2 days ago
Why fired Miege president won't be hired by another Catholic school
After I wrote that Phil Baniewicz had been fired from his job as president of Bishop Miege High School during the ongoing investigation of alleged inappropriate behavior with a minor, I saw and heard several comments along the lines of, 'Yeah, well, he'll just be hired by some other Catholic school next week, because that's how it always works.'
I don't think so. And that isn't because I don't understand the assumption; unfortunately, I do.
But thanks to a 2021 change in church law by Pope Francis, Archbishop Shawn McKnight has a powerful, rarely used tool that he's considering invoking in this case. He could keep Baniewicz from working or volunteering for the church anywhere in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas. Which would send a strong message to other bishops not to hire him, either.
Helen Osman, a spokesman for McKnight, said invoking that new canon law in Baniewicz's case 'is something the Archbishop is looking at.'
Baniewicz had been suspended from his job since June 5, when the archdiocese began investigating 'his ability to oversee a safe environment.' Two women have reported that when they were students at Maur Hill-Mount Academy in Atchison, Kansas and Baniewicz was president there, he pulled them into closed-door one-on-one meetings to grill them about their sex lives. Which would violate safe-environment protocols in any Catholic school. Neither woman accused him of touching her.
On June 16, Baniewicz was barred from ministry anywhere in the archdiocese, based on a new and different kind of report of inappropriate behavior with a minor, while both civil authorities and an independent firm hired by the archdiocese continue their inquiries.
The canon law option that McKnight is looking at would only happen after those probes are finished, if he feels it's warranted to keep students safe. That's a much lower threshold, obviously, than in any civil court.
It's always been possible for a bishop to bar clergy from serving in any Catholic institution within his jurisdiction — and by extension, elsewhere — and that that didn't happen more often was not just wrong but devastating.
Only, there are signs that it is a new day in KCK: McKnight also just suspended a priest from ministry after an 'allegation of behavior inconsistent with our safe environment policies.' The Rev. Jerry Arano-Ponce, a priest at Queen of the Holy Rosary-Wea, won't be able to perform any ministerial duties during an investigation. 'This matter is being taken with the utmost seriousness,' McKnight said in a statement. The urgency does feel new.
How new church law works
It was only four years ago — a flutter in Catholic time — that Francis changed the penal code of the church by expanding the possibility of bishops barring not only clergy from service but also certain non-ordained lay people, including religious sisters, brothers and anyone who works in a public role on behalf of the church. The president of a Catholic school definitely fits that definition.
Susan Mulheron, a canon lawyer and chancellor for the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, said that in the Baniewicz case, the change in canon law would make it easier for McKnight to prohibit both employment and volunteer involvement: If whatever happened 'was grounds for termination,' she said, then 'it's grounds to restrict his ability to cause further harm.'
So McKnight could, if he chooses, 'issue a precept and tell him, 'I have enough information to determine you're not suitable for employment within my archdiocese.' ' If that happened, she said, Baniewicz would then have the right to appeal to Rome.
And would other bishops necessarily follow suit and not hire someone deemed unsuitable in one diocese in another? 'Another bishop would take it very seriously,' Mulheron said. 'It's not insignificant.'
It's also not commonly used, Mulheron said, because 'for lay employees, we typically rely on regular employment law.' Invoking canon law is 'taking that extra step,' she said, and signaled seriousness on McKnight's part. 'The potential is there for it to be a very powerful tool.'
Osman, the McKnight spokeswoman, said it 'addresses the loophole' of someone who is seen as unfit in one diocese being hired in another, and 'has big ramifications. This change in canon law tells me we are taking seriously the responsibility to keep children and vulnerable people safe.'
Where Baniewicz is job hunting
On his LinkedIn page, Baniewicz recently posted, 'I'm looking for Management, Sales Manager, Sales Representative, Marketing Manager, and President roles. I'm open to roles in North Carolina, San Diego Metropolitan Area, Florida, and South Carolina. I've previously worked at Bishop Miege High School — Official.'
Baniewicz has never responded to messages about any of this. I left another one for him on Sunday.
You would have thought that the invention of Google would have kept someone with his history from being hired to run any school, but it didn't stop Miege from bringing him on just two years ago. School and church officials knew that he'd once been accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy. The Diocese of Phoenix settled a 2005 civil suit against Baniewicz and two priests for $100,000. Both priests accused in the suit pleaded guilty to different crimes involving minors. But Miege parents and students were only told about that a month after his hiring was announced, after reporters looked Baniewicz up and asked about it.
Baniewicz has always said he was wrongly accused, and no criminal charges were ever filed against him. A priest on the Miege hiring committee had also once been accused of sexual misconduct. A longtime employee of the diocese, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told me last year that in that person's experience, 'The idea of a false allegation is a good self-protection with clergy. And it did seem like everyone was caught off guard when it hit the media.'
Miege and diocesan officials forcefully stood behind him and said all past allegations 'were not able to be substantiated and were without merit.' They called him 'fully vetted,' too, but never seem to have looked into the broader allegation that Baniewicz had brought young people into an unsafe environment all those years ago in Arizona.
One of the now former priests with whom he was accused is a convicted pedophile who served many years in prison. The other, Baniewicz's Life Teen cofounder, described Baniewicz in his autobiography as 'like a son' to him. And one of the grooming techniques described in that man's indictment was that boys were pulled into 'sham confessions' and uncomfortable conversations about their sexuality. Very much as the two former Maur Hill students say they were.
'Not only tone-deaf, but irresponsible'
None of this seems to have troubled officials in the diocese, where until recently he remained very much in favor. Hours before his suspension was announced on June 6, Parker Valdez, one of the former Maur Hill students who complained about him, posted on Facebook, 'I went to bed last night feeling so defeated,' after hearing Baniewicz on a podcast hosted by McKnight's predecessor, Archbishop Joseph Naumann.
That May episode has since been taken down. 'I listened to the interview, and felt physically sick,' Valdez wrote in that post. 'The archdiocese's decision to showcase a figure like Phil and to platform him in this way, given the longstanding controversies and concerns surrounding him, feels not only tone-deaf, but irresponsible.'
It was the similar report from Taylor Kelsey, who didn't know Valdez, or that KCK was getting a new archbishop, or that I'd ever written a word about Baniewicz, that sparked the investigation that led to his suspension. And that report landed, by either coincidence or providence, on the same day as McKnight's installation as archbishop, May 27th.
There's no record of the letter Valdez sent Naumann more than a year earlier ever having been received, the diocese said. But as everything in that letter was also in my April 2024 column about Baniewicz in The Star, church officials did know what she was alleging.
Now McKnight is investigating how Baniewicz ever got hired in the first place, and I do believe that he wants to change the culture that allowed and fiercely defended that decision. That will not be easy. But I say give him a chance to do that before assuming that nothing ever will be any different than it has been.
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