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Broken Covenant/the Story of Father Bruce Ritter's Fall from Grace
The prize-winning journalist who broke the story recounts how power, politics, and sex rocked the foundation of the sprawling Covenant House charity. 40,000 first printing.
373 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1992
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May 7, 2025
A STORY OF THE RISE OF A PROMINENT CHARITY, AND ITS FOUNDER’S DOWNFALL
Bruce Ritter (1927-1999) founded Covenant House for homeless teenagers. But after widespread and persistent allegations of sexual misconduct, he was forced in 1990 to resign from Covenant House. He was never prosecuted, however, and he resigned from the Franciscan order, but remained a priest (albeit inactive), and he retired to a small town in upstate New York. Covenant House remains in operation, however.
Journalist Charles Sennott quotes Ritter in the ‘Author’s Note’ to this 1992 book, “‘I have no way of proving my innocence. My accusers cannot establish my guilt.’ With those unsettling words, Covenant house founder Father Bruce Ritter stepped down in … 1990 in the wake of allegations of sexual and financial misconduct. The question of Ritter’s guilt or innocence was left unanswered for the hundreds of thousands … who contributed to his mission, and for the millions more who simply wondered … how could a man who claimed to save so many victims be a victimizer himself?’
“There never was a criminal conviction… In what was widely viewed as an implicit deal between the Catholic Church and the ... District Attorney’s office, the charges… were dropped the day after he resigned… Covenant House decided to commission an independent investigation… the report confirmed the ‘cumulative evidence’ against Ritter was ‘extensive’… This book relies both on the charity’s own findings… and on original reporting, based on nearly 100 interviews… this book concludes that the charges against Ritter were true...” (Pg. 11-12)
He recounts, “In postwar America, the priesthood was an honored vocation for young men from poor backgrounds who showed intellectual promise… This was the golden age of the immigrant church in America…. Ritter wanted to be a part of this consecrated American dream.” (Pg. 55)
In the early days, Ritter asked Father Seraphin Fitzgibbons to join the work, which he did. But later, “Fitzgibbons was questioning his own commitment to the priesthood… He had met a woman at Saint Brigid’s Catholic Church… They fell in love… Several years later, he left the order and married… After that he had little contact with Ritter… Fitzgibbons insists that he does not know if the allegations against Ritter [were] founded… It was possible, Fitzgibbon added, but it would not have been easy… But every day he got away with it, he must have grown more confident that he’d never get caught.” (Pg. 101-102)
He reports, “Sister Barbara Whelan… disagreed profoundly with Ritter’s philosophy of building a large shelter in the middle of an area that attracts kids for the wrong reasons… ‘Our goal is to get the kids with [foster] families who live out of the city. Give a girl of fourteen two weeks in the city and you lose her,’ Whelan said. ‘You don’t jut build a warehouse and stash the kids.’” (Pg. 182)
He notes that “Linda Irwin, executive director of Youth Alternatives, a community-based social-service center in New Orleans that served as a model … ‘The idea was to approximate a normal family situation… Our philosophy was that small is better. Kids need to be in an environment that is more home-like. Myself and many others in community-based programs had some strong reservations about Covenant House’s approach, whether it helped long-term to break the cycle, to get kids off the street. Or whether it was just a big warehouse to put them in while they did what they wanted out on the streets.’” (Pg. 189-190)
In the mid-1980s, “Ritter was not naïve about his ‘covenant’ with these conservative [Republican] tycoons and the new right. Many of the board members said that Ritter knew exactly what he was getting into… To most of the social-service people in the field… it was an unforgivable form of complicity. Father Bruce was not only buying into their agenda, he was hurting the hundreds of other agencies that provided services that poor youths needed. Father Bruce was in effect using expedient alliances to build his own empire while encouraging a status quo that was putting more and more homeless youths on the street.” (Pg. 254)
