October 2, 2025 Commemoration of Yom Kippur
Dear Friends,
We have arrived at the month of October, a month that holds many memories for me – the birthday of my sister, the birthday of my youngest niece, the birthdays of dear friends (Jane, Frank, Shirley), and the anniversary of my oldest niece’s wedding, which, on a sad note, preceded her diagnosis of leukemia, which took her life at the age of 31. But there is no memory stronger than that which came at the end of the month, October 28, in 2016, when Bishop Frank Dewane ambushed me with threats and bullying, revealing an investigation which had been going on for two-and-one-half years, without my knowledge and conducted by the County Sheriff’s Office. The investigation was into the possibility that I took advantage of a vulnerable adult, one of our parishioners, and one of my dearest friends. Initially, the accusation included the belief that I stole Marion McIntyre’s wedding rings while visiting her in the hospital, with my brother and, now deceased, sister-in-law. Since Bishop Dewane had done no investigation of his own, and who, to date, had never spoken with me about his accusations, accusations being fed to him by members of Marion’s extended family, members who I had never met, he had very little to go on. Bishop Dewane could only rant and rave, pointing at the 1.5 foot high stack of papers in the middle of the conference room table, and hollering “there is a warrant for your arrest in that pile.” (A very sobering thought, but in fact, and this might have been Bishop Dewane’s first lie, there was no warrant for my arrest, although the inept detective in charge of the case had requester one.). The County found me “not guilty” of any provable harm to a vulnerable adult, and yet the meeting proceeded under the Diocesan assumption that I was guilty and in need of punishment and humiliation.
I was stunned by this meeting, wounded to the core, especially when Bishop Dewane, with no evidence, pulled out paperwork for me to sign which would voluntarily surrender my priesthood. So much for the “presumption of innocence” proscribed by Canon Law, a Law that would be ignored by Bishop Dewane and his imported henchman, or J.V., Msgr. Joseph Waters from the St. Petersburg Diocese, a man with his own checkered past. The 28th meeting lasted not much longer than twenty minutes (they “needed the room for something else”), but in the bishop’s mind it was enough to make a decision to humiliate me and throw me out of the rectory, forbidding me to function as a priest anywhere in the country. In what would be a second lie, the bishop promised ‘transparency,’ and we were transported to a holding cell across the hallway, all the while I was crying uncontrollably.
My return to my very temporary home on Sanibel was interrupted several times by phone requests from the Diocese to sign the papers surrendering my priesthood – I refused all of them. I needed “to be out of the rectory by 9 am,” and was unable to celebrate the funeral Mass which had been carefully arranged on the woman’s deathbed for the morning of the 29th.
One of the last questions my now deceased Advocate, David Deibel, asked Bishop Dewane before we left the conference room, was whether there would be any formal announcement from the Diocese. The bishop once again lied (or at least ‘dodged’ a truthful answer), suggesting “probably not.”
Indeed, the office personnel were already stuffing a letter from Bishop Dewane into the 400 bulletins printed every weekend. The letter was purposely ambiguous, allowing the readers of the letter to imagine my “offense” as laying somewhere between murder and the sexual exploitation of a minor.
The most hideous of embarrassments came early on the evening of the 29th, when I received a call from a local television station asking me to comment on the news story presently airing on the local station. I said I wasn’t aware of what they were talking about, and refused comment, but immediately turned on the TV. As it turns out, the bishop’s office had called the two local television stations and invited them to the weekend Masses. (When asked by parishioners, who were granted an extraordinarily rare audience with Bishop Dewane, whether his Office had anything to do with creating the media event, the Bishop denied having anything to do with the Press showing up. Unfortunately for Bishop Dewane, the head of Waterman Broadcasting, who owns the NBC and ABC affiliates, was a friend of a parishioner, who confirmed that the media attention given to an ordinary Sunday Mass originated from a call received from the Bishop Dewane’s Office. Is there a pattern of untruth here?). On all the news reports, parishioners were seen coming out of Mass crying, and sitting on one of the many benches sobbing. Even the television coverage of my demise was ambiguous. One didn’t know, at that time, whether they were crying about the imagined offense, or the future absence of their pastor, which they could never have imagined would still be going on nine years later. The lead news story captured the peoples’ attention for several weeks, and my sense of humiliation was deep. I cried for days – for me, and for the Parish of St. Isabel which I knew would never be the same. Once the truth was made known to the parishioners, it was clear they had been crying that a bishop could be so cruel and unfeeling, not that I had been accused of anything serious. From that watershed moment the bishop and the diocese had become the enemy, and there was nothing that any goodwill on my part could change.
