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Why would they give the boot to such a man?
© St. Petersburg Times I heard the first rumblings from a friend on Saturday. But nothing prepared me for what I saw Sunday in the parish hall of my church, St. Mary's Episcopal in Tampa. A dense crowd of people was passing out green ribbons to wear and petitions to sign and candles to light. Finally, they lined up in a procession of protest against the ouster of their rector, Father Kevin Donlon.
I did not think you could carry out an insurrection at a church. After Lipscomb predicted the future would be difficult at St. Mary's for a time, several people stood up at their seats to object. The confrontation became so tense Lipscomb threatened to cut short the service. Many people turned their backs on him and walked out. Late last week, Donlon was abruptly barred from the grounds of the church and school after a long and secret complaint of alleged misdoings was issued by eight well-connected members of the church. Officials have said only what the charges do not concern -- improprieties involving money or children. Otherwise, the charges are secret. He could be defrocked. So I am flying blind when I write here to defend Kevin Donlon. But I am willing to take my chances. He is a complicated man, but a good one. He is a New Yorker with a New Yorker's way of speaking surrounded by a sea of southern accents. He is an ex-Catholic who entered the seminary at 12 and left at 24. When he joined the Episcopal Church, he went to Oxford to get a doctorate in church history. In a race-conscious city, he hired a Ugandan priest to serve beside him. When he learned that a small group of Ethiopian Christians had been paying rent to hold their services at St. Mary's, he made sure they got the space for free. Just recently, he supervised the multimillion-dollar overhaul of the church and its affiliated school. He also has the dramatic and exaggerated personality people in leadership positions often do. His enthusiasms get in the way of his common sense. Sometimes, when you talk to him about a problem, he has to tell you his first. He does not brook opposition lightly. In other words, he's a difficult man, who has trouble hiding his defects behind the weighty camouflage that being a priest offers. This may be what got him into trouble, but it is also what endears him to others. People at the church identify with his thorny mix of good and not-so-good qualities. They call him by phone, by pager, by e-mail to preside over the benchmarks of their lives, the weddings and the funerals. He has visited them in the hospital and in their homes. They don't call him Father Donlon. They call him Father Kevin, or just plain Kevin. They laugh with him. On Sunday, they cried in his name. I joined St. Mary's four years ago in a vague search for forgiveness and understanding. I wanted to believe in something bigger than myself and to get the strength to withstand the blows life inevitably delivers. Life has delivered some of late, and so I have been in Kevin Donlon's office. He listened. He pressed a couple of books he thought would be helpful into my hands. He did these things even though I am not at all the deepest believer, not the most regular churchgoer, not a big donor. He took me as I was. And I came to take him as he was. If the charges against him are revealed and proven, I will have to rethink my position. For now, I have some of the faith that I was looking for when I came to Kevin Donlon's church, and I am willing to have it put to the test. -- Mary Jo Melone can be reached at mjmelone@sptimes.com or 226-3402.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
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Times columns today Susan Taylor Martin Mary Jo Melone Jan Glidewell Ernest Hooper Gary Shelton Elijah Gosier Eric Deggans From the Times Metro desk |
