Christopher Ruddy
Tuesday, June 12, 2001

He could have acted simply as Tim McVeigh's last parish priest, quietly conferring with the murderer, praying for his immortal soul, seeking God's favor as only a priest might.

Instead, the good Father was looking for a TV camera and a microphone.

The publicity-seeking priest, pastor of the Parish of St. Margaret Mary Church, which includes the Terre Haute federal prison where McVeigh died, had a unique opportunity to save the soul of one Timothy McVeigh.

But instead of praying, fasting and lighting votive candles, Father Ashmore was busy pushing his agenda and finding his 15 minutes of fame. He is the Judge Ito of the McVeigh case.

What is Father's agenda?

Well, Father is an opponent of the death penalty and for years has been an activist in "abolitionist" circles.

Father is a political activist with a collar. I don't totally disagree with his views on the death penalty. I, too, have reservations about the death penalty because sometimes, maybe too often, the wrong people are sentenced to death.

But that isn't the case with McVeigh. He was an admitted mass murderer. But Father doesn't see it that way. He has all of his priorities screwed up because he is pushing a political and not a spiritual agenda.

Frankly, what Father does with his political vocation is his business. Fine with me. But when Father starts talking about moral and religious matters, something he apparently knows little about, he crosses a line.

On Sunday, Father proclaimed, "The Tim McVeigh I know is a very good man, a gracious man, a sensitive and intelligent man who chose to do something very destructive, very violent and very wrong. ... I don't admire the violent act. It was wrong. However, he is still more than just the bomber."

My criticism about Father's comments were among the first to hold him accountable for such a ludicrous statement.

But let me go a step further and say Father's comments are dangerous.

In fact he is committing a gross sin by trying to make Timothy McVeigh out to be, from all available evidence, who we know him not be.

Based on his acts and his failure to show any remorse for killing 168 people, McVeigh is an evil man. The best anyone can say about his soul is that only God knows the final disposition.

Father Ashmore reminds me of the many clergy in Nazi Germany who failed to condemn Hitler and his evil band of thugs. Perhaps Father Ashmore believes Hitler, too, was a "very good man" who happened to have committed some violent acts.

Did Father hear McVeigh's final words, the poem that so defiantly and arrogantly declares: "I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul"? As a Christian, I believe that as a sinner I must allow Christ to be the master of my fate and the captain of my soul. McVeigh felt otherwise.

Father was happy to hold a press conference to reveal to the world media yesterday that Tim McVeigh did receive the Last Rites of the Catholic Church, a Sacrament.

"Tim was raised Catholic," Ashmore said. "He knows when you ask for that, it's like saying, 'I'm sorry for everything I've done, Lord. Please love me.'"

Funny that in six years Tim never uttered such thoughts or showed any sense of sorrow or guilt for his murderous act against innocent men, women and children.

It is true that Tim McVeigh could have asked for forgiveness as a last act, and maybe he treated his communion wafer with a little more reverence than the two bowls of ice cream he gobbled up before dying. Perhaps not.

I'll leave that judgment up to God, not to me, not to Father Ashmore. God only.

McVeigh is gone but dangerous people like Father Ashmore are still around to say things like "Tim was raised Catholic ..." and using his religious garb to push his political agenda.

Give me a break, Father. Tim was not a Catholic in good standing. Hitler was raised Catholic and so was Goering and so was Speer and many others who turned out be very evil people.

People like Ashmore who ascribe goodness to such evil people are committing a sin, a terrible sin that will lead others astray and confuse them about how they should confront and reject evil.

Sadly, people look to clergy like Father Ashmore as a moral compass, to make sense of their lives and to make decisions that will affect their lives here on earth and in the hereafter.

But what these innocent people don't understand is that Father Ashmore is a publicity-seeking political activist with a collar.

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Domestic Terrorism