Sennett continues, “the great unity of that broad base of donors, however, raised a complicated set of questions for the staff. Was Covenant House, through its manipulative fund raising, distracting … its donor base from the real issues … that put the young kids on the street in the first place? Was focusing on pornography and prostitution as the two great demons that stole the lives of these young people blurring the real issues of poverty, drugs, housing, and health care? By making it appear that their clients were predominantly young white boys and girls from outside the inner city, was Covenant House deliberately sustaining the same racist attitudes that perpetuated the disenfranchisement of the youths in the program?” (Pg. 255)
He recounts, “Discussions [in the D.A.’s office] centered on what, if any, crime had been committed by the revered Franciscan priest in his relationship with Kevin Kite. The sexual aspect, if true, was indeed a violation of the Church’s strict doctrine on celibacy and a horrible violation of the trust placed in a child-care worker, but it was in no way illegal. Ritter and Kite were consenting adults. There was no evidence of rape or sexual harassment. Kite admitted that the sex was of his own free will, even if he did feel it was a misuse of trust and a manipulative exercise of Ritter’s power.” (Pg. 316-317)
He points out, “There was a battle not only for the ‘soul’ of Covenant House but for its purse as well. And the archdiocese was making a bid for it. In the wake of Ritter’s resignation, Cardinal O’Connor muscled the archdiocese’s way into the role of interim leadership. The archdiocese had its eye on the nearly $100 million Covenant House raised each year, which was more than six times as much as the $15 million budget of the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York. But that wasn’t all the Church coveted. There was also Covenant House’s impressive real-estate holdings and its sophisticated direct-mail-marketing machinery.” (Pg. 424)
He notes, “Despite the findings of the Franciscan report, Ritter continued to deny the accusations brought against him. He also continued to defy his order’s directive to cease living outside the Franciscan community, a privilege he had been afforded for 25 years. And Ritter adamantly refused their orders that he undergo psychological counseling, seeing it as an admission of guilt…” (Pg. 435)
This book will be of great interest to anyone studying Ritter and Covenant House, or the later sexual abuse scandals since 2002.
Bruce Ritter (1927-1999) founded Covenant House for homeless teenagers. But after widespread and persistent allegations of sexual misconduct, he was forced in 1990 to resign from Covenant House. He was never prosecuted, however, and he resigned from the Franciscan order, but remained a priest (albeit inactive), and he retired to a small town in upstate New York. Covenant House remains in operation, however.
Journalist Charles Sennott quotes Ritter in the ‘Author’s Note’ to this 1992 book, “‘I have no way of proving my innocence. My accusers cannot establish my guilt.’ With those unsettling words, Covenant house founder Father Bruce Ritter stepped down in … 1990 in the wake of allegations of sexual and financial misconduct. The question of Ritter’s guilt or innocence was left unanswered for the hundreds of thousands … who contributed to his mission, and for the millions more who simply wondered … how could a man who claimed to save so many victims be a victimizer himself?’
“There never was a criminal conviction… In what was widely viewed as an implicit deal between the Catholic Church and the ... District Attorney’s office, the charges… were dropped the day after he resigned… Covenant House decided to commission an independent investigation… the report confirmed the ‘cumulative evidence’ against Ritter was ‘extensive’… This book relies both on the charity’s own findings… and on original reporting, based on nearly 100 interviews… this book concludes that the charges against Ritter were true...” (Pg. 11-12)
He recounts, “In postwar America, the priesthood was an honored vocation for young men from poor backgrounds who showed intellectual promise… This was the golden age of the immigrant church in America…. Ritter wanted to be a part of this consecrated American dream.” (Pg. 55)
In the early days, Ritter asked Father Seraphin Fitzgibbons to join the work, which he did. But later, “Fitzgibbons was questioning his own commitment to the priesthood… He had met a woman at Saint Brigid’s Catholic Church… They fell in love… Several years later, he left the order and married… After that he had little contact with Ritter… Fitzgibbons insists that he does not know if the allegations against Ritter [were] founded… It was possible, Fitzgibbon added, but it would not have been easy… But every day he got away with it, he must have grown more confident that he’d never get caught.” (Pg. 101-102)
