Did A Priest Convicted of Sexual Perversion Sign The Filial Correction?

Maybe those who have drafted and signed the Filial Correction need to take a closer look at who is supporting them.

I was looking through the names of the signatories to the Filial Correction and came across one name, Father John Houston, which gives no description of who he is or his place of origin.  So I did a Google search.  The only item I found for a Father John Houston was an article from an Australian website called "Broken Rites Australia" which is self described as "researching the cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church."

According to the article from this website:

A visiting Catholic priest has pleaded guilty in court to filming boys, without their permission, while they were naked, in shower-cubicles at an Australian beach.

Father John Charles Houston was ordered by the court not to loiter near public pools or beaches.

Father Houston (born 3 March 1955) appeared before a magistrate on 28 July 2009 in Raymond Terrace Local Court, near Newcastle, New South Wales.

According to police, Father John Houston was visiting New South Wales at the time of the offences.

His temporary address was listed on court papers as the Monastery of the Most Holy Redeemer, Maitland Vale Road, Bolwarra Heights, New South Wales (near the city of Maitland, inland from Newcastle).

He was in active ministry at the time of the alleged offences, police stated.

The filming incidents were alleged to have occurred in shower cubicles at Blacksmiths Beach (south of Newcastle) during the New South Wales Surf Life Saving Championships on 1 March 2009. Houston was charged by Lake Macquarie detectives on March 26.

In Belmont Local Court (south of Newcastle) in April 2009, Houston was charged with two counts of filming a person in a private act without consent to obtain sexual arousal and one charge each of filming a person's private parts without consent and filming a person in a private act without consent to obtain sexual arousal (aggravated).

The aggravated charge related to a 14-year-old boy and carried a maximum jail term of five years.

Another charge related to an "unknown adolescent male".

When the case was listed again in Raymond Terrace Local Court (near Newcastle) on 28 July 2009, Houston applied to have the matter dealt with under mental health legislation.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of filming without permission. Two other charges were withdrawn.

Rather than penalising Houston, the magistrate ordered that he be supervised by mental health workers, continue to take his medication and to not loiter near public pools or beaches.

Houston would be subject to the court's orders for 18 months and would face a potential jail term if he breached those orders.

As you can see, this guy really had his problems.  You can be sure this was not the first time he had done something like this, only the first time he was caught.  Now of course, it's possible that this is not the same priest who signed the Filial Correction, but as the article tells us, the reason this Father John Houston was in this area was to minister to a group of cloistered, traditional nuns:

When Houston was charged in March 2009, the Newcastle Herald contacted Bishop Michael Malone, head of the Newcastle-Maitland diocese. Malone issued a short statement, saying:

"Father Houston came to the [Maitland-Newcastle] diocese in September 2008 to minister to the Redemptoristine Community, a small enclosed group of religious women, in Bolwarra Heights.

"As he is not a priest of this diocese, I am unable to provide you with any further information."

As I wrote above, I cannot state with certainty that this is the same Father John Houston who signed the Filial Correction.  However, I do not find any other priest anywhere by the name of John Houston.

The Australian website did their own investigation and found this:

The Redemptoristine nuns at Bolwarra Heights, where John Charles Houston was staying, are a small community. Founded in Italy in 1731, this order was introduced in Australia from Canada in 1965 by Bishop John Toohey, of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese. Bolwarra Heights is this order's only address that is listed in the Australian Catholic Directory.

I did a little more checking and found this:

The community is unique in being the only English speaking community of nuns that still wear the full length red and blue habit and observe a traditional religious way of life: Daily Mass, Papal Enclosure, the Divine Office seven times a day, meditation, work, spiritual reading, penance, holy silence and happy recreation are faithfully and joyfully observed in this hidden life of service to the Lord.

This does not specifically say that the Traditional Latin Mass is celebrated here, but the fact that they wear a full length habit and pray the pre-1962 Divine Office does give them away.  And certainly there is nothing wrong with these things.  But it would also seem to indicate that since they are a traditionalist community, they would want a traditionalist priest.  Hence, there is a strong likelihood that Father John Houston who was arrested while ministering to the traditional nuns could be the same Father John Houston who would sign a papal correction drafted by traditionalists.

The Australian website ends their article with this information:

In the court proceedings, police stated that in 2008, before moving to Bolwarra, Houston had been at an address in Windsor, Melbourne.

The police did not say which religious order John Charles Houston belonged to or which country or countries he had been ministering in.

Broken Rites has found that John Charles Houston is not listed in any of the annual editions of the Australian Catholic directory as ministering in Australia.

The Catholic Church has many religious orders, some of them quite small, which operate internationally — and this is where John Charles Houston fits in.

Broken Rites has ascertained that John Charles Houston may be Australian-born but he was ordained (while overseas) into an order called the Consolata Fathers or the Consolata Missionaries. He has worked as a priest in African countries, including South Africa.

Certainly we need to pray for the priest involved in these incidents.  It has been several years since the time of these incidents, and our prayer is that he is finding his way back to Our Lord.

However, if this is the same priest who signed the Filial Correction, maybe that is telling us something about the people who support it.