St. Aug, Josephites embroiled in power struggle

14th June 2011   ·   0 Comments

Just one day after St. Augustine High School’s Board of Directors flexed its muscles and exerted its power to hire or fire school administrators, the Josephites Order amended its by-laws and reasserted its authority to fire St. Aug’s president, the Rev. John Raphael.

The Josephite-based Board of Trustees that oversees St. Aug, in what was an apparent “emergency” meeting, voted late last week to change its by-laws making them the “power of authority” in response to St. Aug’s Board of Directors’ decision to honor Father Raphael’s contract. They informed the board of directors and administrators of its decision Friday morning.

The Josephites also re-installed the Rev. Charles Andrus as a replacement for Raphael. This time naming him as “permanent” and instructed Andrus to immediately drop the lawsuit against Dr. Monica Applewhite, whose report about the harmful effects of paddling students led to a major faceoff between St. Aug and the Archdiocese of New Orleans this past February.

“This change represents the latest attempt to change the rules to take additional power and authority away from the local board that governs our school’s day-to-day operations, in this case by literally re-writing the by-laws under which we have operated,” St. Augustine Board Chairman Troy Henry said in a statement Friday. “The Board of Directors is in the process of reviewing the revised by-laws document and seeking legal counsel on its validity.”

With hundreds of St. Augustine High School alumni, teachers, parents and students gathered in the all-boys school’s 7th Ward schoolyard Wednesday evening, the school’s Board of Directors vowed to stand by embattled St. Aug president the Rev. John Raphael and defend the institution’s right to govern itself.

Wednesday’s rally came just four days after the Josephites, the Roman Catholic Order that oversees St. Augustine High School, announced that Father Raphael was being removed from the school and sent a still-undetermined assignment in Baltimore, Maryland.

Father Raphael said early last week he was initially informed by telephone June 3 and by email the following day that he would be re-assigned to a position in Baltimore.

The decision to transfer Raphael incensed the St. Aug family, many of whom believe that Father Raphael was targeted because of his outspoken support of paddling and his unflinching criticism of New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond.

In an email, the Rev. Edward J. Chiffriller, the superior general of the Society of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, informed Father Raphael on June 4 that he was expected to leave New Orleans for Baltimore “as soon as possible” to receive further instructions about his next assignment.

Chiffriller also told Raphael to remove himself from the St. Augustine campus immediately and that he was barred from playing any role in the functioning of the school.

Raphael tried unsuccessfully to get an explanation for his transfer and told Chiffriller that it would be impossible to comply with his instructions about not visiting the campus since he lived on the schoolgrounds.

“I will not allow you to make me a homeless person without a bed to sleep in,” Raphael told Chiffriller in an email. “You must allow me the opportunity to arrange a proper personal and professional transition.

“There are other unanswered questions that I will have to pose to you before any movement can be made on my part.”

The Archdiocese of New Orleans denied having any involvement in the decision to re-assign Raphael.

“Though Father Raphael and I disagree over the issue of paddling at St. Augustine, “we agree on many things, especially the importance and success of St. Augustine High School and the pro-life issues of our Church,” Archbishop Gregory Aymond said in a statement earlier this month.

“I publicly thank him for his many years of service to the school and the New Orleans Catholic community,” Aymond continued.

“At this time I ask the community to join me in prayer for Father Raphael and St. Augustine High School in this time of transition.”

“He’s as stunned and flabbergasted as I am,” St. Aug Board of Directors Chairman Troy Henry told the local daily paper. “Father Raphael and I didn’t agree on everything, but it’s hard for me to understand how anyone thinks this is best for the school.”

Although initially refusing to weigh in on his transfer publicly, Father Raphael sent out an email to parents, students and faculty that read: “Our battle is not over, our cause is not lost, our school shall prevail. Now is the time for all of us to stand together, not to waver, not to quit.

“Rise, Sons of the Gold and Purple!!!” he added. Father Raphael sounded less convinced that the archdiocese didn’t play a role in his reassignment during a June 6 interview that aired on WBOK.

