JS: Fr. Alfred Kunz: Forgive Offenses - Father Z quoted

Father Alfred Kunz once pointed out that in every famous depiction of the crucifixion, the Blessed Virgin Mary is looking not down at the ground, but up at the cross, offering herself along with her son.

In that moment, she has realized that although God cannot will evil, he has a reason to permit it: Only by suffering can human beings become part of the sacrifice of Jesus.

Kunz likely would have viewed his own death similarly.

continue at JS

Also

Join us April 9 for Unsolved Live: Investigating the death of Father Alfred Kunz

Unsolved Chapter 7: A retired Wisconsin sheriff’s deputy says his nephew killed Father Kunz

From the day he was ordained until the day he died, Father Alfred Kunz offered Mass every day. He never missed one, even if there was nobody in the pews.

For a Mass to have meaning, no congregation was necessary.

If worshippers happened to be in attendance during the service, eye contact or greetings from the priest would only serve to distract them, he once said on his radio show. So he kept his distance.

Outside the ritual, Kunz took on a more welcoming persona.

He preferred to leave the doors of St. Michael Church unlocked, allowing all to visit whenever their hearts moved them.

continue at Journal Sentinel

So this is the same guy who the earlier article explained was cleared on DNA evidence. 

Dead suspect cleared in Fr. Kunz 1998 homicide

A Wisconsin man with a violent history who might have been in the general area where Father Alfred J. Kunz was murdered in March 1998 has been ruled out as a suspect based on forensic testing, the Dane County Sheriff’s Office says. Meanwhile, another early person of interest in the case was recently charged with an unrelated homicide.

Joseph Donald Cavanaugh of La Crosse was ruled out in the Kunz murder using DNA testing, according to Detective Gwen Ruppert, lead investigator for the Dane County Sheriff’s Office. Cavanaugh committed suicide in August 2002 after being charged with sexual assault and other felonies. In mid-2018, Dane County Sheriff David J. Mahoney said Cavanaugh’s DNA was at the state crime lab for comparison to DNA found at the Kunz crime scene.

continue at Catholic World Report

HT AC

JS: Murder of Alfred Kunz, the Necedah Shrine, Communists, and an Asteroid

I'm not even going to post the lede; just the money quote.

"Confronted by police, Maas told them communists were about to burn down all the Catholic churches and an asteroid would soon strike the earth."

full article at Journal Sentinel

Guys, this one is a must read.  

JS: At the time of his murder, Father Alfred Kunz was investigating sexual misconduct by priests.

Father Alfred Kunz preached that although Jesus died for all mankind, people had to actively accept the Savior’s gift. They had to work for it, living their faith through their thoughts and actions.

Kunz’s interpretation of God’s law was far stricter than that of most Catholics.

He preached on his radio show that Jesus’ crucifixion had the power to raise you up only if you made it to church every Sunday. And respected your parents. And believed everything Jesus — speaking through Kunz and other enlightened church leaders — had to say. And refused to vote for political candidates who even tacitly approved of abortion by remaining silent on the issue. And didn’t even think about impure sexual acts.

To Kunz’s mind, a proper understanding of the Ten Commandments revealed all these rules — and more — as God’s law. Failure to follow that law, or to repent if you broke it, could result in a terrible punishment: The fires of hell.

continue at JS

Abp Williamson even offering opinions?  It just gets wilder and wilder.

Murder of Alfred Kunz: Chapter 3: Feed the Hungry

Father Alfred Kunz had a special affinity for mothers, whether living or dead, married or single. With one in particular, he grew especially close.

Kunz met Mora Smith, who had served in the Marines and was raising two boys on her own, in 1997.

She was waiting tables at Brian’s Diner in Waunakee, less than 10 miles from St. Michael in Dane.

Kunz came in most mornings for a breakfast of poached eggs, orange juice and straight black coffee. One morning, Smith told him she liked his hat, which was square with peaks on top. Known as a biretta, such caps were often worn by clergymen before Vatican II.

continue at JS

Wow, this case is crazy.  Again, very well balanced and well reported by JS.  When's the Netflix series going to start?

