Ex-Members Of Controversial Catholic Group Speak Out

Signs Connecting Group To Catholicism Come Down

WMAQ TV, Chicago/November 14, 2005

Chicago -- The Love Holy Trinity Blessed Mission has been around for more than a dozen years. It has attracted followers from more than 80 parishes in four states. Originally, it started with Catholics looking to commit themselves more to the church. But recently, some say the mission is tearing their family apart.

Love Holy Trinity Blessed Mission started out offering Bible study classes. But those who join as sisters or brothers must detach from their family and cut off anyone who is not part of the mission, NBC5's Mary Ann Ahern reported.

It's a call to be closer to God, and to have more commitment to their faith. The path is offered within the Catholic church by a group based on Chicago's Northwest Side.

The call drew 19-year-old Ashley Fahey from MacGregor, Iowa, to become a sister within the Love Holy Trinity Blessed Mission.

"She said that she didn't need to leave with anything," Fahey's mother, Lora Knott, recalled of the day the teen announced her decision. "Everything said 'Within the Catholic church.'"

Knott said her daughter, a gifted student and athlete who had received a college scholarship, walked away from it all. Introduced to the mission through her father, who is a member, Fahey decided to dedicate her life as a full-time sister, cutting off all ties to her former life.

"She explained to us, too, how the apostles got up and left right away, and if she didn't answer her calling now, something bad might happen," Knott said.

Dick Mensen and his brother, Ron Mensen, were also drawn to Love Holy Trinity after noticing an ad in their church bulletin.

"Most of the people said, 'I want to get deeper in my faith,' " Dick Mensen said of mission members.

When it came to recruiting members, the mission went to the Catholic church.

"That's how they had everybody feeling -- that's the only way. It's the holy journey and it's the only way to heaven," Rin Mensen said.

Members look to the mission's spiritual director, Agnes Kyo MacDonald, as well as a Roman Catholic priest in Chicago, Len Kruzel.

Besides daily mass and prayers, the Mensens said they were asked to remodel properties the mission purchased throughout Chicago's Northwest Side. The brothers said they never knew if it were day or night because Kruzel asked them to take off their watches.

"He says, 'You're on God's time now. You don't need the watches,'" Dick Mensen said.

The Mensen family said they became suspicious of the group and urged the brothers to leave it. But before the two men did, they donated a car and $10,000 to the mission. The pair said the leaders told them to sign all of it over to God.

For more than two years, Donna Backstrom has been looking into why three of her family members joined Love Holy Trinity Blessed Mission and cut off communication with others. She's gone to leaders of the Chicago archdiocese demanding accountability.

"The Catholic church sat on the information we gave them," Backstrom said. "Catholic church, do you realize you have culpability here?"

In September, the Chicago Archdiocese announced that Love Holy Trinity could no longer hold meetings in church facilities, and Cardinal Francis George called Kruzel back to be reassigned. Yet the Catholic name still exists on the mission's sign on Diversey Avenue, and the cardinal acknowledges Kruzel has not yet returned.

"Father Kruzel is a good priest, a priest in good standing in the archdiocese," the cardinal said. "I'm talking to him about his next assignment."

Meanwhile, at Love Holy Trinity Blessed Mission, there are those who come and go. Security is clearly marked at all of their locations.

No one answered Ahern's repeated attempts to talk to those in charge. But one man Ahern found said he had been a member of the mission for five years.

"I'm not allowed to answer many questions," he said. "I give you the statement, and everything, what we do is in there."

The man said Fahey was OK, but he declined to comment further.

Those papers, signed by Kruzel -- as well as the mission newspapers -- all say Love Holy Trinity is sanctioned by the Catholic church.

"That mission is not an official part of the church," George said. "It's not recognized by the church, and won't be."

A few days before Ahern filed this report Sunday, the mission's signs with the Catholic name were removed.

A year ago, the Mensens started distancing themselves from the mission. Now free of the mission, the two men wear pink wristbands as a symbol of their hope that Fahey will also decide to leave.

"We want Ashley to come home," her mother said.

Family members formed a support group to cope with the loss of their loved ones who have joined the mission and refuse to speak to them.