A former director of the Demontreville Jesuit Retreat House gained permission to resume some limited ministries at the retreat house beginning last month, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis recently announced.

Jesuit Father Patrick McCorkell had not been permitted to minister in the archdiocese since last May.

Jesuit Father Tom Lawler, Demontreville Jesuit Retreat House’s current director, shared the news with its retreat community via email July 29 that the priest had returned to limited ministry. That news was delivered to the Demontreville team by Jesuit Father Karl Kiser, provincial superior of the Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus, the email said.

Father McCorkell’s faculties for ministry were removed last year due to an allegation, which the archdiocese later determined to be true, that the priest had engaged in inappropriate relationship with a woman.

According to Tim O’Malley, the archdiocese’s director of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment, Father McCorkell recently requested permission to engage in limited ministry at the retreat house, which offers retreats year-round for men. After reviewing documentation of efforts to address his misconduct, Archbishop Bernard Hebda, in consultation with the Ministerial Review Board, granted his request.

As of July 15, the priest has had permission to engage in ministry, which is restricted to certain activities at the retreat house, “such as greeting the men upon their arrival, providing short presentations and leading a morning prayer service,” O’Malley said.

“He is not permitted to engage in any sacramental ministry, in any ministry with women or in any ministry away from the Retreat House,” O’Malley said.

Last May, Archbishop Hebda announced that Father McCorkell’s faculties to minister in the archdiocese had been removed temporarily, in accordance with archdiocesan policy, after the archdiocese received a report that he had engaged in sexual misconduct with an adult woman. The archdiocese’s Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment began an investigation into the allegation and gathered evidence to determine if the allegation was true or not. It presented its findings to the Ministerial Review Board, which advises Archbishop Hebda on matters of clergy misconduct.

According to the archdiocese, Father McCorkell participated in the investigation and provided his account to the MRB.

The board found that that the allegation was true and that Father McCorkell’s conduct violated the archdiocese’s Code of Conduct for Clergy, and it recommended that he not be allowed to engage in public ministry at that time.

Archbishop Hebda accepted the board’s recommendation. He announced the investigation’s findings and his decision about Father McCorkell’s ministry in January, noting that should the priest request “to reengage in public ministry in the Archdiocese, his suitability would be reconsidered at that time and in accordance with Archdiocesan policies and procedures.”

The archbishop’s permission for the priest to reengage in ministry is temporary and it “will last until the Ministerial Review Board conducts a comprehensive review of Fr. McCorkell’s situation in September,” O’Malley said.

At that time, he said, the board could recommend that Father McCorkell’s level of public ministry be expanded, further restricted or left the same.

“Once the Board makes its recommendation, Archbishop Hebda will consider this matter,” O’Malley said.

Ordained in 1974, Father McCorkell had served as the director of the Demontreville Jesuit Retreat House since 2003. The retreat center holds nearly 50 silent retreats for men annually.

The MRB consists of 10 members, including seven lay people, one priest, one deacon and one sister. One is a victim-survivor of clergy sexual abuse. Three have law degrees. One is a medical doctor, and two are psychologists. Nine are Catholic. The non-Catholic is Patty Wetterling, child advocate and mother of Jacob Wetterling, an 11-year-old who was kidnapped and murdered in 1989. The Board’s chairperson, Jeri Boisvert, is the former head of the Minnesota Office of Justice and a longtime parishioner of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis.