The Two Priests

Sometimes the changes occur gradually and other times they are dramatic. Personal experience with the change in culture of a parish affected me and my wife, and many others who had attended Christ the King Church in McFarland, WI. The shift came after the sudden retirement of Fr Steve Smith in November several years ago. In our case the change was not gradual when Fr Smith's replacement came in and shifted the whole culture of the parish. After a homily in which the priest said, "If you don't like what I have to say, you can leave!" After mass, I told Ernie S (then director of St Vincent DePaul in Madison) that we would not be back. We have kept that promise and now attend St Ann's in  Stoughton or St Dennis in Madison. Many others have departed as the parish shifted to a traditional and doctrinaire church highlighted by the Morlino Priests. This post is not about Fr Smith's replacement, however, but about two other Morlino priests, who have left a wake of apparent disaster in the parishes they once represented. These purveyors and judges of orthodoxy and doctrine, mainly preached of sin over mercy, of damnation over redemption, of ritual over service. 

The Morlino priests have made a dramatic change in the parishes of the Madison diocese. A few parishioners may welcome, but many find their 18th and 19th century actions off putting and contrary to Vatican II (which they often criticize). I am not sure there exists a higher level of arrogance than a priest who questions Vatican II, maybe there is, when a bishop does it. These priests instituted practices and preaching that are divisive and destructive. A young radical traditional priest, a Morlino man, was assigned to St Maria Goretti Parish. As recounted in widely disseminated news article by AP writer Tim Sullivan (2024) it was the change from contemporary to medieval music that first made parishioners realize what was now happening. The decline may have begun when Bishop Morlino kicked out long time St Maria Goretti priest, Fr Mike Burke, and took over his rectory to have a place to hold his many parties. But this priest, Scott Emerson, was assigned by Morlino's replacement, Bishop Donald Hying. Emerson, ordained in 2015, had little experience with a large church and then well-run school. First assigned in 2019, he was promoted to pastor in 2021. He has done long-standing damage to the church and school, as have the follow up rad trads who are at the parish. SOme of Emerson's moves, involved seeing school attendance plummet as he moved the principal out, leading to teacher resignations and other long-time staff move on. The choir director was fired, and the choir generally quit, meaning he could no longer even preach to the choir. In place, radical traditional (rad trad) Catholics and their pre-Vatican II ethos were brought in. 

Scott Emerson

Emerson seemed to relish in the subculture and clericalism the priesthood offered: from funny birettas, long-flowing cassocks and fancy gilded vestments and related clerical wear that sets them apart. It as if God and Christ care more about their clothes than about the message of the Gospel. All that seemingly was missing was the cappa magna. Such grandiose wear and actions make it more about the priest than about Jesus. This all caused parishioners to leave, and like Christ the King many left the Catholic Church, this being the final straw. A few moved to other parishes like Our Lady Queen of Peace, so far not as affected by the radical traditional movement promoted by Morlino and favored by Hying, but Hying does it in a less bombastic and direct manner than his predecessor. 

School attendance at SMG has plummeted, although losses may have been minimized by the diocese closing of St Peter's Catholic School in Ashton. Financial contributions well lag what is required, even after the realignment of parishes into pastorates. The pastorates now have priests serving three or more churches. Statistics seem to show that this move, which is becoming more prominent nationally, a parish lose 20% of their members. Fewer masses are held. At some pastorates they decide who will say a funeral mass, not the family. Is it a wonder why fewer Catholics are having a funeral mass? The move, to accommodate the lower number of priests, disenfranchises an important aspect of a parish, its sense of community. 

What Emerson seemed to posses is a large amount of hubris, or arrogance. This is from the AP article by Tim Sullivan:

Emerson’s sermons are not all fire-and-brimstone. He speaks often about forgiveness and compassion. But his tone shocked many longtime parishioners.

Protection is needed, he said in a 2023 service, from “the spiritual corruption of worldly vices.” He has warned against critics – “the atheists, journalists, politicians, the fallen-away Catholics” – he said were undermining the church.

But those critics, he says, will be proven wrong.

“How many have laughed at the church, announcing that she was passe, that her days were over and that they would bury her?” he said in a 2021 Mass.

“The church,” he said, “has buried every one of her undertakers.”

Sounds like the sermon Fr Steve Smith's replacement gave, making me wonder if the rad trads get together to devise divisive talking points. Given this statement one would think Fr Emerson was in it for the long haul. Yet, in a situation of reality being more bizarre than fiction, Scott Emerson, the purveyor and decider of Catholic orthodoxy and what is right and good for the Church over a year ago took a sabbatical followed by a leave of absence. He is no longer identified in the roster for priests of the diocese. He works for Exact Sciences and I am told no longer identifies as a Catholic priest. Whether he has joined the fallen-away Catholics, I do not know. Emerson, as I see it, came in and destroyed a parish and school and then does not have the guts or wherewithal to stick around to see his actions through. His commitment was fleeting. 

