Mulligan says Covenant Ministries is not a cult

The Daily Journal, Kankakee, Ill./August 17, 1989
By Ed Bierschenk

The leader of a controversial religious group that some have said was responsible for the break-up of several families in the Kankakee area has denied his organization is a cult.

Christ Covenant Ministries, believed to be an outgrowth of the Kankakee group known as His Community, was called a cult by Richard Ross, a nationally known religious deprogrammer last week.

Ross was hired by Gerald Gromer, of Bourbonnais, to work with his two sons, Luke, 14, and Mark, 11. The two boys were taken by their mother, Loretta Gromer Frey, Dec. 16, 1979, after she became involved with His Community.

They were recovered in early June near their home in Woodbury, Vt. Along with Mrs. Frey, who is facing extradition on a Kankakee County charge of child abduction.

Kankakee County State's Attorney William Herzog said the governor of Vermont is expected to rule on the extradition request by August 28.

The Freys were members of Christ Covenant Ministries, whose pastor, David Mulligan, was a leader of His Community.

Mulligan told The Burlington Free Press, of Burlington Vermont, that Ross "may be an expert manure-thrower. He may know every cult in the world. But since we're not a cult, he knows nothing about us."

Mulligan criticized Ross for making assumptions about himself and the church without talking to him or other church members. Ross spoke with ex-church members, relatives of current members, and studied news accounts, but Mulligan described his approach as "shoddy scholarship."

Ross described Mulligan as having total control over members of the church. Mulligan denied that charge and said members think for themselves.

"If we're guilty of any crime, it's that we're devoutly Christian. We are no more cultish than the Methodist, the Pentecostal, the Catholics and the Lutherans."

Mrs. Frey is trying to regain custody of the two boys, but Gromer has rejected the idea of shared custody. Ross believes that for the boys welfare, they should not be returned to their mother's custody unless she disassociates herself with Mulligan.