Although.... one odd bit, at the end of each article JS gives background on the reporting.  I saw this:

In reporting this story, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Gina Barton conducted dozens of interviews with those involved in the case. She attended the 20th anniversary Requiem Mass for Father Alfred Kunz and visited the Queen of the Holy Rosary Mediatrix of Peace shrine in Necedah, Wis. 
...
Barton read court records, archival records detailing events at the shrine and portions of Malachi Martin’s book on exorcism, “Hostage to the Devil.” 

Was Fr. Aflred Kunz in some way mixed up with the fake Necedah Shrine crazies??  If you remember back in 2011 one of them was charged with attempted murder.  The interdict was put in place in 1955, and repeated again in 1975, the murder was committed in 1998.  Kunz must have known how extremely fake the apparitions were, right?

JS Part II on Fr. Alfred Kunz murder: Instruct the Ignorant

For several months before his death, Father Alfred Kunz co-hosted a radio show called "Our Catholic Family."

Some would later say Kunz planned to expose sexually deviant priests by reading their names on the program.

Back then, in the late 1990s, such a move would have been almost unheard of. While a few isolated complaints had come to light, neither the extent of abuse by American clergy nor the hierarchy’s efforts to keep it secret would be revealed until the Boston Globe published an investigative report in 2002.

And so, in publicizing a list of pedophile priests, Kunz and his best friend Father Charles Fiore would have been defying their superiors’ orders to let church officials handle such complaints.

continue at JS

This project is being extremely well done.

Journal Sentinel posts first article in a ten part series on the murder of Fr. Alfred Kunz

Deputy David Cattanach was on his way to check on a wounded cat when a more pressing call came over the radio: Someone had suffered an injury at St. Michael School. A fall maybe. Or an accident. The dispatcher mentioned blood on the floor.

The kitten would have to wait.

Cattanach turned onto the winding road that led to the rural Wisconsin town of Dane, population 621, give or take a few. It was a sunny March morning in 1998, more spring than winter, and the roads were clear.

A few minutes into his 10-mile drive, another radio call came through: The man on the floor of the school wasn’t just injured; he was dead.

continue at JS

Retired Detective Linda Pederson Honer said in an interview that she personally interviewed two women who admitted having sexual relationships with Kunz, but she would not give their names.

Now it could be that there were romantic relationships... but if these were proven to be false, it seems to indicate a larger conspiracy is in play....

Detectives hope trail won’t go cold in priest’s murder probe

This is Part 3 of this series.  

Though the murder of Father Alfred J. Kunz is unsolved, it is not for want of effort by police. Virtually every resident of the village of Dane, Wisconsin, was interviewed at least once by investigators. Tips sheets were handed out; public informational meetings were held. Analysts from the FBI and other agencies developed profiles of the killer; two Canadian forensic psychiatrists were consulted. More than 2,500 field interviews were conducted locally, regionally, and in Canada.

Physical evidence collected at the scene was tested—and later re-tested—for DNA, fingerprints, and trace materials. Thousands of pages of reports were shared with the Mid-States Organized Crime Information Center in Springfield, Missouri, in hopes more investigative eyes might help the case. The cemetery where Kunz is buried was put under surveillance on the 20th anniversary of the crime. Undercover investigators also attended a Solemn Requiem Mass held for Kunz in March 2018 at St. Mary of Pine Bluff Catholic Church near Madison.