“Something began to happen after the townhall meeting — where the Archbishop began to speak about the so-called parental complaints, etc,” Raphael told WBOK Monday. “These statements were thrown out to the public — always to the public and not directly to us. We began to say, ‘What are you talking about?’

“We were trying to get that information, we really couldn’t get a meeting initially and then there was the ‘Sea of Purple’ rally,” Raphael continued. “Once that ‘Sea of Purple’ rally took place, all of a sudden we were able to get a meeting. In fact, right before the rally we got a lot of ‘Okay, let’s go ahead and meet.’ We had the meeting after the rally and got the apology from the Archbishop, which we accepted, for linking us with violence.”

But then things began unravel as the Archdiocese of New Orleans told the media that several parents had complained of injuries to their children before sharing that information with school administrators.

Father Raphael’s reassignment came just days after St. Aug alumni filed a civil lawsuit against Dr. Monica Applewhite, an Austin, TX-based consultant hired by the Archdiocese of New Orleans to study the harmful effects of paddling on students. In her report to Archbishop Aymond, Applewhite made note off three cases of paddling at St. Aug that required students to seek medical attention.

Attorney Tracie Washington, whose son serves as president of St. Aug’s Student Council, said she filed the lawsuit because she and others could find no evidence that supported Applewhite’s report of paddling abuse that required medical attention and that the report damaged the school’s reputation.

“Unbeknownst to us, to the school administration and board of directors, a ‘confidential’ report was prepared which had certain accusations in it that were never given to us,” Father Raphael told WBOK last Monday. “The kind of accusations that as soon as you get them — you know, a kid gets injured and has to go to the hospital — none of this has taken place. …When we saw the report, it took just a matter of days to get the people who were interviewed to come in and write public statements. We wanted to go back to the table after seeing the report so that we could talk about the report (with the Archdiocese of New Orleans). Once we knew what was in the report, we were ready to address it but we didn’t get that access any more, which started the lawsuit.”

Father Raphael described the Applewhite report as “in large part fabrication, in large part gross exaggeration and distortion, a lot of speculation and opinion and very little concrete fact. …With all of this and the way this report was brandished by the archbishop, the report itself concludes by saying that the (paddling) policy should be extended for at least three years. To me, this is mind-boggling. I don’t understand that.”

Archbishop Gregory Aymond issued a statement on June 1 responding to the lawsuit in which he says in part, “I cannot comment on the lawsuit they have filed against Dr. Monica Applewhite. I am sorry that they have taken this action and that they would think of a nationally renowned expert as dishonest in her work. Dr. Applewhite has a good reputation internationally and has worked for Catholic bishops as well as many other youth organizations throughout the United States regarding abuse and safe environment.”

Father Raphael said last Monday that he found it interesting that the Archdiocese of New Orleans and the Josephites kept the Applewhite report a secret for more than a year.

“The real issue here is not corporal punishment at all,” Father Raphael told WBOK. “The real issue here is the competence to govern. These issues go to governance competency. If a kid gets injured at school, there’s a policy that has to be followed, forms that have to be filled out. Why did these folks hold onto this information for more than a year when— if you look at the course of this debate —this debate would have been ended back in Dec. 2009 or January 2010? If there was any validity to the report, then the report would have been treated the way any report like that should have been treated. The school administration and board of directors didn’t hear about the report until February 2011.”

An animated Father Raphael, donning a St. Aug baseball cap, made it clear Wednesday that he has no intention of abandoning his post as St. Augustine High School president without a fight.

“You know, some people have to learn that fear is not an effective governing tool for a man,” Father Raphael, a 1985 St. Aug grad, told the crowd. “If the truth got us where we are today, then the truth is gonna take us where we need to go tomorrow.”