Roster of Priests Madison Diocese 
accessed 06/24/2026.
Scott Emerson is no longer listed

So too, goes the story of Fr Drew Olson, who this past May asked for a leave of absence, with rather impeccable timing after all the 2026 priest assignments had been made and announced. This trait of where they think only of themselves, is becoming, it seems, common among many Morlino priests. Fr Olson was with a pastorate and he has overseen the rad trad manifestation of the parishes in that pastorate. This pastorate serves three inner city of Madison churches, Holy Redeemer, St James, and St  Patrick, and an outlier in St Joseph's on the Beltline. St James has a school and Fr Olson has followed a similar pattern to Emerson. It has not helped that pastorate that charges for solicitation of a child have been brought in Waupaca Co against another priest previously assigned to that pastorate. Yet, the same subculture of Emerson was strong in Olson, too. Here again, a self-proclaimed purveyor of what is right and good for the Church is now on personal leave, and I wonder if he is likely to go the way of Emerson.

Men leaving the priesthood is not new. But, here we have rad trad priests who destroyed the parishes and their schools to which they are assigned and then left. One would think they would be the last to leave. The church has experience with rad trads. The most famous being Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionnaires of Christ and a favorite of John Paul II. Marciel was worse in terms of corruption and immorality than even Pope Alexander VI, due to his lengthy sordid history; but relevant here is that he refused, showing his true makeup, the sacrament of anointing of the sick while on his death bed. Hence, rad trads are people too, much as they make themselves seem omnipotent, as they put on the airs of clericalism. The hubris that emanates from many Morlino priests is a hard thing to live up to, and the two priests may well show that to be the case.

It would be speculative to wonder why the departures have occurred. Many US bishops and rad trad priests were waiting out the Francis pontificate, hoping for the next to be more in their ilk. Perhaps in Leo XIV they got a pontiff more like Francis and less like their joy of the 19th century Pius IX. Being so into clericalism they probably wished to ride high like their mentor Morlino, and become a bishop. Hying sure has to wonder, after having got passed by for Milwaukee, or even New York, with those appointments going to clerics who had worked under Cardinal Cupich in Chicago. Did Morlino poison Madison? One of Morlino's last public statements before his Nov 2018 death was in August when he vehemently vouched for the character, integrity and writing of Archbishop Vigano in Vigano's criticism of Pope Francis in the McCarrick situation. Archbishop Vigano was found guilty of schism and has been excommunicated. Vigano's comments were found to be essentially baseless against Francis, who followed the course of action set by the pope before him. Of course, in the (particularly then) ardent conservative hierarchy of the US, Morlino was not the only bishop quickly jump on the Vigano bandwagon. Overall, the US hierarchy argument was that Francis did not understand the US. I think Francis understood the US quite well. The hierarchy can no longer say that about Leo. The McCarrick situation shows what occurs when a church has rampant run amuck clericalism that is favored by the rad trads. (Google Vatican report on McCarrick and click on a  pdf under The Holy See heading which should show up to get the full report.) 

Back to the two priests. With so few priests available, two priests leaving today has a  much greater impact than two priests who left the priesthood in the 1970's. The diocese, like many in the US, import priests mainly from India and some arch conservatives from Spain. While much was written this past Easter about the number of converts the articles failed to mention that this years number is much lower than pre-Covid entrants, and that the number leaving still far out paces those joining. Hying likes to compare attendance to 2020 numbers, which is the main Covid year. With his clericalistic mind he must think the laity is stupid and uneducated, much like Pius IX thought. News flash to Hying, the time for "Rome has spoken the matter is settled" is over. People rightly will voice their concerns and if need be opposition. Many have left with their feet. And, with Francis and now Leo the cafeteria Catholics in a large sense are not the moderates but the conservatives and trads.

With a decline in parishioners, the church is getting what Benedict XVI is said to have desired (although it may be an urban legend), a smaller more doctrinaire church. The Morlino priests prize being judgmental and exclusionary, a church for the few, rather than Pope Francis' church for all. Yet, the doctrinaire church seems to only have applied to those in the pews not the priests who have had sexual, and other, sins covered up by the institutional church. The church as an institution has responsibility to the priests and parishioners, and unfortunately, it has put institution over people, and as a result now suffers from sclerosis. I will likely examine this in a future post. 

The situation in the church, such as with the two priests, proves the maxim that "great institutions are undone as much by their presumable guardians as by their enemies."