Father Rob Spaulding, a new priest in the diocese of Cheyenne, Wyoming, was a seminarian when his life was changed forever. After having a few drinks with three fellow seminarians, Rob was nominated to drive the group home — but he lost control of the car and crashed, ultimately killing two of the passengers, Jared Cheek and Matty Molnar.
It’s a terrible story that is sadly too common, but what happened next is anything but:
In April 2006, Rob and his parents drove to Kansas. He met with Rick Cheek, Jared’s father, Joan and then Pam [the victims’ mothers]. I am so, so sorry, he said to each one.
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
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He didn’t expect forgiveness then, didn’t ask for it.
But they all gave it.
What they did transcends forgiveness, Rob said. It crosses over into redemption and reconciliation — standing eyelash to eyelash with the man who killed their sons and then inviting him to become part of their lives.
What’s more, Jared and Matty’s mothers appeared at Rob’s sentencing — he pleaded guilty to two counts of reckless homicide and one count of aggravated driving under the influence (which could carry a 10-year prison sentence) — and asked the judge for leniency.
“People ask me how I feel about losing my son and how I must hate the guy that was driving. I do not hate ‘the guy’ — he has a name — who was driving,” [Pam] reads from her victim’s impact statement.
She pauses, collects herself, begins again.
“Hate is a terrible word. Hate is like a cancer that eats away at your heart and soul and makes you a bitter person …”
Matty would forgive, she tells the court. If Rob Spaulding still wants to be a priest, she hopes he will be allowed to do it.
Rob was sentence to probation, house arrest, and community service; he was asked to suspend his studies in seminary for two years, and in that time he gave talks to local schools about the dangers of drinking and driving. Last June, he was finally ordained a priest, where his congregation has rallied around him, finding in him someone who can identify with feelings of despair, of being unforgiveable.
Father Rob has no illusions about his responsibility for the lives lost. “God did not cause this to happen,” he says; “I did. But God has been part of rebuilding it since the time of the crash.” As Cheyenne Bishop Paul Etienne put it,
“For all of us, as Catholics and Christians, the cross is at the heart of our lives” . . . . The trials are different, but if we deal with them appropriately, they are all a source of insight, not just into ourselves, but to the human experience.
“This is one of those encounters of the cross. It involves real death and resurrection.”
Read the whole story here. Kudos to the Star-Tribune for an excellent article.
[H/t Bobby Ross Jr. at GetReligion; Image by Dan Cepeda/Star-Tribune]
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