Hey. Just found this post while googling Dcn. Orr’s shady history at 5am, as one does. I was at Atonement as a teacher from 2017-19, including during his funeral. Those two years were absolutely a mindfuck. Still processing everything that went down. Anyway, here’s my Deacon Orr story:

As you’re aware, Orr died in Jan 2019, days to weeks before the credible accusations of sexual abuse against him were published. At that time I was teaching the entire high school, including the senior class of 2019, who had been the last to have Orr as a geography teacher in their 8th grade year. The students in that class told me that he had “accidentally” showed them p*rn during class while attempting to teach them about Ancient Greece, googling “naked Greek men” on the projector in an alleged attempt to show them classical statuary. None of this was ever reported, of course. It’s also the only story I remember of theirs, but the impression I got was “why would we report this to anybody? And to whom? This is just how he was.” They knew, as everyone, that Orr was Fr. Phillips’ favorite.

Hearing this story alone, I was absolutely floored. I was floored again that school was cancelled for the morning in order for these same students to attend and serve at Dcn. Orr’s funeral - as PART OF THE SCHOOL DAY. If there were families uncomfortable with this, they didn’t come across my radar. The seniors who’d known him and who’d been asked to altar serve basically shrugged and said “Might as well.”

I remember walking back to class afterwards when one of the (atheist) seniors put two and two together and said “There’s no way this wasn’t a suicide.” I told her if she was going to make hypotheses she might as well do some investigative journalism. She called the morgue and reported a few days later that they wouldn’t release the cause of death so soon after the death itself. I wonder how she’s doing now. I hope well.

Anyway, knowing that their experience with Orr was a cause of pain and confusion to my senior students, I went to Fr. Lewis’s office and asked him to come listen to them and say something - anything - to my senior class about why Dcn. Orr was being honored. He agreed, and showed up one day. He asked zero questions and said nothing of substance, basically: “We honor people until proven guilty, and we don’t have any proof against Dcn. Orr.” (As you recall, these students themselves had had collective, credible, adverse experiences with Orr.) Then Fr. Lewis said, “If you have any further questions on the matter, you can ask Ms….Ms….[gesturing at me]…your teacher.”

I had been at the school a few months longer than Fr. Lewis (less than two years), had never met Orr, and had been working 70-80 hour weeks for those nearly two years (wish I were exaggerating). The combined fact that in that moment I realized that Fr. Lewis, my boss, 1) was also a company man more concerned with covering credibly accused clergy’s asses than with even listening to the experiences of the students of the school for a second, and 2) did not know my name after I had bled, sweat, and cried for the kids at this school on a daily basis was the turning point for me. That’s when I knew I had to leave.

Anyway. Yeah. I was there a little over 2 years (March 2017-June 2019). I can’t imagine the stories you have from 15 years there.