{"id":7559,"date":"2013-08-03T23:59:07","date_gmt":"2013-08-04T06:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/?p=7559"},"modified":"2013-08-04T00:03:12","modified_gmt":"2013-08-04T07:03:12","slug":"st-johns-prep-issues-apology-to-marker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/st-johns-prep-issues-apology-to-marker\/","title":{"rendered":"(SC Times) St. John&#8217;s Prep issues apology to Marker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(SC Times) COLLEGEVILLE \u2014 St. John\u2019s Preparatory School has apologized to an alumnus who was kicked off campus during a class reunion and his classmates.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The school has received several letters complaining about how Patrick Marker was treated during a late-June reunion at the prep school. Marker, who maintains a website critical of St. John\u2019s Abbey\u2019s handling of clergy sex abuse cases, was kicked off the Collegeville campus and later was issued a trespass notice.<\/p>\n<p>Marker is barred from coming back to campus for one year; if he returns to campus during that time he can be forced by sheriff\u2019s officials to leave or be arrested.<\/p>\n<p><!--  \u201cAsking the alumnus to leave was the wrong decision,\u201d read the school\u2019s notice sent to the 1983 graduates. \u201cMr. Marker was attending the reunion on campus in response to a general announcement sent to all students from the Class of \u201983. He had a right to expect that he would be treated with courtesy and that did not happen. We were wrong and we apologized, both to Mr. Marker and to those attending the reunion.\u201d\n\nThe notice also indicates that the school offered to reimburse Marker for his expenses to travel to the Collegeville reunion from his home in Washington state.\n\n\u201cA class reunion should be a joyous celebration for everyone involved,\u201d the note to students continued. \u201cOur actions undermined that joy. We understand the anger and hurt the incident caused, particularly given Mr. Marker\u2019s history with St. John\u2019s Prep. Mr. Marker should have been treated respectfully when he participated in the class reunion on June 29. That did not happen and we apologize to Mr. Marker and others whose day was disrupted.\u201d\n\nMarker is a survivor of sexual abuse perpetrated by St. John\u2019s Abbey monk Dunstan Moorse when Marker was a student at the prep school. Marker\u2019s website, www.behindthepinecurtain.com, has posted extensive information about the clergy sex abuse crisis, much of it involving St. John\u2019s monks and priests. Members of St. John\u2019s Abbey in the past have criticized Marker and his website, saying that some of the information he has posted is incorrect and that he has leveled accusations against innocent monks and priests.\n\nMembers of St. John\u2019s University Life Safety staff asked Marker to leave the reunion even though he was invited. Marker asked to speak to a Stearns County deputy about that request and was asked by the deputy to leave campus.\n\nSome of Marker\u2019s 1983 classmates left the reunion in protest of the way Marker was treated. Several have since sent letters to Headmaster Rev. Jonathan Licari and Abbot John Klassen expressing their displeasure.\n\nAt the time, St. John\u2019s Prep issued a statement in response to inquiries from the Times that said it was responding \u201cto a history of hostility in asking an alumnus to leave our private event. We felt it was in the best interests of our guests to ask this person to leave so that others could enjoy the reunion.\u201d\n\nOne of Marker\u2019s classmates who didn\u2019t attend the reunion is troubled by the way Marker was treated. Eugene Delaune III, an emergency room physician in the Washington, D.C., area, said he had a great experience as a student at the prep school, but became aware later that some of his classmates had been sexually abused. Still, his regard for his prep school education was high until he heard about what happened to Marker.\n\n\u201cThe part of it that really disturbs me from what I heard was that the leadership of the school sort of disappeared when this happened,\u201d Delaune said. \u201cI would never send a child there because that\u2019s not the type of leadership I would want for my children.\u201d\n\nBonnie Singh of Falcon Heights said she emailed Klassen about the incident, and he sent her Licari\u2019s apology. Then she saw the apology that Marker received and learned that he still can\u2019t return to campus without fear of arrest.\n\n\u201cI found it very disappointing,\u201d she said. \u201cTo me, all it really says is we\u2019re sorry we kicked you out that day, but we\u2019ve chosen to kick you out for an entire year.\u201d\n\nSingh and Delaune said the incident has caused them to do more of their own research into the sexual abuse by St. John\u2019s monks. Singh said that St. John\u2019s needs to fully disclose the names of all monks with credible allegations of sexual abuse against them and hold themselves to their own statement that they are being transparent.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m just sick to my stomach about how they are handling it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s just so inadequate.\u201d\n\nShe vowed not to return to the campus, unless it\u2019s to help raise awareness about the sex abuse issue or help in some other way. She grew up 3 miles from the prep school and enjoyed her time there, she said.\n\n\u201cI used to be very proud to say I graduated from there,\u201d Singh said. \u201cNow I\u2019m completely embarrassed to say that.\u201d\n\nDelaune said all of his good memories about Prep have been replaced by negativity regarding the incident with Marker and the resulting apologies. He called it a recurrence of the same thought process and philosophy that led the abbey to cover up the problems of the past that still exist.\n\n\u201cIt makes me a little bit melancholy,\u201d Delaune said. \u201cIt\u2019s sad that my good memories have been tainted by this. And it\u2019s so stupid because it was so avoidable.\u201d\n\n--><\/p>\n<p>Read the rest of this article and view comments&#8230; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sctimes.com\/article\/20130803\/NEWS01\/308030025\/St-John-s-Prep-issues-apology-Marker\">Here<\/a><\/p>\n<p>(SC Times) St. John&#8217;s Prep issues apology to Marker<br \/>\nSt. Cloud Times<br \/>\nDavid Unze<br \/>\nAugust 3, 2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(SC Times) COLLEGEVILLE \u2014 St. John\u2019s Preparatory School has apologized to an alumnus who was kicked off campus during a class reunion and his classmates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437,6,97,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2013-reunion","category-john-klassen","category-jonathan-licari","category-pat-marker","wp-image-borders"],"views":1037,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7559"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7565,"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7559\/revisions\/7565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}