Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

The more that comes in about POW Network’s accusations against Fr. Corapi, the more it becomes clear that this organization and their “investigator,” Don Bendell are guilty of defaming the character of Fr. Corapi based upon false claims, hasty assumptions, and generally reckless behavior.

These folks are still claiming that Fr. Corapi said he was a Green Beret and had served in Vietnam. My last post indicated why it is obvious that these are false accusations. In a nutshell: in every one of Fr. Corapi’s talks we cited, Fr. Corapi not only never claims to have been a Green Beret or served in Vietnam, he has explicitly denied it at least once and strongly denied it implicitly on every other occasion. Since that post, we have had a number of people posting in the combox, transcripts from relevant portions of Fr. Corapi’s talks that continue to bear this out:

In this comment, Jim Gorski provides the transcript from a talk (posted by Ken Follis) given in 1992 (Jim provided the date to me via e-mail). Here Fr. Corapi talks about his training. His training is definitely well beyond that of basic and advanced Infantry training. While this extraordinary training cannot yet be “verified” (if that is even necessary) from the records that POW Network provides he certainly does not claim to have earned the Green Beret or that he served in Vietnam. These, after all, are their claims.

In another comment, Gibbons Burke provides the transcript of the audio we provided earlier from the Mary Foundation recording that was dated prior to 1995 and in which he explicitly says that he was never a Green Beret and that he never saw combat!

Gibbons also provides a transcript from 1997 talk in which Fr. Corapi again discusses his Army days. He clearly indicates that he had plans to go to Special Forces training at Fr. Bragg (with his reference to Smoke Bomb Hill at Ft. Bragg). He does not explicitly say he made it there though there is some indication that he did. If he is referring to himself as having jumped from 20,000 feet and reached terminal velocity with the altimeter popping the chute, this would be a HALO (High Altitude, Low Opening) jump. This would have placed him both in Jump School and some follow on Special Forces training. The time frame that Fr. Corapi was referring to was at the end of what was called “the crisis years.” Crisis referred to a dearth of new recruits required to support the Army’s mission in Vietnam. Many novel things were done during these years to try to make “ends meet.” It is conceivable that Fr. Corapi received some accelerated Special Forces training that would not have qualified him for the Green Beret but would have allowed him to deploy quickly to Vietnam to serve either with an SF unit or with regular infantry but possessing this specialized training. Because of the length of time after his Basic Combat Training and Advanced Individual Training (Infantry), about 50 days beyond what it took in those days, and since it would have been a non-standard program (which again is conjectural) it is certainly conceivable that he could have had the training. In fact, his comments about his training are all very consistent from one talk to the next. He always speaks of having gone from Georgia to North Carolina, though his records indicated that he was assigned in Alabama and Kentucky during this time. It is possible that he could have been assigned as his assignment history indicates but was deployed to Ft. Bragg with Temporary Duty (TDY) orders. Moreover, it is not likely that any off the cuff “embellishment” would be so consistent. However, this is all tangential. The point is that he never says that he earned the Green Beret or that he went to Vietnam and these are the defamatory claims.

Here is another transcript from Gibbons in which he again says that he finished the training required to go to Vietnam but his unit was sent to the Panama Canal Zone for a program that is called the Jungle Operations Course conducted at the Jungle Operations Training Center at Ft. Sherman, Canal Zone. Again, he says that he was hurt in a helicopter accident and so never went to Vietnam. He never says that he earned the Green Beret.

Ken Follis posts a comment which gives a quote from a book written about Fr. Corapi which again states the same exact details about his Army service. Again, there are no claims to have earned a Green Beret or to have served in Vietnam.

Ken also gives this transcript from a 2001 talk in Austin, Texas. Here he confirms again the same details we are hearing over and over about his training prior to the time he is hurt. All of these are very consistent. Again, he never claims to have been a Green Beret or to have served in Vietnam.

We have 8 or so examples directly attributable to Fr. Corapi himself, about his Army career. He is very consistent about the details. But in none of them does he claim that which he accusers attempt to pin on him. But that is not all we have found out.

In my last post, referred to above, we were able to rule out, using his own words, Fr. Corapi’s having made the claims about which he is being accused. However there was an “eye witness” claim for which we had no answer other than the possibility of his having misheard/misunderstood. Namely, I mentioned that POW Network says that they have someone from Kansas who had accused Fr. Corapi, at a 1996 Lenten Retreat in Lenexa, KS, of saying:

“I was standing there, wearing my Green Beret…”/

Since then have found two people who were at that retreat. Jim Gorski was there, and he says:

From: James Gorski

Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 4:31 PM

To: kenneth follis

Subject: Father Corapi training

Kenneth, I cut and pasted this paragraph from the POW NETWORK page on Father Corapi. I personally attended this Lenten Retreat and sat in the second row from the front, just in front of Father Corapi’s podium. He NEVER said he was “wearing my Green Beret uniform”. This is an absolutely false claim.

Jim pointed us to the organizer of the conference, Mr. Jim O’Laughlin, from KC Catholic Radio. Mr. O’Laughlin also confirms that he never heard Fr. Corapi claim to have been a Green Beret or having worn a Green Beret uniform.

If you have been following the comments, you probably can see that our friend Joe has gone on to other pastures. Joe, who like his hero Mr. Bendell, is very susceptible to fits of emotion in which he attempts to make up for a lack of substance in his arguments with vitriol and <i>ad hominem</i>. He has gone over and started a thread on Catholic Answers Forum to spew his venom. Worth pointing to is a responding comment from Pangur Ban who has summarized Don Bendell’s claims and provided counter claims. We might call his a response to the Syllabus of Lies.

The point of all of this is to say that far from making their case, the POW Network has, with reckless disregard for the truth and common decency, continued to push their false accusations against Fr. Corapi. They cannot credibly support either of their two accusations. In our litigious society, I would think that this would be an easy defamation of character case in that POW Network has been provided evidence that they are clearly wrong in matters fact and yet they still refuse to correct themselves, much less, apologize for their unfair attack.

I would suggest that everyone interested ought to send Chuck and Mary Schantag of the POW Network a very respectful email demanding that they do the right thing and remove their false accusation against Fr. Corapi from their website. The e-mail address is:  info at pownetwork.org. Yes, they ought to be concerned about Stolen Honor as they claim. However, in this case it is they who are doing the stealing.