Investigators determined that the phone call Kunz received March 3, shortly before he was killed, was not related to the homicide, Mahoney said. A call Kunz received days before the murder from a Pennsylvania priest accused of molesting teenage boys was not related the murder, Mahoney said. The Rev. Anthony J. Cipolla told journalist Randy Engel that he called Kunz two days before the murder to seek canon law help. Kunz apparently agreed to advise Cipolla as Cipolla sought to compel the Diocese of Pittsburgh to reinstate his financial support. Cipolla is one of 300 priests from six Pennsylvania dioceses credibly accused of sexually abusing children, according to a grand jury report released August 14, 2018.

continue at Catholic World Report

The Murder of Fr. Alfred Kunz and the sexual corruption in the priesthood

Joe Hanneman is writing a multipart series at Catholic World Report on the murder of Fr. Alfred Kunz.  It's actually quite timely because now with these new revelations from the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report that priest had been "raping boys and girls" and the appalling extent that the bishops and dioceses went to cover up and continue to enable abusers.  Could it be that Fr. Alfred Kunz's investigation into these abuses cost him his life?  Let's pray that God would grant justice and purify the Church in these darkest of days. 

From Part 1 of the new report

In 1996, Kunz became a canon law adviser to the Roman Catholic Faithful (RCF), an Illinois-based group investigating the sexual abuse of boys by Catholic priests and bishops. Kunz was recommended to RCF by the Rev. John A. Hardon, SJ, a widely respected theologian and author who worked for several popes and had deep connections at the Vatican. The group was gathering information on Bishop Daniel L. Ryan of the Diocese of Springfield, Ill. Ryan was accused of sexually assaulting a mentally disabled man, soliciting sex from a 15-year-old boy, trolling area parks for teenage male prostitutes, and having sex with priests in his diocese. In sworn testimony to RCF investigators, one of the teen prostitutes said Ryan once heard his confession and blessed him, then told him, “go and sin no more.” Then the bishop winked at the teen and said, “See you later.”

With help from Kunz and Father Fiore, RCF developed a dossier on the situation in the Springfield diocese. Father Hardon carried the report to Rome and presented it to Pope St. John Paul II, vouching for RCF and the accuracy of the document. Nothing was done with the explosive information. Hardon told RCF officials that at least a dozen American bishops supported Ryan in his quest to hold onto his bishopric in Springfield, according to RCF president and founder Stephen G. Brady. One of them was the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, then archbishop of Chicago, Brady said. When the group approached Bernardin for help in removing Ryan, he refused, Brady said. Ryan abruptly retired in October 1999, shortly before a lawsuit was filed accusing him of covering up the sexual abuse of a child by another Illinois priest. Sheriff Mahoney said Dane County investigators interviewed Ryan, but have no indication he is linked to the Kunz homicide. Ryan died in December 2015.

“Father Hardon told me to go to Kunz if I needed any contacts anywhere or needed direction in my investigations,” Brady told Catholic World Report. “Father Kunz never discussed any other investigations with me except my own. He was tight lipped and you could trust him 100 percent. He had my files and answered any questions I had. He did work behind the scenes for me but kept it private.”

Brady said during the 14 years that RCF conducted its investigations, he received three death threats. One was serious enough to involve the FBI. An email circulated claiming a contract was out for Brady’s assassination. After Kunz was murdered, Brady bought a bulletproof vest.

from Part 2

Father Malachi Martin was an exorcist, bestselling author, former aide to Pope St. John XXIII, and onetime professor at the Vatican’s Pontifical Biblical Institute. He was also a friend of Father Alfred J. Kunz, and he believed the Wisconsin priest’s 1998 murder bore the marks of satanic evil.

“He was found at 7 o’clock in the morning with his throat cut from ear to ear,” Martin said on a national radio program in May 1998. “In his own blood, face down into it and with various acts of desecration of his body which are normally associated with satanist-inflicted death.”

Only one priest would need to be silenced, the rest would live in enough fear after a gruesome murder to keep quiet about what they know. 

Matt Abbott: On the Trail of a Traditional Priest’s Killer

By keeping certain cold cases in the public eye, the chance of those cases being solved appears to increase. The latest example is the April 24 arrest of the notorious Golden State Killer, who committed his crimes in the 1970s and ‘80s.

