With all the usual caveats about how we may not know the whole story…
Last year a priest was fired from his college job becuase the school found porn on his computer.
When the school found the porn they questioned him about it. He gave a series of odd replies that led the Archabbot of St. Vincent College in Latrobe Pennsylvania to conclude that Fr. Marc Gruber was guilty. He was dismissed and and he promptly disappeared.
But that may not be the end of the story. According to a former student under oath, Fr. Gruber gave the odd answers and refused to defend himself becuase the student had confessed to him that he was the real culprit.
The young man testified that “Father Mark has protected the seal of confession admirably even to the point of losing his job, his priestly faculties and allowing his reputation to be maligned.”
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The first police report said he gave indirect answers when investigators questioned him in the presence of his archabbot, whom he had asked to stay with him. Asked if he was the one who used the computer to look for young boys, he replied, “I don’t think that is a relevant question,” according to the report.The former student said he believes the odd answers were the priest’s attempt to signal his superior that he was protecting the seal of confession.
The former student said he last downloaded pornography on that computer in July 2009, “not too long before Father Gruber fell off the face of the earth. I didn’t know where he went.”
The priest’s office also was locked, the former student said. Father Gruber was scheduled for a sabbatical, the former student said, so it was November before he heard rumors that the priest had been banned from ministry because pornography was found on his computer. The former student said he was sure it was his fault.
He relayed a message to Father Gruber through an intermediary, he said, asking what he should do. Father Gruber sent word not to reveal what he had done, he said.
The reasons the priest gave were that he didn’t want anyone to think that he had pressured a penitent to reveal what had been said in confession. He also feared the former student was too emotionally fragile to withstand revelation of his secrets.
If this is all true, Fr. Gruber’s defense of the seal of confession is the only thing he could do. Comparisons to Hitchcock’s ‘I Confess’ are already abounding.
The student has come forward now to try and undo the damage.
This is a truly interesting story that we will keep an eye on…