Among those who rallied in support of Father Raphael and the school’s right to use corporal punishment Wednesday was Josephite priest the Rev. Joe Campion, a former St. Aug teacher and school chaplain, who said, “Why are we here today? Because we know an injustice has been done to a human being and to an institution that has been a standard-bearer for 60 years.

“Many others who took the road less traveled, the path of suffering to change the culture of racism… the antagonists at that time were both outside and inside the church. In 2011, the antagonists are inside the church.

“When differences arise as they often do, these differences ought to be resolved in private,” Father Campion said. “Sometimes, as in the case here when fabrication, slander and conspiratorial abuses of authority descend upon a person as John Raphael and this great institution of St. Augustine High School of which he served so well, it becomes necessary for the light of truth to come to the darkness of ecclesiastical malice.

“They believe that their authority trumps the authority of one’s conscience,” Campion continued. “They have engaged not in the legitimate exercise of authority but rather in the grievous abuse of power.” “The board of directors of St. Augustine High School has not removed Father Raphael as president,” Troy Henry, chair of the St. Augustine Board of Directors and a former New Orleans mayoral candidate, told the crowd Wednesday..

Henry said Wednesday that the board and not the Josephite Order has the authority to remove Father Raphael, who is under contract to serve as St. Aug president until next summer.

Raphael said his canon lawyer advised him that his transfer by the Josephite Order was invalid and likely to be thrown out as an abuse of power. Before Wednesday’s rally, he wrote to St. Aug’s Board of Directors and informed it of his decision to remain in his post as the school’s president.

“I was happy to know that the archbishop was grateful for the service that I had rendered to New Orleans,” a fired-up Father Raphael told St. Aug supporters Wednesday. “And I heard and I read that he had nothing to do with it — and I do take him at his word. So if he didn’t have anything to do with it — and he recognizes that this is an internal Josephite thing and he’s grateful for the work that I have been doing, then he will be glad to have me back!”

“I am deeply disappointed in his excellence (Archbishop Gregory Aymond),” Orleans Parish Civic Court Judge Kern Reese, another St. Aug grad, said Wednesday. “He has only been on this campus one time.

“Nobody’s going to tell us how to raise our kids,” Reese said.

Before the rally ended, hundreds of St. Aug supporters held up their clenched fists and sang the school’s alma mater in an emotion-filled show of solidarity.

St. Aug board chair Troy Henry said Wednesday that he hopes to negotiate Father Raphael’s future at St. Aug with the Josephites after the order of Catholic priests elects a new leader.

St. Aug supporters said Wednesday that while the brouhaha involving the school and the Archdiocese of New Orleans started out as a dispute over St. Aug’s use of corporal punishment in the classroom, it has grown into a wider debate about the school’s right to govern itself and its effort to maintain its integrity and long-held traditions.

A number of those who spoke Wednesday urged those in attendance to show their support for St. Aug when they went to the church of their choice on Sundays by wearing purple clothing. “We are standing up for who we are,” Raphael said.

Friday’s developments regarding the Josephites’ decision to alter their by-laws comes just days before the order is scheduled to elect new leaders. The Josephites are expected to elect new officers Tuesday, June 14.

“St. Augustine High School has enjoyed a successful partnership with the Josephite Society for 60 glorious years,” Troy Henry said Friday. “We have only recently encountered these issues under Fr. Chiffriller’s reign. He continues to refuse to meet or discuss any of these matters with the Board of Directors.

“Before taking any action, we will request an emergency meeting with the new Josephite Superior General and his council, after they have been elected and installed next week.

“St. Augustine High School prays that we can find a resolution that is in the best of the school, its students and stakeholders.”

“I am totally disappointed in this Superior General — there’s nothing superior about him and there’s nothing general about him,” WBOK radio talk-show host Paul Beaulieu, a St. Aug alum, said Friday on the air. “I think he’s a total disappointment and a disgrace to the tradition of leadership that the founding fathers of St. Augustine High School established.”

This article originally published in the June 13, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper. Additional reporting by The Louisiana Weekly editor Edmund W. Lewis.