Edward Francis Donelan

Continuing Damage

The secrecy that everyone kept about Donelan enabled him to continue his clerical career. Not only the Church but the state kept the abuse secret.53 In addition to the Colfax County Social Services Agency “Report on the Hacienda de los Muchachos,” cited above, Pierre Nichols on August 16, 1976, wrote to New Mexico Governor Jerry Apadaca and to New Mexico U. S. Senator Domenici from New Mexico that “I have never written to anyone in as high an office as yourself, simply because I have never felt the need to before. Presently though, I am involved in a very serious matter which, if handled improperly, would cause quite a scandal. One that would focus a lot of criticism on our own state. I am referring to a complicated matter involving child abuse (sexual, etc.) at a boys ranch. I have written to and talked several times with the Archbishop about the subject, and am now appealing to you, to ask if you could possibly give some attention to this matter.

…I know what I am talking about when I support any effort to have closed, the Hacienda Boys Ranch and or particularly the removal of its founder-manager, Father Ed.

My interviews with boys who had once been at the ranch, verify in shocking detail some of the things I had suspected. My dairies over the years become even more meaningful as I now realize why certain things happened as they did. Many children have had to suffer psychologically and even physically due to one man’s perversion. Everyone would agree, yes…something should 5353 be done, but no one seems able to help enough to bring out this case and stop the wrongs. I have submitted much material and patience to the Archbishop ever since February, and I have yet to see him take any concrete action. I have consulted in much length with State Social Service people locally as well as in Santa Fe, and they seem to feel helpless in causing more action.”
There is no indication these letters were received by the Governor and Senator, or if received were read, or if read led to any action. In 1983 and 1984 the parishioners at the parishes around Mountainair, New Mexico, complained first to Archbishop Sanchez (who ignored them) and then to the newspaper of Donelan’s “refusal to marry couples and baptize children, and refusal to give [illegible] or last rites, plus other wrongdoings” such as having “a gun in the pouch he carries with him at all times.”54Gary [illegible], “Charges Are Leveled at Priest,” Valencia County News Bulletin, Vol. 74, No. 13, Sunday, February [date obscured], 1984.

In 1986 Archbishop Sanchez assigned Donelan as administrator of Immaculate Conception parish in Cimarron, New Mexico. Cimarron is the location of Philmont, the national camp for the Boy Scouts, and hosts thousands of boys every year. In 1987 Sanchez assigned Donelan as administrator of St. Joseph’s in Springer, New Mexico. This was the parish for the New Mexico Boys’ School; Donelan followed the abuser  Rev. Irving Klister, who had been pastor there when Vaughn Bishop froze to death in attempting to escape Donelan (see above). Donelan’s last assignment in 1990 was at a hospital. In 1993, Lorraine Polance wrote to Rev. Ron Wolf, the Chancellor of the Santa Fe archdiocese, about Donelan’s style of pastoral care:

Shortly after this, Donelan’s past caught up with him.

In October 1993 Ron Wolf notified Donelan that he had “received information that appears indicative of the fact that a serious offense against the Church has been committed by you. On the basis of this information, it appears that you have been accused of sexual abuse while you were in charge of the Boy’s Ranch.”56Letter from Very Rev. Ron Wolf, Chancellor, to Rev. Edward Donelan, October 5, 1993. Wolf pretended to be surprised that Donelan has been accused of sexual abuse; but Donelan’s file had accusations going back to the early 1970s. In January 1994, an attorney representing a victim contacted Rev. Ron Wolf, Chancellor of the Archdiocese. Only then did Archbishop Michael Sheehan put Donelan on administrative leave. His abuse led to the death of a boy; he was not disciplined for that. But now he might cost the archdiocese money, and that called for action. In February 1994 Sheehan retired Donelan and gave him “the usual pension provided by the Priests’ Relief Fund.”57Letter from Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan to Rev. Doug Raun, President, Priests Relief Fund, February 14, 1992. Another month passed, and Sheehan asked Sr. Nancy Kazik to send Donelan “a kindly worded letter” “asking him to move from the parish to a location more suitable to his retirement status.”58Memorandum from Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan to Sr. Nancy Kazik, OSF, Vice-Chancellor / Case Manager, March 10, 1994. Donelan died shortly thereafter.

Light in the Darkness

After Pierre Nichols left the Hacienda, and after Vaughn Bishop died, Nichols had a conversation with a fifteen-year-old boy who was leaving the Hacienda. It provides the only whiff of Christianity in this whole sad story. The boy was leaving behind his younger brother at the Hacienda, and knew that the boys were learning to do evil things there.

As far as I know the boy never had a chance to tell his story; I hope my attempt to tell the story of Donelan and the Hacienda will let the victims know that they are not forgotten, and that abuse in the Church won’t go on much longer.

Although even victims suffering from the Stockholm Syndrome sometimes want to mischaracterize their abusers as sick rather than criminal, in the deepest sense crimes of abuse show a sickness of soul even unto death, a sickness that only a Divine Physician can heal.  Donelan used chaos to control people; he created a vertiginous environment in which he was the only point of reference, and the boys clung to him in desperation. He, therefore, as a priest and “Father,” could control the boys sexually and spiritually, the most intimate control possible. Why did he want to do it? Was he a pure narcissist, “egoistical,”59Memo from Archbishop Robert Sanchez about conversation with Donelan’s sister, July 12, 1976. as his own sister described him? Why didn’t someone, for his own good and the good of his victims, put a stop to his abuse as soon as possible?

The boy and Pierre Nichols show an extraordinary depth of Christian maturity in their conversation, and I was humbled when I read it: “ex ore infantium.” If only popes and bishops had shown the same fear of a God who is angry when children are harmed and led into a life of depravity,60Archbishop Sanchez claimed “I was unaware of any lasting damage that a child might suffer” from being sexually abused. John Doe I et al v. Roman Catholic Church of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe et al, Second Judicial District Court, County of Bernalillo, State of New Mexico, cases CV-91-11688 et al, Deposition of Robert F. Sanchez, January 12, 1994, p. 98, ll. 13-14. if only popes and bishops had shown a love even for abusers, a love that would tear them from their sins, humble them, make them see reality so that they could be saved from the everlasting fires. But popes and bishops left the abusers uncorrected and the victims unhealed. Abusers can only hope that the victims are better Christians than the popes and bishops are, and that the prayers of destroyed innocents will not cast down to hell, but, as the boy’s prayers perhaps did for Vaughn,  and maybe even for Donelan, open the path to heaven.

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