On SPCDC, "Bro. Ignatius Mary," and Richard Lee Collett Jr

This post is made to set things straight on the truth behind my article in Sun-Star Cebu on 8 April 2009 that recounts about my unfortunate encounter with a vicious forum which called itself the "St. Pio Center for Deliverance Counselling" (SPCDC), supposedly owned by a group calling itself the Order of the Legion of St. Michael (OLSM).

A couple of months ago, during my regular test- searching of my name in the Web, I chanced at a Detractor Malefactor Chronicle that posted my article as the uppermost entry followed by other entries such as Faith Cop, Ken Deel, etc., accusing me of being a "classic example of 'sour grapes' and revenge because his membership in the BBS was terminated due to his abuse of the members." For one thing, sour-graping presumes that I would be losing a lot for losing membership in their forum. For another, revenge presumes that the truth about them is a form of attack against them.

As you will see, I registered in the SPCDC forum with total good will and they treated me with vindictiveness and the religious sister in the story of Fr. Jocis Syquia with scorn and belittling. The mere fact that I registered with my real name stands as proof that I registered in the forum with pure good will, but which the administrators have abused with their unbecoming behavior.

BACKGROUND

On 15 March 2009, around 7:30 PM (Philippine time), I Zosimo Literatus searched the Web for biography of Roman Catholic Saints who have faced the devil in person as a preparation for a book I was to write for the year. While searching using the name of Padre Pio, a link came up among others the site of SPCDC, which I visited hoping to get information only to find that it was a deliverance counseling outfit with a forum. So I gladly registered in the forum in order to meet people I expected to be active in deliverance as their name implies. Being new, I don't know where to start; so when I found a thread on House Blessings, I gladly shared a story I read from the book of Fr. Syquia, Manila's chief exorcist.

In the post with time 9:49:17 PM, I posted the following: "I'm not sure if I need to post this as a separate topic but I fell the need to share this as it may help you in the future or help you help others in the future." As you can see, my motive was to share the story so they also can be enriched and be able to help others. I approached them as a brother in Christ and as a brother Catholic.

The following day at 11:08:54 AM, an Administrator Rebecca posted: "The problem with that scenario is the sister used a sacramental as a weapon and tried to confront a demon singlehandedly as if to "fight" it. The "weapon" she should have used instead is prayer. A deliverance team (at least one that knows what it is doing) would pray for the demon to be cast out of the area. Sounds like this sister learned the hard way what NOT to do." Now, here's what I understood from the group's beliefs on deliverance: (1) They do not use sacramentals; (2) They presumed that using a sacramental means NO LONGER praying; (3) By insinuation, they implied that the sister did not know what she is doing.

Now here are facts on what true Catholics do. Deliverance and Healing ministers in the Sto. Rosario Parish, among others, use sacramentals in their works both as tool for protection as well as demonic assault. Even priests when blessing a house will use holy water as well as prayers. In fact, Administrator Rebecca even unguardedly indicated that only prayers are need in deliverance. As far as I know, the only Christians that don't use sacrametals are the Protestant denominations. This is the first hint I got on the nature of people behind SPCDC.

The insinuated belittling on the sister as not knowing what she was doing astounded me as to the arrogance of these people. And my common sense tells me that people who performs deliverance must be humble even when attacked because humility is an important sign of holiness, and who can perform deliverance but only holy people. But these SPCDC people who claim to be deliverance ministers and even train people to be so behaved with such arrogance. Imagine, they are doing this to a consecrated religious sister. Fr. Syquia himself respected the nun and vouched for her experience: "a religious sister wearing a green habit who specialized in spiritual warfare" (pg. 182). Now, there's another hint via their way of thinking that these people are not truly Roman Catholics, regardless of how they claim they are and even placing a papal seal in their website to support their claims. (With regards to that seal, did the Vatican really reviewed them and gave them that seal as a result of that evaluation? The parish where they belong don't even know them, as you will learn later on.)

[Profile Photo of so-called Bro. Ignatius Mary in the SPCDC Forum. After I got registered I took the liberty of copying his profile picture as my reference point of the person who was director of the Center.]

So the naive Zosimo Literatus responded, now really doubting if I was talking to a Roman Catholic: "I guessed you missed something in the story. When we say 'religious' among us Catholics, we mean 'nuns' if they are women and 'non-diocesan' priests' if they are males. I guess that term is not well-used in the US." I was actually implying here that if they knew that the religious sister I mentioned was a consecrated woman, they would have somehow showed respect instead of belittling her. And apparently their ego were touched (remember, humility of holy people?) and the unnamed moderator inserted a comment: "Moderator's Note: This is a condescending comment. We are Catholics here and we know the meaning of the term 'religious.' This arrogance and pride is over the top and it will stop." Ironically, they have accused me with the arrogance and pride with which they actually behaved themselves but unguardedly. I was defending a consecrated woman, and they called me arrogant.

