His Lordship Bishop Satterthwaite, Bishop ' s House, L I s H 0 RE. N.s .. u.

My Lord ,

STAT.0080.001.0078

It is with much reluctance I write to you a!:>out the situation. in our parish at Tweed Heads .

Ne have been attending Hass; there ever s i nce the new Church -6;-, was opened, except for about eighteen months when we first moved to Jf) Crystal Creek. There are many reasons, one being that Keith preferrecl

Tweed Heads . Also, my parents and his sister and family live the1•e, 80 it is handy to visit .. d; the same t~_me. The children are in ..: . I.! . 3 . tii.ere, so the 5. 30 Sunday evening Mass suits us and them ltnd Keith 1 s working hours .

I am very up;;;a.t about various things that l hea.r are happening - but I am. more upset about t~1i11gs that I have actually seen happening. I have o f·c0;L t.::·.llod this ov'3r with my hn.sba::1d l111d

we ~ave preferred to keep it to ourselves mostly and stay out of trouble, but when I showed him this letter he agreed to sign it, saying he would huve done it himself, but his spelling is not good.

I changed my mind and decided to write when a friend of mine said that when they had a similar situatio11 in their parish, with an apparently alcoholic pries~ and the attendant problems in the parish) her teenage children lert the Church and have not returned to this day , fifteen years later. l suddenly saw what is happening and what

( ,could happen in a different light and I realised t.tJ.a·i.; I am witnessing <'::)"a situation in which people's faith is being damaged and possibly

•/ destroyed , and the potential exists for this to happen to my children and those of people in the parish.

When Pather- Brown first came here it was the teenage children who first told me they had seen that. l!'ather Brown was "not himself'' at times, and wnen I found tnat open house at the presbytery ro.eant that they were watching unsuitable videos and that there was no super­vision l forbade them to go there anymore. I spoke to both Father .tirown and li'ather }~oley at the time, but lots of teenagers still went there for some time.

Gradually that stopped as "open house11 became open house for many homeless drifters and wanderers , often from the c.i ties. Futcher House was opened and I, and many others, thought this was

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great - and we wished we could participate in some way. However , the social workers seerued to do most things, and eventually a parish staff team under .l?cl.ther :Orown took care of everything. ·.ro our horror this has b<.-\ckfired on us , and perhaps some of that is our own fault in that we did not insist on being allowed to help and contribute . The end result is not a happy situation.

The t .c .s . kids have been hit and scratched , accused of damage to premises (sometimes unjustly) jostled and threatened while at t .c .s . and the prayer meeting that has sprung from t .c.s. so that at lea.st once they had to meet behind locked doors . t·lY daughter was

r · introduc.ed, by Father Brown, to a couple of young men - at the ~}) presbytery, when she had to take a key back - and they were sitting .. e, cleaning and· sh~rpening knives, such as one uses for attaclt or self-

defenc.e. I , myself, saw four young men, nic~-named the •1skinheads 11

by parish regulars and workers, on the hall premises while the x.C .S . kids were in their meeting. They moved out when we arrived, but after I walked in one of them came back with an. open pair of scissors and asked me: "How are you going to stay out of trouble?" I was not happy about his attitude and walked away out of the hall to the ca1' Had I been younger and less sure of myself. I wonder what woul d have ensued . Many of these kids have large amounts of money to spend and they boast openly that they spend it on drugs and drink - in front of our children- and that Father Brown is the sourc.e . One girl became pregnant while at Futcher House - and now there is another one , and the kids are beginning to aS.k. questions. One of the girls walked into the Church - just to- day - obviously very high on some drug -and swore and used indecent language - while Father Nugent was talking to some of the local school boys • . Everyone knows her well, for she has been around for some time while she has been able to

t..,_C_.')') obtain money freely. I believe that has stopped but she is still

around.

To- day I was told that the kids who catch the Greyhound buses to l1t . St . Patrick's have been told that drugs a.re available any time at the bus stop, and that it was a fellow known to have sold drugs from Futcher House ,

~and I saw Father Brown at a party held by the house­keeper , ~ family, vthich was attended by most of the parish workers . He was quite d.cunk, draping himself' over women, encouraging our son to smoke, and to come and have lunch at the presbytery with him. He spilled a plate of food all over my son and daughter and left the party early - very inebriated - driven by a girl who was at least as drunk, if not worse. You can imagine what trouble we had explaining all that to the children.

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I was teaching Scripture at the High School last year and one day Father Foley told us to tell the children we wouldn't be ba.ck. When tackled Father Brown said his social workers couldn ' t stand the behav:Lour of some of the children. While this could be true , I believe their own mishandling .coul d.be part of the story, for instance one of them allowed the ltids to smoke during Scripture class . One would think social workers should have some expertise in handling people, even high school kids. \'Iha t I found hard to come to grips with was the fact that this was such an abrupt closure, with no con­sultation with us who were taking the kids . When I made enquiries I discovered that people who worked in the parish were not su.rprised . j ''J:hey said he oft en got ''in a tantrum" (quote) and did 'things like that.

