Bishop Stika’s Sticky Wicket

Here’s a heck of a long read at The Pillar about Bishop Rick Stika of Knoxville, Tenn., and his troubles. Writer J.D. Flynn plainly goes out of his way to be fair to the embattled bishop of the small Diocese of East Tennessee, but man, what a portrait. And it was invited by Stika himself! Read on:

I went to Knoxville at Bishop Stika’s invitation. The Pillar reported last month that the Congregation for Bishops in Rome had received complaints about Stika’s leadership in the Knoxville diocese, and was considering initiating an apostolic visitation, or investigation, in the diocese.

The complaints, which came from both priests and laity in the diocese, focused on an investigation into sexual misconduct on the part of a diocesan seminarian. Priests alleged the bishop had an unusually close relationship to the seminarian, and had interfered with the investigation.

Stika at first said the complaints were untrue; that procedures and policies had been followed completely. Eventually he told me that he had removed an investigator looking into the case, because, he said, he’d asked too many questions and caused confusion. The bishop replaced the investigator with a retired police officer whose investigation consisted only of interviewing the accused seminarian.

But Stika said some priests who complained had personal biases against him. That they didn’t understand the whole story. And that, he explained, is why he invited me to Tennessee. To tell the whole story.

I told him I would do my best.

Stika sees “the whole story” as a well-run diocese, which is growing the faith in a missionary part of the country, building vibrant Catholic schools and thriving apostolates. The bishop pointed out to me the presence of religious sisters in the diocese, and pointed out support for the diocesan annual appeal. And he mentioned, often, that his diocese is one of few in the country with its “own” cardinal: Stika’s longtime friend and mentor, retired Cardinal Justin Rigali, lives with the bishop, in a stately house purchased for them, the bishop told me, by a California foundation.

But priests, lay leaders, and former employees told me a different story.

While in Knoxville, I talked with about 10 diocesan priests, all of whom said their diocese is in “crisis,” and described their bishop with words like “bully,” “narcissist” and “vindictive.” Some described a pattern of relationships they characterized as “grooming” — not necessarily sexually inappropriate, several told me, but seemingly disordered, and publicly embarrassing. When I asked them to suggest a priest who might support the bishop, none did. One priest laughed at the question.

Priests and one former employee also raised concerns about financial administration. One senior priest expressed concern that debt is snowballing, and that the diocese could soon become bankrupt. And several expressed concerns about undistributed pandemic relief funds.

Priests in the diocese asked to speak with me anonymously, because, they said, they feared the bishop’s response to their remarks. They mentioned a whistleblowing priest threatened with canonical penalties last month. In light of their concerns, I granted the request.

Read it all. It’s full of details. This bishop, a St. Louis native, really, really, really is disliked by his priests. Here’s something said by a now-laicized priest:

Dickerson said during that year, the bishop’s behavior was erratic — at times aggressive toward him, at times possessive, at times gossiping with him, at times gossiping about him.

On one occasion, he said, the bishop made him sexually uncomfortable.

While Stika and Dickerson were visiting a parish, they had some downtime, and the bishop took the car to get gas. He returned to the parish, and they talked with the pastor a while, before he and Dickerson went back to the car — Dickerson would make the drive home.

“So I turn on the car and on the [satellite] radio is the Playboy channel. I look over at him and he’s gauging my reaction. And I’m like, ‘What the hell is this?’ And then he turns it off. He said, ‘Oh, I don’t know what happened there.’”

“I think he just wanted to see what I would do,” Dickerson said, “but it was just weird, man. I still don’t understand it.”

“But a lot of priests were telling me he was grooming me. I don’t know if it was for a physical relationship. Or just, you know, he wanted power. Or if it was an emotional thing, you know?”

“The guys would jokingly — they saw the dynamic, and they would joke about it at presbyteral meetings. They’d say: ‘You’re the BB,’ you know? The bishop’s bitch. So it was getting hard.”

Dickerson said he thought the bishop manipulated and coerced him, and said he was hurt that Stika had told other priests about his moral failures.

“I personally believe he’s a clinical narcissist,” Dickerson said.

That’s what Bishop Stika comes off as in this piece. He appears to be a guy who is super-chummy, in that Midwestern way, homosocial, at least, and if he’s homosexual, he’s probably the last person in the world who would figure it out. Stika seems completely oblivious to his affect on others. Emotionally stunted. Some bad things have gone down in the Diocese of East Tennessee, and they can be laid at Stika’s feet. How did a man like that become a bishop? According to the piece, he was picked years ago by future Cardinal Justin Rigali, who shepherded this pliant man’s career. Rigali, retired as cardinal archbishop of Philadelphia, is very old, and shares quarters with Stika.

What stands out to me from the piece is how much damage a bishop can do to a diocese. Stika is not a monster or anything, but he comes off as a total mediocrity who has spent the diocese into the ground to build the cathedral, and who has allowed his own flaky personality quirks to compromise the running of the diocese — especially the way he treats priests. He might well be a fine fellow, but from the portrait painted here, Stika comes off as an emotionally stunted and extremely needy man who was tapped for episcopal leadership because he was tame.

I have to hand it to J.D. Flynn for this piece. It’s an extraordinary portrait of clerical culture within a troubled diocese, one painted by a writer who seemed to like Bishop Stika, but who found such an overwhelming number of testimonies against him, as well as facts against his favor, that the piece Stika asked for in an attempt to clear his name makes him look much worse. It occurred to me after I finished it that only a narcissist who truly did not understand how others saw him would have thought it a good idea to invite a journalist in to take an in-depth look at the diocese on the eve of a major Vatican investigation.

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