New York-based Covenant House was caught with its corporate pants well below its bended knees as a sex scandal enveloped the then-$100 million per year agency. For Covenant House and Fr. Ritter it looked like the agency’s Go-Go ’80s would quickly turn into the Death Throe ’90s. The tabloid New York Post first broke the story on Dec. 12, tentatively announcing on its front page “Times Square Priest Probed,” but by March 10, 1990, with Fr. Ritter resigning in disgrace, the headlines screamed Covenant “House of Shame.” It marked the end of a triumphant but tortured trail in youth services for Fr. Ritter, one of the field’s most flamboyant and famous charlatans. In his 1992 book, “Broken Covenant,” Sennott interviewed some of those original “my kids,” as Ritter paternalistically referred to anyone under 21 who had even casual contact with Covenant House. From the jump, Sennott reported, Ritter had been sexually preying on the teen boys he sheltered.
But when not leering and luring, Ritter was fund-raising. From every podium or pulpit on offer, he studiously collected names and added them to his growing mailing list. By 1978 the agency was able to raise a then-amazing $3.7 million per year, dwarfing any other program in the nation serving runaway and homeless juveniles. Aided by an adoring national press and steadily climbing direct-mail contributions, Ritter and Covenant House were ready to go national just as Ronald Reagan arrived in the White House in 1981. In 1982, Covenant House spent $12,442,832 and had a paid staff of 500 in New York City, Toronto, Guatemala and other locations.
Fr. Ritter was regularly turning in boffo public appearances, such as one on ABC’s “Nightline,” where an earnest Ted Koppel asked on the heels of a reel of grainy teen sexploitation footage, “Who’s helping these kids?” “Other than Covenant House, Ted, no one,” offered Ritter, glibly ignoring the then over 300 shelters, most (like Covenant House) funded by the federal Runaway and Homeless Youth Act. Beginning in 1968, youth workers had been steadily building an impressive network of services for youth-in-crisis and a few, including Covenant House, began to get federal assistance in 1974.
But who was going to argue with Fr. Ritter, proclaimed the nation’s “unsung hero” in President Reagan’s 1984 State of the Union address to Congress? Certainly not Koppel. And certainly not Covenant House’s “Board of Directors,” which later events would reveal had lacked any real legal authority since 1975, when Ritter rigged the Covenant House nonprofit corporate structure so that he became the “sole member” of the corporation. That left the apparently clueless board of mostly New York corporate and Wall Street bigwigs, at best, as mere advisory window-dressing and, at worst, a respectability veil for Ritter & Co.’s sexual maraudings.'' https://youthtoday.org/2000/01/the-rise-and-fall-and-rise-of-covenant-house/ ''A report prepared for Covenant House by Kroll and Associates and the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore cited fifteen cases of reported sexual contacts between Ritter and youths sheltered at Covenant House or young adults working there as volunteer counselors in what was called the Faith Community. The report did not specifically say all were men, but those who have come forward publicly with allegations about sexual activities have all been men. The report said, "The cumulative evidence discovered by Kroll in the course of its investigation that Father Ritter engaged in sexual activities with certain residents and made sexual advances toward certain members of the Faith Community is extensive." Its preparation was supervised by Robert J. McGuire, a former New York City Police Commissioner and then senior managing director of Kroll.[9]
Additional allegations surfaced concerning financial improprieties and administrative irregularities at Covenant House. Charles Sennott, a reporter for the New York Post, broke the story, and it became a tabloid sensation into the early months of 1990.[10] Despite mounting a vigorous public relations defense and denying any wrongdoing, Ritter was forced to resign from Covenant House in February 1990.[11]
"They will instigate constant confrontation between parent and minor to the point where the parent will throw the minor out of the house. They will create this situation where the parent will burn out." However, he added. "They recognize that they cannot gain custody of a minor."
Paron said she wasn't willing to give up on her son. She asked Anchorage police to investigate the matter.
"It's really a bizarre story," said police Investigator jack Chapman, who agreed to look into it.
Chapman interviewed Aaron, who told him that he didn't need to attend to school or ever get a job because the church would take care of him.
"At one point, he attacked his brother, told him he was walking with the devil," said Chapman. But the boy said his mother never mistreated him.
On March 3, after Aaron had been living at the Covenant House shelter for several weeks, he checked himself out, according to an Anchorage Police Department report. Paron asked APD to help her find her son.
Officer Lisa Coffey went to Potter's House with Paron and another officer to look for Aaron because there was a service that night. She introduced herself to Bates and asked if Aaron was there. He responded that he might be, according to Coffey's report, and asked if she had a search warrant.
Meanwhile, Paron was looking around the church and found Aaron hiding in the baptismal pool. He jumped out, according to Coffey, ran to his mother, laid his hand on her forehead, raised his right hand in the air and began to speak loudly in tongues.
"He told Satan to flee from her and continued the loud praying in an undeterminable language," Coffey wrote. "As we escorted him from the church, the people remaining there, mostly young teen-agers, but many adults, followed us - also raised their hands and loudly prayed in tongues all the way to our cars."
