Bp. Paul Petko lives in Lizton, Indiana
(just west of Indianapolis), and resides with Mr. And Mrs. Gary and Kathy
Ritter, who sponsor both him and the small Our
Lady of Good Remedy chapel, located on their property. The Ritters first met Ryan Scott (then
“Abbot Ryan St. Anne”) when attending Mass at Holy Rosary Abbey in Galesburg, Illinois (they were there on a
weekend trip to visit some friends).
After Mass, Scott invited them in for coffee, where they also met a Sister
Mary Juliana. After several
get-togethers, Scott was invited to see the Ritters’ little chapel, which he
did. Things for a while were very
cordial and “normal.”
But eventually Scott tried to tell the
Ritters how to run their church (which, ironically, is exactly what Droleskey
also tried to do later on). Scott
played the Ritters against (then) Fr. Petko, and vice versa. His ultimate aim was to get the Ritters
to split with Fr. Petko, and get them to sell their house and move to the
abbey, where Gary would then be its “maintenance man” and Kathy its “cook.” He tried to accomplish this by driving
a wedge between them and Fr. Petko, telling the Ritters things such as “Fr.
Petko has ‘problems” or “”he told me that he’ll lose his vocation if he stays
here with you,” and then telling the Ritters things like “Father doesn’t like
it here with you,” etc. – being careful always to tell them these contradictory
things separately, when the Ritters
and Fr. Petko were not within earshot of each other.
One night, Scott told the Ritters
something (about Fr. Petko) that didn’t make any sense at all, so they then
confronted Fr. Petko face-to-face to find out if it were true. Well, of course, it wasn’t. They then spent several hours that
night “comparing notes” with Fr. Petko, and found out that Scott was telling
each of them “a bill of goods” in the hope of “driving them apart.” At this point, they (both the Ritters
and Fr. Petko) immediately disassociated themselves with Scott – and haven’t
had anything to do with him since.
In his article, Droleskey pointed out
that Holy Rosary Abbey was, in his
words, “a den of homosexual activity”; and, by some sort of “guilt by
association” ploy, he tries to insinuate that Fr. Petko was part of it. Plus, he fails to mention the fact
that, when Fr. Petko and the Ritters found out who and what Scott was, they –
as stated before – immediately
disassociated themselves from him.
Up to the time that they “broke it off” with Scott, the Ritters had no
inkling of any “homosexual activity” at the abbey, so this never came into
play; but Droleskey’s insinuations were that they did know about all of this. But his insinuations are just that:
insinuations; conjecture. Droleskey tried to paint a “guilt by
association” picture of Bp. Petko and the Ritters, with absolutely no data to
back it up.
As Lay Pulpit
pointed out in its original refutation
of Droleskey’s marathon treatise, accusing Bp. Petko of “guilt by association”
with Ryan Scott is like blaming FDR and Churchill for their association with
Joseph Stalin. Being associated with someone (or having known him) does not
make one an “accomplice” or “partner in crime” with him. The association of the Ritters with
Scott – like their association with Droleskey, made them not accomplices but victims. One might as well blame our
Lord for His association with Mary Magdalene! It makes just as much sense – at least in Droleskey’s mind!
Dr. Droleskey also well knew that Bp. Petko was a victim -- not an accomplice – of Ryan Scott; yet he did
his best to paint the opposite picture.
In an earlier interview conducted
by Droleskey, Bp. Petko related how he immediately disassociated himself
from Scott (as did the Ritters).
The contents of this interview could be found on Droleskey’s Christ or Chaos website. And in an earlier Lay Pulpit article, this interview was indeed “hyperlinked” as “backup
data” to prove that Petko did, in fact, disassociate
himself from Scott. However, this
hyperlink has been – you guessed it – pulled
from the website, because it would put the lie to Droleskey’s insinuations
to the contrary. Droleskey’s
actions here represent just one manifestation (of which there are others) of
his duplicity and hypocrisy – and his stupidity
-- for didn’t he realize that trying to “cover his tracks” later on by ditching
the link would look “suspicious” or even incriminating
(as it did with Richard Nixon when he erased his “Watergate” tapes)? But scoundrels don’t think of that at the
time – they think only of “getting rid of the evidence.”
But a skeptic -- especially one who is
a die-hard “fan” of Dr. D -- might then counter, “Okay, but why would Dr.
Droleskey be so vengeful? That is, what reason would he have to be so vengeful as to victimize Petko in the
first place? The reason, as Lay Pulpit previously pointed out, was
simple: the Ritters (who sponsor and support Bp. Petko) had “crossed” him, that
is, they committed the extreme mistake of not letting him run their lives (and
their chapel) -- an unpardonable sin on their part – and an affront to Dr. D’s
monumental ego. No doubt, too,
that Bp. Petko’s sentiments mirrored those of the Ritters, so he would have
incurred Dr. D’s wrath anyway. For
that, they all needed to be punished; and smearing their protégé Bp. Petko was
his way of getting back at them – which he did.
But there was an added reason for
Droleskey wanting to hurt Petko:
The “Ramolla” factor. As was
explained in a previous Lay Pulpit article,
Dr. D had hooked up with Markus Ramolla, pastor of St. Albert the Great Church (“SAG”) at the time. And Ramolla -- whose aspirations of
becoming bishop date almost back to his seminary days -- wanted Bp. Petko (who
was serving as SAG’s bishop at the time) out of the way -- to pave the way for himself becoming their bishop. So, in getting Droleskey to discredit
Bp. Petko (which Dr. D was only too happy to do), it solved Ramolla’s
“problem”; and it provided Droleskey with a golden opportunity to not only hurt
both Petko and the Ritters, but to “score some points” with Ramolla as
well. It was a perfect “fit.”
But “getting
rid of Petko” required more “evidence” than just this flimsy insinuation of
“inappropriate association” with Ryan Scott. That, in and of itself, was not enough “dirt” on him – only
a “good start.” Dr. D also tried
to dig up other “background dirt” on Bp. Petko (involving the Diocese of
Indianapolis), including some outrageous claims such as “roller-skating in
church”; but that diocese, after being contacted, responded (as we’ve also
previously reported) by saying that there was absolutely no truth to
Droleskey’s allegations. (For that reason – and because of the frivolous and
absurd nature of the allegations – we will waste no more of the reader’s time giving
“details” again.)
[But wasting
the reader’s time is what Dr. D does best. It’s one of the “mainstays” of his modus operandi: overwhelming the reader with “volume.” Read through -- carefully -- everything that he has to say: the “common thread”
that one will find throughout all his verbal barrage is that it contains no
real proof but only “poof” – lots of
“smoke,” but no real evidence. Go ahead -- read through it all – and
you’ll see what I mean.]
So, Droleskey
knew that his repetitive, voluminous barrage of “background dirt” and his
bogus (and irrelevant) “Ryan
Scott” insinuations were not what one could call real proof, but that they were good “credibility builders” (and
that “repetition equals reinforcement”).
He also recognized that, although they were “blank bullets,” they were
bullets just the same – and that these “preliminaries” would “soften up” the reader
and put him in the right frame of mind for “the main event”: delivering his
“one-two punch” (i.e., more convincing “evidence”) -- and that this “one-two
punch” was really needed. So, he
dutifully manufactured it, with the help of his accomplices: Ramolla and his
“seminarians.” In the next (and later) articles, Lay Pulpit will examine this and other
“evidence.”
No comments:
Post a Comment