June 2011: Father Patrick Conroy confirmed as new House chaplain

Jesuit Father Patrick J. Conroy was unanimously approved as the next House chaplain in a May 25 vote.

Father Conroy, 60, a native of Washington state, had been nominated by House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, himself a Catholic, as the ideal candidate for the position.

The Jesuit succeeds Father Daniel Coughlin, a priest of the Chicago Archdiocese who retired in April after 11 years on the job.

Father Conroy most recently was a theology teacher, campus ministry assistant and coach at Jesuit High School in Portland, Ore., and long served as a pastor to Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest.

Boehner, who attended Jesuit-run Xavier University in Cincinnati, decided he wanted a Jesuit to serve as the next pastor and confidant to House members and staff.

Father Conroy's nomination initially was held up by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, who expressed concern that the Jesuit belongs to the Oregon province of the Society of Jesus, which agreed in March to pay about $166 million in settlements to 500 people who have sought damages for abuse they said they suffered under Jesuits at schools and parishes in the Northwest. She later dropped her objections.

Father Conroy has not been accused of any involvement in the sexual abuse of minors or any cover-up of such abuse.

The priest was among several priests from the Society of Jesus put forward for the position after Father Coughlin contacted the U.S. Jesuits in Washington about his retirement. The office notified Jesuit provincials around the country about Boehner's wish.

The Washington scene will not be new to Father Conroy, a lawyer who had been a campus minister at Georgetown for a decade.

The House chaplain earns $167,800 a year, according to the Congressional Research Service. As a member of a religious community, Father Conroy does not keep his salary but turns it over to a common fund for Jesuit life and ministry.

At Jesuit High since 2004, he has served as superior of the Jesuit community, teacher of freshman and sophomore theology, assistant coach of the junior varsity softball team, campus ministry assistant, member of the school's board of trustees, chaplain to athletic teams and director of freshman retreats.

Father Conroy entered the Jesuits in 1973 and was ordained in 1983, having earned a law degree and several theology degrees during formation. From 1984 to 1989, he served as pastor of a mission in Inchelium, Wash., serving the people of the Colville Indian reservation. From 1986 to 1989, he also served as pastor at the Spokane Indian reservation.

Father Conroy, in an earlier interview, said that he was unnerved when his provincial approached him last fall about the possibility. But as time passed, the excitement and glamour turned to a feeling of peace, which Father Conroy said is a classic sign in Jesuit spirituality that a decision was right.

"My thought was, if it happens, glory be to God. And if it doesn't happen, glory be to God," Father Conroy said.

Jesuit spirituality, based on the 16th-century writings of St. Ignatius of Loyola, centers on making good decisions. That could fit well in the business of the House of Representatives, Father Conroy said.

"I would hope I'd be able to remind everyone what they're about," he said. "They are not about winning something so someone else loses, but winning so everyone wins. They are there to serve, not to gain glory."

The priest said he imagines most of his work will happen in one-on-one conversations. He said he aims to help House members and staff discern which urges are coming from God and which are coming from them.

"You need to know the difference," Father Conroy said.

January 2001: Pro se Inchelium man petitions U.S. Supreme Court

“Retiree” reduces 18-year hunting rights controversy to six constitutional questions

COLVILLE, Wash. -- For the first time in 140 years a pro se litigant may have his questions answered by the U.S. Supreme Court. On October 31, 2000, Inchelium, Wash., resident Ervin Palmer, 82, petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for a Writ of Certiorari in answer to six questions that have arisen during his 18-year battle with state, federal and private entities over his right to hunt and trap his own patented land on the Colville Indian Reservation.

Palmer purchased his 120 acres in one of the wildest, game rich areas of the U.S. in 1960 with the intention of retiring there and supplementing his income by trapping on his own land. Palmer's documents show that on August 29, 1982, in order to save face on a dispute over fishing rights it would lose in federal court, the state of Washington entered into an agreement with the Colville tribe that discriminated against non-Indians. The state, through what is now the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW), agreed to declare a non-scientific “emergency” regarding populations of certain fur-bearing animals. The WDFW also agreed that a moratorium on hunting and trapping these animals would only apply to non-Indians (The Idaho Observer, June, 1999).

Since declaring this discriminatory “state of emergency” the state has received in excess of $120,000,000 in federal habitat restorations monies.

Rather than being able to spend his retirement hunting and trapping animals on his own patented piece of land as he had originally intended, Palmer has been forced to spend his entire retirement fighting for his right legally trap the same animals his Indian neighbors are allowed to trap.

Over the last 18 years, Palmer has patiently, ethically, legally and systematically exhausted every administrative remedy at his disposal. In the process he has uncovered the evidence which proves that the WDFW-declared emergency that has taken his rights away is a fraud that was perpetrated against him for political expediency.

After nearly two decades and the collection of a 20-foot-high stack of documents, Palmer boiled his case down to six fundamental questions (which are listed in the box below) -- The answers to which would be of tremendous contemporary significance to all Americans who prefer freedom to slavery.

The Respondents listed in this case are WDFW Region 2 Director Raymond L. Duff; former Game Commission Chairman Vern E. Zeigler (of Zeigler plumbing and electric stores) and; WDFW Region 1 Director Bruce R. Smith.

“I believe that the Supreme Court will answer my petition and that its answers will set a contemporary precedent in cases all over the country where governments are violating the rights of ordinary citizens,” said Palmer.

The Court may refuse to hear the Petition, or it may rule that public officials have the right to make and enforce laws that are unconstitutional; may continue to enforce unconstitutional laws indefinitely; may commit fraud without fear of criminal prosecution; may violate peoples' civil rights without fear of criminal prosecution and; may make admissions of guilt in the commission of crimes and not be prosecuted for them.

The U.S. Supreme Court has one other option: It may rule that public officials do not have the right to lawlessly violate the civil rights of law-abiding Americans which would signal the beginning of an era where lawless bureaucrats are held constitutionally accountable for their crimes against people.

Palmer's saga was originally published in the June, 1999 edition of The Idaho Observer.