A young friend of mine said li'a th er Brown toolt him to dinner at Oskar 1 s l'ecently and paid th0 bil l - and I know this has happened with many of the young kids over some twelve months or so - one party of four girls recently cost i~lOO .oo. Apert from the imprudence of some of this public behav:Lour - he has been observed quite drunk at these -1utin.gs~- I ca.n 1 t help wonder~.n.g where so much money comes from.

The1'.'e is a spiritual famine beiU8 experienced also, o.nd lax moral codes are beinJ l:\llowed to flourish. 1.rhe Lenten programme was cancelled at the last uinute, even though preparation.. was completed and people had offered their homes . We have been accused, from the altar, of being unjustly critical and of congregating together to criticise, presumably /nm 9,nd his work. Obviously he has sensed our disapproval , but we have not known what to do, and have not wished to be driven to steps like writing t.tlis letter. Instead of looking at , and changing his behav:Lour ne has turned on us and ace.used us. We have been accused of being asleep thr ough his talks and not listening

r ' 'roperly - the matter was not spiritual anyway. H.e has encoilraged ,/.~1""y:hildren to question parents• authority. For instance he invited, .~ from the altar, all the cnildren of the parish to the parish dinner

held recently a.t Seagulls c.;lub . Vie oursel ves found ourselves in the difficult posi-cion of hav:Lng to say that a l though the parish priest said that we were their parents and we refused to allow them to go . The next Sunday, after having been asked, apparently, to amend the matter, he said he'd been told about it, but ended by repeating the open invitation . Sunday Masses and even special Feast day Masses are finished in twenty-t"ive minutes - and he boasts of that openly. 'rhe bulletin is often read instead of a homily . The behav:Lour 01" some of the people, including Father Brown - on t11e al tar at the Easter ceremonies, would have to be seen to be believed. He refused to carry out part of the liturgy that had previously been agreed upon, and he and one of the helpers were arguing so i~ch that the visiting priest made a remark which led to laughter and broke the situation. He refused to c.ome and say Friday noon Nass recentl y saying he didn ' t have time. He has to be fetched from the presbytery for reconciliation , etc. which cuts the time short and so on . No- one can safely go to the presbytery , or ring up , because there are all sorts of people there , and they answer the phones, etc.

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i./e are being deprived of the spiritual pastoring we need to survive in this world, and the lax: morality flourishing in our presbytery and those institutions run by our parish are destroying the example we ne~d our priests to set, to uplift the younger and weaker ones, and uphold what we are trying to do in our families.

1rhere has been too much emphasis on. welfare work, done by un­qualified people and not controlled properly, and too little emphasis given to spiritual needs of parishioners. There has to be a balan~e somewhere, and we all as. a parish community, must be. able to contribute.

The way I see it is this - the poor man needs expert help immediately, and we need it too. We need someone who will steady the ship, as it were, and restore order . I believe we should help the poor, in Futcher House and soup kitchen, etc. even if that means open house at the presbytery, but law and order must be upheld - as with our own children. Thes;e people should be so uplifted by this care that they recognise the face of Je·sus and come to know Him through this parish work, and have their lives transformed.

I thought that when the stabbing occurred between two of these people in the presbytery itself that this would bring everyone up short, that Father Brown would have to see what he is doing, and that Church authorities would have to act to relieve the situation. This does not seem to have happened and I'm left wondering what does have to happen before the situation is taken in hand. Police sources say that unless the situa.tion. changes it is almost inevitable that further damage will be done to life and limb and property, and that it is quit~ possible someone will be killed.

' I believe that what may have been a private and personal

proble1n when Father Brown came here has become very public. Police, solicitors, ministers of other religions, people of other denomin­ations, restaurant owners, club personnel, are just some of the people I know personally, who have spoken to my husband, or me, or a friend of raine about 11our problem'' and how it is affecting the whole town.

I also believe that this element in our parish being allowed to flourishiunhindered, without any discipline or order or real spiritual help , has set itself up as a power clique and begun· to "run the show" a.s it were, and that many people are afraid of reprisal for themselves or their children if anything is exposed. For insta11ce, I have been told taat Father Brown has so much power 'Chat he could make things difficult for me if I wrote to you 1 and the teenagers said: 11Mum, we are afraid to say anything to anybody because those kids will get us 11 •

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I believe that Father Nugent has been put upon severely in the • situation, though he would never say so - and that seems unfair on a

brand new priest . At the moment he is a strength we admire, and hold up for our childrens• example.

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We pray daily for both our priests in our family rosary , and we pray God will help us in our situation in all our Masses. The decision to write this letter comes out of deep distress for our priests and parishioners, and especially our children.

We don't mind signing our name to this letter, but if it is possible to keep that confidential we would be obliged if you will do so. If that is not possible then we will stand and be counted . We hope and pray that Father Brown can thereby be saved from himself, for I believe that his very salvation is at stake here.

'tie have endeavoured to state facts that we have seen or experienced ourselves , and not rely on hearsay, and we ask you to believe we write in love and forthright ness, with no malice in mind.

Yours sincerely in

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