Thus, on this 20th anniversary year of the unsolved murder of Father Alfred Kunz — a case I’ve been following and writing about for quite a few years — I’d like to highlight the recent social media campaign conducted by the Dane County Sheriff’s Office (primarily on Facebook, but also on Twitter), which “is hoping to reinvigorate the investigation of this case.”

...

I asked Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Elise Schaffer the following question: Do the reported handful of persons of interest know each other, and could they be collectively covering up the crime? She responded: “Our detectives say the persons of interest do not generally move in the same circles.”

Is it possible that any of the persons of interest might kill again at some point? “Anyone’s guess. Anything is possible,” Ms. Schaffer responded.

continue at OnePeterFive

It is quite interesting what the Dane County Sheriff's Office has posted.  Several theories of the motive were posted including this one.

WisSJ: Murder of Latin Mass priest still unsolved 20 years later

Wisconsin State Journal also doing feature of Fr. Alfred Kunz's murder.  A good article, a few snippets.  Go read the whole thing there.

A private investigator from Hoffman Estates, Ill., who studied the Kunz murder while doing research on another case involving a priest a few years ago, said during a 2015 interview that the sheriff’s office was doing a credible job with its investigation. “There’s no physical evidence to incriminate a suspect and there are no witnesses,” Thomas Hampson said.

Hampson, who did intelligence work for the U.S. Air Force and the state of Illinois and now heads an alliance that tracks down child sexual predators, believes detectives know who murdered Kunz but the person they needed to make the case stand up in court “was not forthcoming” with them, probably out of self-preservation. And that person is dead,” he said.

article at WisSJ

Also much discussed in the article is Fr. Kunz's celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass and promotion of Catholic morality, in addition to one former Madison bishop accused of allowing Fr. Kunz's reputation to be tarnished, and if one reads between the lines, Bp. Bullock may have thought that Fr. Kunz had it coming so to speak.

I hope a renewed focus on this tragedy will bring about a final closure for the people of the Diocese of Madison.

JS Feature: Murder of Dane County priest Alfred Kunz still unsolved after 20 years

Twenty years ago Sunday, a teacher at St. Michael's School in the small farming town of Dane arrived for work to find the priest on the floor in a pool of blood.

Police determined that the priest, Alfred Kunz, 67, had likely been attacked late the previous evening after he returned from recording a radio show called "Our Catholic Family."

His throat had been slit.

The case remains unsolved.

Dane County Sheriff David J. Mahoney is hoping to change that with the launch of a social media campaign.

"On the 20th anniversary, we thought we would start releasing information to the public that has not been publicly released," he said. "If holding back the information has not done us the service of bringing people forward, it’s time to start releasing information."

continue at JS

Good to know there is still an effort to give this saintly priest some justice.

Bp. Morlino to offer Pontifical Requiem for murdered priest on 20 year anniversary of death

On Saturday, March 3, 2018, His Excellency the Most Rev Robert Morlino will celebrate a Pontifical Requiem Mass at the Throne to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the death of Fr Alfred Kunz.

Fr Kunz was the longtime pastor of St Michael’s parish in Dane, just north of Madison, where he was instrumental in continuing the Traditional Latin Mass in the Diocese of Madison during the “indult Mass” days. He was found murdered at his parish on March 4, 1998, in a case that remains unsolved.

The Mass will begin at 11:00 am at St Mary’s, Pine Bluff

TMS Madison

No one has ever been charged.

background

Spotlight on Madison priest's unsolved homicide

Eighteen years ago on March 4, 1998, Father Alfred Kunz, a traditional Catholic priest of the Diocese of Madison, Wis., was found brutally murdered. The case remains unsolved.

Click here to watch a 2015 WMTV (NBC) news segment – which includes a brief interview with yours truly – on this case.

