Fake Priest, Fake Miracles in
I have known about this fake priest
and fake crying statue for many years, but thought it had gone away by now. Not
only is it a fake priest and fake miracle but also another story of people
using God to molest children. I want people
to pay attention to these things and not accept the appearance of holiness so
easily. Do your research – investigate.
Don’t be so easily fooled. I am
convinced God will hold it against you for being mentally lazy and not doing
what the bible commands, “Test the Spirit”.
Christ of the Hills
Monastery
On a scrubby hilltop in the middle of nowhere, amid a squalid trailer park masquerading as a monastery, the life of Samuel Greene – known to his followers as Father Benedict – came this month to an abrupt conclusion.
Suicide? Could be, says the sheriff. Sam Greene was a convicted pedophile, a purported pothead, an audacious blasphemer, a morbidly obese slob and a thoroughgoing fraud. He was, quite simply, a wretch.
And yet I owe to his life more than I can say.
In 1981, Mr. Greene, a TV
real-estate pitchman, declared himself an Eastern Orthodox monk and founded Christ of the Hills monastery – mostly
mobile homes near a wooden chapel – in the countryside outside the Hill Country
town of
Four years later, Father Benedict, as he now called himself, acquired an icon of the Virgin Mary. He and his followers soon claimed the icon was miraculously "weeping" myrrh. Word spread, and soon the multitudes were making their way to the isolated monastery to venerate the icon and pray for miracles of their own.
I was one of them. In the early
1990s, an
I didn't worry much about the icon's validity. Why would monks lie? But I was young and naive in my faith then, credulous and childishly enthusiastic about signs and wonders.
In the autumn of 1996, I flew from
my home in
Four months and many flights to
My wife and I hadn't been married long
before the Blanco monastic community began to collapse. In 1999, the Russian
Orthodox Church Outside of Russia severed ties with the monks after allegations
of sexual abuse there. Father Benedict
pleaded guilty to indecency with a child and received probation. Another monk
was convicted and sent to prison.
By then, I figured the icon was fake. Did I feel a fool for believing in it? Sure. But I had faith that my prayers, sincerely offered, had been heard and that heaven had said yes. That was enough, though I winced at the stain on that cherished courtship memory.
Subsequent arrests revealed that
the monastery was, in fact, a snake pit. Last year, in secretly taped
conversations, Mr. Greene admitted he'd
been molesting kids since the 1970s, smoking dope, engaging in reported
"deviant sexual contact" and otherwise violating terms of his
probation. He also confessed that
he'd faked the icon.
Because of all this, Father Benedict faced the prospect of prison. Whether by fate or by his own hand, Sam Greene's last con was cheating justice. In this life, anyway.
I am glad it is not given to me to
judge him. By one standard, Father Benedict deserves a millstone lashed to his
neck for eternity. That's what I'd have given the old buzzard, but God's a
better Christian than I am. And yet, I'm forced to admit that from Sam Greene's
wicked deeds, my beloved family sprung. I can't help wondering: no fake icon,
no visit to
This mystery throws everything off balance. It offends my sense of order and righteousness to recognize it, but the mere existence of my children is evidence that however miserable and mean and degraded, that dirty old monk, probably in spite of himself, was once an instrument of grace.
Did other good fruit emerge from this poisoned vineyard? Who knows, and who can say whether it counts for anything? But when Sam Greene is judged, there my little family stands, however reluctantly, as silent witnesses for the defense, pleading on his behalf for the same thing every one of us will one day need: mercy.
God can
bring good out of evil, but the evil is still evil. This is very evil and insults God and all
Catholics.
Important Note:
Samuel A. Greene Jr., founder of a Texas monastery mired in child sex scandal dies at 63
September 19, 2007
BLANCO, Texas -- Samuel A. Greene Jr., the founder of a monastery that closed amid scandal over the alleged sexual abuse of novice monks and a fraudulent weeping Virgin Mary painting, has died. He was 63.
Greene's death was being investigated as a suicide, but officials were waiting for autopsy results before ruling on the cause of death. Greene's body was found Monday morning in his home on the grounds of Christ of the Hills Monastery.
The monastery was allied with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia from 1991 to 1999, but the church broke ties with the monastery when allegations surfaced of indecency by Greene with a juvenile novice monk.
Greene, who founded the monastery in 1981, pleaded guilty in 2000 to indecency and was sentenced to 10 years probation. In 2006, Greene told his probation officer in a secretly taped interview that he had sexual contact with boys over a 30-year period starting in the 1970s.
Greene also reportedly confirmed that the monastery's weeping painting was fake. Authorities seized the icon, which was said to cry tears of myrrh, a sign of divine intervention. It had drawn thousands of visitors, and their donations, to the area.
The interview also prompted authorities to file child sexual assault and organized crime charges against Greene and four other monks in July 2006. Greene maintained his innocence and was released on his own recognizance because of health problems.
Greene was due Friday in court, where prosecutors planned to seek to have his probation revoked. Assistant District Attorney Cheryl Nelson said she would have asked the judge to sentence him to the maximum 20-year term on each of his nine indecency counts.