Today is the last day of the Jewish and Samaritan celebration of Yom Kippur. It is meant to be a time of atonement, reflection and repentance to God for personal sins; it is the sealing of one’s fate for the upcoming year. Michael Cohen (yes, that Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer), authored a personal response to the feast of Yom Kippur, with many references that political aficionados would find very familiar. There was much that I could see in Michael Cohen’s reflection that mirrored moments in my life over the last nine years. Michael did not want to be defined by the notoriety that exploded in the public media regarding the financial payoffs for a porn star on behalf of President Donald Trump. Like confession for Catholics, Yom Kippur gives Jewish people a chance to stand before God, “stripped of all the masks, all the pretenses, all the excuses, and to confront the truth of who we are.”
Before God, I am “a priest forever,” and Bishop Dewane’s vigorous attempts to remove my priesthood, have left me feeling incomplete, not whole. For nine years I have lived without knowing anything definite about the accusations leveled against me. Indeed, Bishop Frank Dewane has never spoken with me personally with the intention of getting to the truth of this miscarriage of justice. I do not know what was said to the presbyterate of this diocese, and I do not know what lies were told to Pope Francis and the appropriate Dicasteries of Rome – Bishop Dewane, and his Judicial Vicar Fr. Waters, outright refused to follow the orders of the Dicastery for Clergy to share their case with me and my Advocate. I have no idea what is thought of me by the priests of this diocese. Bishop Dewane’s lies made me so toxic that some of my best friends in the presbyterate abandoned their friendship with me 10 or more years ago, when the County investigation was unfolding. It is easy to say “just live with it,” but it has been increasingly difficult for me to do this.
Michael Cohen seemed to express well my feelings towards Bishop Dewane when he wrote: “Imagine living a life where so many refuse to see you for who you are. Where the noise of public [diocesan] perception drowns out your voice, and the labels, the lies, the [news], become your identity in the eyes of others. That is [often] my reality, it is suffocating, it is painful in a way that cuts deeper than words can ever capture. Because [whatever Bishop Dewane has told Rome] nothing could be further from the truth.” Cohen goes on to say: “trying to prove yourself to those determined not to believe you is soul-crushing. It hurts in ways that are hard to describe. It feels like walking around with a bag over your head; unable to breathe, unable to be seen, yet forced to keep moving forward. And still, you fight through it. You fight because the cause is just; the truth of who you are, is worth every ounce of struggle, even if it leaves you gasping for air.”
The County, in their 2.5 year investigation into the specious accusations of the greedy Knott family of Baltimore, had the opportunity to label me a criminal, but found no evidence that enabled them to do that. Indeed, in the words of then Chief of Police, Sheriff Mike Scott, stated that I should consider myself “not guilty” of anything. The closure of the County investigation took place six months before my first meeting on October 28, 2016. It would have been a most appropriate time for Bishop Dewane to abandon his plan to bully me into surrendering my priesthood, and rescue St. Isabel Parish from the upset that upended an active and vibrant parish. The bishop chose cruelty over mercy. The origin of Bishop Dewane’s animus towards me is still unknown. But for that animus, a true Shepherd would not have made the choice to torture me and work towards taking my priesthood away.
The biggest blessing I have had throughout this 9+ year ordeal, are the people I gave my all for, the parishioners who remained supportive and loyal, parishioners the diocese would label “disruptive,” and the source of the “upset” in the Church. The former parishioners of St. Isabel are all that stood between me and absolute despair, and a depression driven by unflinching hopelessness. Michael Cohen also shared a similar thought: “And yet, I keep going. Because I have you. All of you who still believe in me, who see me not as a caricature but as the flawed but striving human being that I am. You remind me that truth has a voice. That compassion has a place. That belief in one another matters.”
The truth does matter, and that is why I have not given up my fight to make the truth known. No reasonable person, having a chance to read the details of the diocesan case against me, would conclude that any bishop should have behaved the way Bishop Dewane and his Judicial Vicar have behaved towards me. Furthermore, the violations of Canon Law in this case were too numerous to count. In spite of the promise of transparency, there was no transparency. The case has been more vindictive than mafiosi settling a score, and the Church’s turning a blind eye to a rogue bishop is not only unsettling, it is scandalous. I will never fully understand how impossible it was to get the Church’s attention. With that said, I am extraordinarily grateful that the Church chose not to take my priesthood away. It has been seriously diminished in nine years, and it was only cruelty that prevented me from celebrating the funeral Mass for my beloved sister-in-law, and for the weddings of my two nieces.
I continue to rely on all those who have supported and loved me, and may God truly bless you for all the acts of kindness towards me.
Immersed in God’s love, I am sincerely yours,
Rev. Christopher Senk
parishionersforjustice.com 