While I'm not privy to the forensic evidence collected by investigators, I do know there are two men considered by law enforcement officials to be persons of interest/suspects in the murder. The men, who likely have no connection to each other, were known to both Father Kunz and his late friend, Father Charles Fiore, who died of natural causes in 2003. One of the men was, and perhaps still is, considered the prime suspect.

continue at Renew America

HT Fr. Rick

Wisconsin priest's unsolved murder: 16 years later

On March 4, 1998, the body of Father Alfred Kunz, a parish priest and canon lawyer – and discreet whistleblower of corrupt clergy – from the Diocese of Madison, Wis., was found on the floor of his parish (St. Michael's in Dane, Wis.) school's hallway in a pool of blood with his throat slit. The murder remains unsolved to this day.

It's essentially a cold case now, even if the police are reluctant to say so. I've been following and writing about the case for the past several years, and, to my knowledge, there haven't been any significant developments in the investigation as of late. Still, I did recently find out a bit of interesting information that I hadn't heard before.

More about that later.

For a past column, I had asked two individuals who were friends and supporters of Father Kunz – Catholic attorney Peter Kelly and Catholic businessman Chuck Weigel – to contribute their fond memories of the priest. Those reflections are worth reprinting.

Peter Kelly wrote:
There are a number of points that I recall about Father Kunz. They all deal with his pastoral style which people might characterize as true 'servant leadership.' It was that – and so much more.

Father did not have a great deal of financial resources upon which to draw to support his school and his teaching staff. Still, he tried to do what he could to help make life a little easier for his underpaid teachers. One 'fringe benefit' that his teachers received from their boss was free auto repair. As a Wisconsin farm boy, he was as good with a wrench as he was with his traditional Catholic theology.

continue at Renew America

New DNA Test Could Help Solve 14-Year-Old Fr. Kunz Murder

Detectives hope new DNA analysis can help solve the 14-year-old murder of Father Alfred Kunz.

On March 4, 1998, a killer cut Kunz's throat in the hallway of St. Michael Church in the Town of Dane near Lodi. Although detectives have a series of leads and several suspects, they have never had enough information to make an arrest.

Now evidence from the case is being reprocessed at the state crime lab in Madison. DNA analysts sampled some evidence back in 1998, but now they can go a step further.

"We can in theory go down to as little as 5 cells and get a DNA profile," said Lab Manager Amy Beatty. "Anything that had a visible blood stain or a visible stain on it in the late 90's they were able to do that sort of analysis, the difference is we don't need a visible stain anymore."

Analysts can now process touch DNA. Anything the killer may have contacted could hold an identifiable sample. Detectives say their may have been a struggle between Kunz and the killer, increasing their optimism that there was a DNA transfer.

The new tests are expected to be completed in the next couple of months.

"If we're able to have the crime lab develop something where the killer touched something and now it will link that person to the crime it will be so huge for us," said Dane County Sheriff's Office Det. Linda Pederson-Honer, who worked the case its first year.

Officials credit new automation technology and more staff with the ability to take a closer look at older cases. A few years ago the DNA lab had a case backlog more than a year long, now cases are usually processed in about 60 days despite more than five times the caseload.

"We're processing right now some 450 cases per month," said Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, who acknowledges even with a DNA breakthrough an old case could be tough to try.

"We have some people we may not be able to locate anymore who may be witnesses, people may be deceased already, of course peoples' memories fade," he said.

Packed and stored in ideal conditions, DNA evidence can last longer than 20 years.

If new DNA profiles are discovered, detectives plan to try and match them against samples they collected 14 years ago or a national database. They also hope people of interest are willing to submit samples to rule themselves out.

Detectives urge anyone with information to call (608) 284-6900.

"We believe there are people out there that know what happened to Father Kunz," said Det. Mary Butler.

NBC15 (video)


There is a great deal of mystery surrounding Fr. Alfred Kunz.  He was a very traditional priest, friends with Fr. John Hardon.  It is said he was going to be breaking a incredibly scandalous report on misdeeds in the Archdiocese of Chicago shortly before his murder.  If blogging payed the bills I'd write up a story on more of the background.  Quite a bit can be found by searching online.