Monsignor Eugene V. Clark (shown above left waving to the faithful), the 79-year-old rector of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, in New York, recently resigned as the head of the most famous Catholic church in the country. Monsignor Clark resigned after it was reported in the New York Times and other news sources that he was accused of having an affair with his married, long-time secretary , who reportedly annually earns between $70,000-$100,000. Though no spring chicken herself, she is 33 years his junior. The monsignor did not pull a Rafael Palmeiro; that is, he did not unequivocally deny having an affair as the baseball player had denied using steroids. He did not say “never ever,” as Palmeiro did about steroids. He did not accuse his accusers, as Palmeiro did, of being “crap.” But the monsignor has not admitted to having the affair, either. In a statement released by his lawyer, he said “events and circumstances have been portrayed in such a false and sensational manner that I will no longer be able to effectively serve the archdiocese.” “False and sensational” may refer, among other things, to the video footage showing monsignor and his secretary going into a motel room during the day and then leaving five hours later (shown above center) dressed in different clothes. If he listened to her tell her sins for five hours in the motel, it might go into the Guinness World Records for confessions. But what he was doing for five hours in the motel room may have more to do with Viagra (shown above right) than absolution. His secretary, accompanied by her two children, sometimes spent weekends with the monsignor in his beach retreat, leaving her husband at home. Her husband is suing for divorce, charging her with adultery.
Palmeiro hawking Viagra on TV
The almost-octogenarian monsignor may be suffering from an overdose of the same recreational drug that Palmeiro hawks on TV, the same Viagra that appears for long spells in ads behind home plate on televised baseball games where they imprint themselves on the brains of millions of aging, unathletic American males interested in improving their sexual performance when they step up to the plate, so to speak. Those old enough may remember the 1978 so-called “Twinkie defense,” when the homophobic San Francisco supervisor Dan White shot and killed Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk, and the best defense White's lawyers could come up with was that he had done it because he was deeply depressed as a result of binging on junk food and Coke.I would not be surprised if the monsignor’s lawyers come up with a “Viagra defense,” which may include testimony from an underpaid Latin-American immigrant housekeeper that the monsignor is a baseball nut who constantly watches games on TV. His lawyers could argue that the Viagra ads behind home plate had brainwashed him and that the monsignor had fallen victim to one of Viagra’s widely publicized dangerous side-effects. “Warning! Erections may last up to four hours.” Not to be outdone or outsold, a rival product’s warning goes Viagra more than one better: “If erections last as long as 24 hours, seek immediate medical assistance.” These of course are intended not so much as warnings as enticements, but if the monsignor had been using the rival brand he might not have gotten out of the motel room except on a stretcher.
Not only does Viagra cause blindness in some men, the defense will argue, but it can turn pious old prelates who watch too much TV into Brad Pitbulls, men who abandon their families for more alluring sexual partners, and priests who betray their flock and break their celibacy vows. So that’s what it could come down to: the monsignor was a vulnerable senior citizen victimized by Viagra.
When I was the president of the Shawnee Education Association, the faculty union, and on the union negotiating team, I suggested that we exclude Viagra and other costly recreational drugs from coverage under our faculty insurance. The administration appeared to be very determined to cut the costs of faculty medical coverage during the negotiations, but they were unwilling to accept my proposal, perhaps fearing a backlash from older male faculty.
This story of the amorous monsignor should be of interest to Portsmouth residents because a prominent Portsmouth cleric, David A. Malone, was reported to be having an extramarital affair with a member of his Kingdom Builders Evangelistic Church. Malone did not deny he had the affair. He reportedly admitted his adultery to his congregation. But instead of resigning, he asked for their forgiveness. Not everyone was willing to forgive, and some left his church. I know how those who left his church feel, because I was one of those who had hoped Malone would see the light and stop voting with the corrupt faction on the Portsmouth City Council, and that he would lead a cleansing moral crusade in Portsmouth.
When I say Malone’s adultery was reported, I am using the term reported loosely, for as far as I know, the “professional” journalists who work for our two local newspapers, the Portsmouth Daily Times and the Community Common have not written a word about this matter. The Daily Times considers a duck that was caught in a storm drain front-page news, but a local preacher who is also a member of the Portsmouth City Council, getting caught in an extra-marital affair, that is not fit to be printed on any page of the Daily Times.
Perhaps one of the reasons for the absence of any reporting on Malone’s infidelity is sexual squeamishness. The Boston Globe reported just today (August 12) about two celebrated swans at the Boston Public Gardens, nicknamed Romeo and Juliet, who had become a symbol of the inspiring life-long sexual faithfulness that has been observed among some bonding pairs of the animal kingdom. It turns out that tests have proved the two swans are both females, so that it would be more accurate to call it not a Romeo and Juliet but a Juliet and Juliet relationship. If a same-sex bonding pair of swans were discovered in the Scioto River, would either Portsmouth newspaper dare to report it? I doubt it.
But it is not sexual squeamishness alone that explains the Daily Times silence on Malone. Even more to the point is political sqeamishness. Rev Malone is not just the minister of the Kingdom Builders Evangelistic Church on Waller St. He is also the Ward 2 representative on the Portmouth City Council, and there’s the rub. A political struggle for the very soul of Portsmouth has been going in the last several years, and Malone has not hesitated to use his alleged closeness to God as a justification for the political positions he has taken. Last year, claiming to be divinely called by God to do so, he opposed the recall of Mayor Bauer. Again, claiming to be divinely called to do so, he held public prayer sessions on the steps of the Municipal Building, with his wife praying in tongues at the foot of the steps. In his prayer “Protection and Deliverance of a City,” Malone said, “Father, thank You for sending forth Your commandments to the earth . . .” Among God’s commandments is “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” One of the impressive things about Malone's congregation is how bi-racial it is. But the fact that Rev. Malone is African-American and his mistress white probably does not impress God.
If Malone was only a minister, a case could be made that it is nobody’s business but his family’s and his congregation’s if he commits adultery. But because he is also a politician, and a politician who has conspicuously mixed religion and politics, he should be held to account by more than his wife and congregation. A man who stands on the steps of the Municipal Building and thanks God for the commandments and then turns around and breaks one of them is a man capable of betraying not only God but the constituents who elected him.
Malone preaching on the steps of the Municipal Building
On the sale of the Marting Building, Malone is perhaps voting not his conscience but his pocketbook, or rather his wife’s pocketbook, since she is the breadwinner of the family. And where she earns her bread may be relevant, for I'm told she works for the Portsmouth Metropolitan Housing Authority. In other words, she works in the public sector, and in Portsmouth that carries a great deal of significance, given the degree of control the over-privileged of pork-barrel Portsmouth have over the public sector. As a member of the Portsmouth City Council, Malone is of enormous usefulness to Portsmouth’s over-privileged, especially since he claims to speak in the name of God. In a religious community like Portsmouth, God carries a lot of political weight.
But now those of us who had looked to Malone as a possible savior have to admit he might not be all he claims, that he might in fact be one of those who use religion as a cover for misdeeds. No church, no religion, is free of wolves in sheep’s clothing. No church is too imposing, or too humble, whether it is located on Fifth Avenue or Waller St., to be free of deviltry, though of course there is always the possibility that it was a popular prescription drug, presumably available through the PMHA health plan, that may be the real culprit. If only there were some investigative reporters in this town who were allowed to ask probing questions about something more important than a duck trapped in a storm drain.