I Zosimo Literatus innocently replied: "I don't think she was untrained being in the deliverance ministry herself...and in fact was able to drive the demon away. And she was allowed by her mother superior to perform that house deliverance, then she must have been trained by a qualified priest to do it in the past before joining the deliverance ministry. To be honest, I'm worried about you guys in the center. Who trained you? Because you have no priest in your ranks. And Brother Ignatius as a brother, does not have the same authority as a regular priest. Who trained him in deliverance ministry?"

After this statement, they disable my permission to post in the forum. And while I could no longer ask questions the said director so-called Bro. Ignatius Mary claimed by implication that he was more experienced that Fr. Gabrielle Amorth, SSP, the chief exorcist of Rome: "I personally have ten more years experience than Father Amoth." By implication, he was telling me that if Fr. Amorth had delivered 10,000 people in his ministry, so-called Bro. Ignatius Mary delivered more. What arrogance?

So-called Bro. Ignatius Mary followed up his post with a judgment on me: "Your arrogance and pride disqualifies you to be a spritiual warrior." I actually smiled at his bravado. In the first place, I never claimed I was a deliverance minister, but I know what I believed. And who is actually arrogant? The person who sought to know more about spiritual warfare because he knew he knows nothing about it? Or, the person who claimed he was more experienced that the Chief Exorcist of the Diocese of Rome? And so-called Bro. Ignatius Mary claimed he had more experience than the Chief Exorcist of Rome.

By around 2:07:11 PM, so-called Bro. Ignatius Mary posted another wallop at me: "Our little Zim has already started his attack on me and the our group outside of this BBS. Didn't take long. Since we did not submit to his 'authority' we can't possibly be legit I guess. Pray for this poor soul." If you look at these words he used in this post, you would inevitably see the great arrogance inside the man so-called Bro. Ignatius Mary. And how could a man unable to make a post in the forum attack him? By asking them who taught him deliverance? Was that an attack?

If you will look at their posting, they NEVER mentioned any name that they can cite as the priest who trained so-called Bro. Ignatius Mary in the ways of performing a deliverance. The question becomes obvious: "How did he knew how to perform deliverance without being taught?" Did he just read lots of books and browsed the Web with information and voila! so-called Bro. Ignatius Mary became a more experienced deliverance minister than Fr. Amorth? Even in their Detractor Malefactor post on my article, they never mentioned any name...and considering the fact that they claimed so-called "Brother Ignatius does have more than twenty-years of experience in deliverance, including counseling with demonized people..."

Unguardedly however they made an admission that they were never directly trained but simply read spiritual books, and then became experts: "His views, however, and the views and approach of the SPCDC are modeled after the advice and information from Fr. Amorth, exorcist of Rome, and other exorcists such as Fr. Tom Euteneuer of HLI, Fr. Jose Fortea, Fr. Michael Scanlan, Chancellor and former President at Franciscan University in Steubenville."  It is like becoming a professional without going through actual internship training with a qualified instructor overseeing their actual performance. So-called Bro. Ignatius Mary and minions may have searched all the corners of the Web for information, but not being trained by a qualified deliverance minister, particularly a trained priest, they don't have the qualifications they purported to have. And they don't flinch in dropping expert names.

Now, here's a glitz in the reasoning. So-called Bro. Ignatius Mary had more years of years of experience than Fr. Amorth, but he MODELED after the advice of Fr. Amorth. How can the more experienced modeling on the less experienced?

What I felt during this unfortunate encounter with the people in SPCDC is the spirit of vindictiveness in their ways of dealing with people they consider as "enemies" or "attackers." I'm still wondering from whom they modelled such an extremely aggressive behavior. Jesus was never vindictive even to those who betrayed him. And these people in SPCDC accused a lone person Zosimo Literatus as an attacker becaused I asked a question on who trained their so-called Bro. Ignatius Mary.

A RELIGIOUS ORDER UNKNOWN TO ITS PARISH

Now my journalist instinct kicked in. I wondered who are these people behind SPCDC. So, the following day, I did some checking.

I found out that it belongs to a group calling itself as the "Order of the Legion of St. Michael" (OLSM), with an office address at 1111 S. Sheridan Ave., Ottumwa, IA, with the contact person named as Roy Reeder 2nd. So I, using my own name Zosimo Literatus, wrote a letter to His Most Reverend Martin J. Amos, the Bishop of Davenport where the parish of Ottumwa belongs. Here is what the good Reverend replied: "The Order of the Legion of St. Michael is unknown to me. It has no connection with the Diocese of Davenport. I have consulted with the two pastors of the parishes in Ottumwa and the organization is not known to them. Moreover, the name connected with it, Roy Reeder, is not listed as a member of either Ottumwa parish."

Now, a supposedly Roman Catholic Order who claimed to perform deliverances (a ministry that any bishop has serious concern in monitoring for potential abuse), and even claimed fidelity to the teachings of the Catholic Church, is not even known in its own parish? That completely disputed the claim of legitimacy of this so-called "Order."