He reports, “Sister Barbara Whelan… disagreed profoundly with Ritter’s philosophy of building a large shelter in the middle of an area that attracts kids for the wrong reasons… ‘Our goal is to get the kids with [foster] families who live out of the city. Give a girl of fourteen two weeks in the city and you lose her,’ Whelan said. ‘You don’t jut build a warehouse and stash the kids.’” (Pg. 182)
He notes that “Linda Irwin, executive director of Youth Alternatives, a community-based social-service center in New Orleans that served as a model … ‘The idea was to approximate a normal family situation… Our philosophy was that small is better. Kids need to be in an environment that is more home-like. Myself and many others in community-based programs had some strong reservations about Covenant House’s approach, whether it helped long-term to break the cycle, to get kids off the street. Or whether it was just a big warehouse to put them in while they did what they wanted out on the streets.’” (Pg. 189-190)
In the mid-1980s, “Ritter was not naïve about his ‘covenant’ with these conservative [Republican] tycoons and the new right. Many of the board members said that Ritter knew exactly what he was getting into… To most of the social-service people in the field… it was an unforgivable form of complicity. Father Bruce was not only buying into their agenda, he was hurting the hundreds of other agencies that provided services that poor youths needed. Father Bruce was in effect using expedient alliances to build his own empire while encouraging a status quo that was putting more and more homeless youths on the street.” (Pg. 254)
Sennett continues, “the great unity of that broad base of donors, however, raised a complicated set of questions for the staff. Was Covenant House, through its manipulative fund raising, distracting … its donor base from the real issues … that put the young kids on the street in the first place? Was focusing on pornography and prostitution as the two great demons that stole the lives of these young people blurring the real issues of poverty, drugs, housing, and health care? By making it appear that their clients were predominantly young white boys and girls from outside the inner city, was Covenant House deliberately sustaining the same racist attitudes that perpetuated the disenfranchisement of the youths in the program?” (Pg. 255)
He recounts, “Discussions [in the D.A.’s office] centered on what, if any, crime had been committed by the revered Franciscan priest in his relationship with Kevin Kite. The sexual aspect, if true, was indeed a violation of the Church’s strict doctrine on celibacy and a horrible violation of the trust placed in a child-care worker, but it was in no way illegal. Ritter and Kite were consenting adults. There was no evidence of rape or sexual harassment. Kite admitted that the sex was of his own free will, even if he did feel it was a misuse of trust and a manipulative exercise of Ritter’s power.” (Pg. 316-317)
He points out, “There was a battle not only for the ‘soul’ of Covenant House but for its purse as well. And the archdiocese was making a bid for it. In the wake of Ritter’s resignation, Cardinal O’Connor muscled the archdiocese’s way into the role of interim leadership. The archdiocese had its eye on the nearly $100 million Covenant House raised each year, which was more than six times as much as the $15 million budget of the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York. But that wasn’t all the Church coveted. There was also Covenant House’s impressive real-estate holdings and its sophisticated direct-mail-marketing machinery.” (Pg. 424)
He notes, “Despite the findings of the Franciscan report, Ritter continued to deny the accusations brought against him. He also continued to defy his order’s directive to cease living outside the Franciscan community, a privilege he had been afforded for 25 years. And Ritter adamantly refused their orders that he undergo psychological counseling, seeing it as an admission of guilt…” (Pg. 435)
This book will be of great interest to anyone studying Ritter and Covenant House, or the later sexual abuse scandals since 2002.
May 14, 2010
Sad, this book. Written before the Priest-Abuse scandal broke over the Western World, concludes that Bruce Ritter (Covenant House) had ongoing affairs with young men, as more than one charged. Not kids, if that makes a difference, and not assault. Meetings in NY apartments, etc.
I recall something that always caught my attention. In his thank-you letters (for cash contributions) Ritter would always open with a banner reading "HOW KIND OF YOU !". As I say, it just caught my attention with its undertone of interrogatory.
I recall something that always caught my attention. In his thank-you letters (for cash contributions) Ritter would always open with a banner reading "HOW KIND OF YOU !". As I say, it just caught my attention with its undertone of interrogatory.
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