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New York-based Covenant House was caught with its corporate pants well below its bended knees as a sex scandal enveloped the then-$100 million per year agency. For Covenant House and Fr. Ritter it looked like the agency’s Go-Go ’80s would quickly turn into the Death Throe ’90s. The tabloid New York Post first broke the story on Dec. 12, tentatively announcing on its front page “Times Square Priest Probed,” but by March 10, 1990, with Fr. Ritter resigning in disgrace, the headlines screamed Covenant “House of Shame.” It marked the end of a triumphant but tortured trail in youth services for Fr. Ritter, one of the field’s most flamboyant and famous charlatans.
In his 1992 book, “Broken Covenant,” Sennott interviewed some of those original “my kids,” as Ritter paternalistically referred to anyone under 21 who had even casual contact with Covenant House. From the jump, Sennott reported, Ritter had been sexually preying on the teen boys he sheltered.
But when not leering and luring, Ritter was fund-raising. From every podium or pulpit on offer, he studiously collected names and added them to his growing mailing list. By 1978 the agency was able to raise a then-amazing $3.7 million per year, dwarfing any other program in the nation serving runaway and homeless juveniles. Aided by an adoring national press and steadily climbing direct-mail contributions, Ritter and Covenant House were ready to go national just as Ronald Reagan arrived in the White House in 1981. In 1982, Covenant House spent $12,442,832 and had a paid staff of 500 in New York City, Toronto, Guatemala and other locations.
Fr. Ritter was regularly turning in boffo public appearances, such as one on ABC’s “Nightline,” where an earnest Ted Koppel asked on the heels of a reel of grainy teen sexploitation footage, “Who’s helping these kids?” “Other than Covenant House, Ted, no one,” offered Ritter, glibly ignoring the then over 300 shelters, most (like Covenant House) funded by the federal Runaway and Homeless Youth Act. Beginning in 1968, youth workers had been steadily building an impressive network of services for youth-in-crisis and a few, including Covenant House, began to get federal assistance in 1974.
But who was going to argue with Fr. Ritter, proclaimed the nation’s “unsung hero” in President Reagan’s 1984 State of the Union address to Congress? Certainly not Koppel. And certainly not Covenant House’s “Board of Directors,” which later events would reveal had lacked any real legal authority since 1975, when Ritter rigged the Covenant House nonprofit corporate structure so that he became the “sole member” of the corporation. That left the apparently clueless board of mostly New York corporate and Wall Street bigwigs, at best, as mere advisory window-dressing and, at worst, a respectability veil for Ritter & Co.’s sexual maraudings.''
https://youthtoday.org/2000/01/the-rise-and-fall-and-rise-of-covenant-house/
''A report prepared for Covenant House by Kroll and Associates and the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore cited fifteen cases of reported sexual contacts between Ritter and youths sheltered at Covenant House or young adults working there as volunteer counselors in what was called the Faith Community. The report did not specifically say all were men, but those who have come forward publicly with allegations about sexual activities have all been men. The report said, "The cumulative evidence discovered by Kroll in the course of its investigation that Father Ritter engaged in sexual activities with certain residents and made sexual advances toward certain members of the Faith Community is extensive." Its preparation was supervised by Robert J. McGuire, a former New York City Police Commissioner and then senior managing director of Kroll.[9]
Additional allegations surfaced concerning financial improprieties and administrative irregularities at Covenant House. Charles Sennott, a reporter for the New York Post, broke the story, and it became a tabloid sensation into the early months of 1990.[10] Despite mounting a vigorous public relations defense and denying any wrongdoing, Ritter was forced to resign from Covenant House in February 1990.[11]
Ritter left the Franciscan order, but retained his priestly faculties by being incardinated into a diocese in India. ''
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Ritter#Sexual_abuse_and_financial_improprieties
''Ross, the deprogrammer, said other churches in the chain have tried to turn children against their "backslider" parents.
"They will instigate constant confrontation between parent and minor to the point where the parent will throw the minor out of the house. They will create this situation where the parent will burn out." However, he added. "They recognize that they cannot gain custody of a minor."
Paron said she wasn't willing to give up on her son. She asked Anchorage police to investigate the matter.
"It's really a bizarre story," said police Investigator jack Chapman, who agreed to look into it.
Chapman interviewed Aaron, who told him that he didn't need to attend to school or ever get a job because the church would take care of him.
"At one point, he attacked his brother, told him he was walking with the devil," said Chapman. But the boy said his mother never mistreated him.
On March 3, after Aaron had been living at the Covenant House shelter for several weeks, he checked himself out, according to an Anchorage Police Department report. Paron asked APD to help her find her son.
Officer Lisa Coffey went to Potter's House with Paron and another officer to look for Aaron because there was a service that night. She introduced herself to Bates and asked if Aaron was there. He responded that he might be, according to Coffey's report, and asked if she had a search warrant.
Meanwhile, Paron was looking around the church and found Aaron hiding in the baptismal pool. He jumped out, according to Coffey, ran to his mother, laid his hand on her forehead, raised his right hand in the air and began to speak loudly in tongues.
"He told Satan to flee from her and continued the loud praying in an undeterminable language," Coffey wrote. "As we escorted him from the church, the people remaining there, mostly young teen-agers, but many adults, followed us - also raised their hands and loudly prayed in tongues all the way to our cars."
https://culteducation.com/group/896-christian-fellowship-churches/5738-mother-fights-church-group-for-her-son.html
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