Only then I appreciated the dangerous situation I found myself in when I registered in the forum. And I came to wonder how many got sucked into their lies. It was at this time when I decided to write an article for Sun-Star Cebu to forewarn websters in Cebu to be wary about this website for their spiritual and mental health. I considered it my responsibility to my readers in Cebu.

FAITH COP

A few days after my article "Threats to a Healthy Faith" saw print online, I received an email informing me that some of the information in my article, the sender (by the name of Faith Cop) used in a website with a link provided for me to check. It was in this blogsite I learned that the so-called Bro. Ignatius Mary of SPCDC was not who he seemed.

[Photo: The latest mug shot of Richard Lee Collett Jr found in the Iowa Sex Offender Registry and shared the same address of so-called Bro. Ignatius Mary]

So-called Bro. Ignatius Mary was Richard Lee Collett Jr, a sex offender registered at the Iowa Sex Offender Registry (ISOR). I followed the link provided in Faith Cop, and it showed me that he lives in the County of Wapello with surprisingly the same address as OLSM--1111 S. Sheridan Ave. Ottumwa, Ia 52501. This public record is a reliable source of information that cannot be faked. So-called Bro. Ignatius Mary got convicted on 22 February 2005 for two counts of possession/disemination of child pornography. A comment from a reader stated that "his 'hermitage' home is just a tiny home he lives in." The link in provided on the ISOR is  http://www.iowasexoffender.com/sho.php?id=71190579&L_isonums=&sub=&lastone= .

About two months ago, Faith Cop administrator emailed me to inform that the blogsite was suspended by Wordpress on the charge of violating the Terms of Service. And that rumors received indicateds that so-called Bro. Ignatius Mary threatened Wordpress with a libel suit. It is unfortunate that Wordpress did not know what libel is all about. And the Wordpress administrators buckled down.

As a journalist who was able to read the contents of Faith Cop, the information there are definitely backed with solid facts. In my own opinion, if one so-called Bro. Ignatius Mary and a Richard Lee Collett Jr have exactly the same home address, does it not mean that they are the same person considering that they look much the same? That alone is a valid fact to me.

Furthermore, is it libelous to uncover the covered truth in order to warn the public about this group that preys on people in the Web for dollar donations in the guise of being a legitimate religious entity when it is not? Isn't it a case of estafa to misrepresent an institution as something it is not to collect donation money? Is it libelous for an ordinary citizen to inform people of the existence of a cheat or a robber simply because it might compromise the criminal's illegal operations? What Faith Cop did was only to uncover the truth in order to protect the public. That's public service accompanied with responsible freedom of speech. The harassment must be great that a good company as Wordpress buckled down with trembling knees.

UPDATES

Right now, they are calling SPCDC the Saint Padre Pio Center for Spiritual Warfare (SPPCSW), obviously to detach itself from its original name.

Online Roman Catholic magazine Catholic Culture reviewed St. Michael's Call, the official website of OLSM, and rated it FIDELITY Danger! as of 5 August 2009. The rating indicates a warning to readers that the website DOES NOT represent "sound, authentic Catholicism--or fidelity to the mind of the Church." It represents warning in four review categories--Orthodoxy (fidelity to the Church as a Teacher), Obedience (fidelity to the Church as Ruler), Fortitude (fidelity to the Church's prophetic mission), and Prudence (fidelity to the Church as Sanctifier). The review noted serious questions on the status of OLSM in the Catholic Church, unfounded claim of so-called Bro. Ignatius Mary for a Licentiate in Theology, without citing the institution that gave it; its claim of registration with Dunn & Bradstreet and The World Wide Web Chamber of Commerce with liniks not checking out; and suspicious history on its legal status. Visit the site for details of the review (http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/reviews/view.cfm?recnum=144&repos=2&subrepos=0&searchid=558767).

The facts of these incidents have been laid frankly for the readers to make judgment whether there was ill-will on my part, on the part of Zosimo Literatus, when I wrote the article "Threats to a Health Faith," or I simply wrote based on facts and on what I observed during that short and unfortunate encounter with so-called Bro. Ignatius Mary and his minions in OLSM.

We learned that so-named "Brother Ignatius Mary," its Director, is actually the convicted sex offender Richard Lee Collett Jr., and that based on the evidence available, or the lack thereof, he has no connection with the Roman Catholic Church, particularly in the Diocese of Davenport where police files show he had his home address, and that he had no valid training to perform deliverance. We refer valid training to have come from a trained deliverance priest or a Church-recognized lay religious, if not an official exorcist, from which so-called Bro. Ignatius Mary and his minions could get the authority from the Church to perform deliverance in the name of the Roman Catholic Church.

In addition, despite their "Simper fidelis" logo in their website, so-called Bro. Ignatius Mary and his minions have not been reviewed by the Vatican (in fact not even known by its regular or bishop in the diocese) and neither Vatican guaranteed the fidelity in what so-called Bro. Ignatius Mary and his minions taught in the name of the Roman Catholic Church in these websites .