submitting letters for publication in the Seattle Gay News encouraging the use of condoms, helping to organize radical homosexual protests and demonstrations, and touring local parishes to speak on matters relating to homosexuality and AIDS. One such visit was to this writer's childhood parish, Our Lady of the Lake in North Seattle.

Scheduled to speak to the parish's Altar Society, Fr. Jaeger brought along two homosexual men, both suffering from the effects of AIDS. One of the two compared himself to the Blessed Virgin Mary as they each (the Blessed Mother and the sodomite) fell victim to negative societal perceptions. The other discussed the "love" he'd found in an intimate relationship with another man. These men presented themselves as victims of an oppressive society and Church - no mention was made of the inherent sinfulness of homosexual acts or the culpability of those who contract AIDS through their own immoral behavior.

When two members of the Altar Society submitted copies of their objections in writing to Fr. Jaeger, Our Lady of the Lake Pastor Fr. John McMullan and parish priest Fr. Peter Chrico (formerly head theologian for the archdiocese under Archbishop Hunthausen), only Fr. Chirico offered a response. He denied the inappropriateness of such a presentation and that any distinction should be made between the "innocent victims" of diseases which are and are not the result of morally unacceptable acts. He suggested a more "compassionate" and "tolerant" approach than unapologetically repeating Church teaching on the matter.

Years before, a young man who had reconciled with the Church before dying of AIDS, sent a letter to the archdiocese asking that priests who are themselves afflicted with sexual disorders not be placed in charge of ministries to other such individuals. Like so many other pleas to Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, those words fell upon deaf ears. As mentioned in previous issues, Fr. Jaeger has continued to speak at parishes on issues of "human sexuality" as recently as this year. Does it still remain any mystery that this priest was drawn to CYO, working with seminarians, AIDS ministry and finally "gay/lesbian" ministry? Just as Spokane's Patrick O'Donnell was mysteriously drawn to Catholic Youth Ministry and the Boy Scouts?

Fr. Jaeger may have stopped corrupting youth through direct physical contact but he and those who helped promote his pro-homosexual agenda went on scandalizing local Catholics on a much larger and more insidious scale.

"I'm so clearly not a danger"

Since January, around 300 American priests in the United States have resigned or been placed on leave over accusations of sexual misconduct. The decision on Fr. Jaeger's future was to be put in the hands of a "special-cases committee" who would make recommendations to Archbishop Alexander Brunett on whether Jaeger should be allowed to remain in active ministry. As of this printing, no decisions of the committee or the Archbishop have been made public.

Furthermore, the Archdiocese of Seattle, which is not normally known for deferring to Rome's guidance, has indicated that they would await the Vatican's decision on whether the norms adopted in Dallas should be required. Jaeger, who's perhaps a bit biased on the matter, does not think he should be removed from active ministry. In his view, it would be:

"unwarranted, because I'm so clearly not a danger. ... It would be heartbreaking for me. I love being a priest. I love the church (sic). I love serving people." ¹²

"The issue is whether or not someone has any likelihood of re-offense," says Jaeger, who says he would appeal all the way to the Vatican to keep his ministry. "If I'm not a danger to parishioners - which I'm not - then that's the issue." ¹³

Actually, the "issue" is not limited to the risk of future physical harm, but includes the proper punishment for someone who engaged in such acts and the proper action for the Church to take when faced with such an individual. As to whether or not someone who does not consider himself a "threat" to molest any more children should continue active ministry, the recent words of newly-appointed Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan are more than appropriate:

Recent Sundays have presented to us the Lord's clear mandate to forgive others. His words are strong and uncompromising: we must forgive others just as the Lord has forgiven us. … What do we say when one of them asks, "Why can't the Church forgive Father for what he has done?" I reply, "I do forgive him. What's far more important, the Lord forgives him completely in the sacrament of penance. And the Church forgives the priest, as long as he's asked for forgiveness…" Not only do I forgive the priest, but I also love him and want to help him. While we abhor the sin, like Jesus, we love the sinner.

Yet - and here's the tough part - while we forgive him, love him and still want to help him, we believe we cannot permit him to minister any longer. This does not mean he was not a very effective pastor, an excellent preacher, a wise counselor. This does not mean we do not appreciate all the good he has done, and would not give anything if we could have him back. What it means is that there is a big difference between forgiveness and permissiveness. What it means is that, tragically, sin has severe consequences.

Maybe an example will help: Let's say your brother has been struggling with drinking. He's even had a ticket for "driving under the influence." One day, while intoxicated, he hits a child crossing the street. The child is hurt badly and will be handicapped for life. Your brother is arrested and imprisoned. He sobers up, reforms and is placed on parole. He apologizes to you, his family, and to his victim. How do we react? We love him; we forgive him; we help him - but, would we ever allow him to get behind the wheel again? I doubt it.

We bishops must forgive, love and help the priest offenders. But we have stated that we can never allow them to exercise their priestly ministry again.

"But, Archbishop, isn't this too severe for a single violation?" I reply, "It's rarely just one time."

"But, Archbishop, it wasn't really serious sexual abuse of a minor." I reply, "Ah, but it was."

"But, it will never happen again." I reply, "It should never have happened in the first place, and well could happen again."

"But, he was such a good priest!" I reply, "Yes, he was."

We bishops have pledged to you that the protection of our children is a top priority. You deserve to know that none of your priests poses a risk to our young people. As the Holy Father stated, "There is no place in the priesthood for anyone who has abused a minor." We bishops have pledged to you that the restoration of your trust is a high priority. I don't know how we could do that without this admittedly rigorous approach, namely, that no priest against whom there is a substantial allegation of sexual abuse of a minor will ever publicly exercise his ministry. And, yes, bishops have pledged to Jesus that we will forgive; we have forgiven them. But, for their sake, for our children's sake, for your sake, for the Church's sake, we cannot be permissive in allowing them to return.¹⁴

Also appropriate are the words of Patrick D'Amelio, one of the individuals "massaged" by Jaeger at Camp Don Bosco:

"Each of us is entitled to the forgiveness of sin promised in the Gospel. Father Jaeger is so entitled, but that entitlement does not automatically extend the right to priesthood. The priesthood is, in fact, a privilege and not a right. The zero-tolerance policy initiated by the bishops in Dallas, while not perfect, is the only credible solution put forward to address the scandal in which Father Jaeger has played a part." ¹⁵