#121 – Stephen Donnelly

A Catholic Priest Living Two Lives – Beloved by His Community & Addicted to Cocaine

Stephen Donnelly’s memoir, A Saint and a Sinner, details the rise and fall of a beloved Catholic priest living two lives. Having been enticed by a lifestyle that involved drinking and drugging in his 20’s, it may seem odd that Stephen entered seminary to become a priest in his 30’s. 

But at the age of 42, Stephen was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. He stood before God, the bishop, and the congregation, and made promises he struggled to keep. Three years into his priesthood Stephen descended deeper into a world of cocaine, alcohol abuse, and relationships with women.

When his drug use became known, fellow priests intervened, and after multiple stints in rehab, Stephen turned his life around and became well-known in Alcoholics Anonymous circles as the “Irish priest with a problem.” 

Stephen’s memoir includes many stories about repentance, regret, transformation, forgiveness, and redemption. His story is a brutally honest reminder that drug addiction can affect anyone – even a Roman catholic priest.

Additional Information

Connect with Stephen Donnelly

• Website & Book | asaintandasinner.com

Connect The Courage to Change

• Podcast Website | lionrock.life/couragetochangepodcast
• Podcast Instagram | @couragetochange_podcast
• Podcast Facebook | @thecouragetochangepodcast
• Podcast Email | podcast@lionrock.life
• YouTube | The Courage to Change Playlist

Lionrock Resources

• Lionrock Life Mobile App | lionrock.life/mobile-app
• Support Group Meetings | lionrock.life/meetings

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Episode Transcript

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Coming up on this episode of The Courage to Change.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I’m curious about what it looks like for a priest to go buy cocaine. Is this a plain-clothes operation?

Stephen Donnelly:

Some people would say, “Who in their right mind would sell cocaine to a priest?” I wasn’t going down to 5th Avenue and 32nd Street to buy my cocaine. Early on, I was buying from a second-hand or middle person and then after my consumption started to get bigger or greater is I asked him, “Who do you get this from?”

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Hello beautiful people. Welcome to The Courage to Change, a recovery podcast. My name is Ashley Loeb Blassingame and I am your host. Today, we have Stephen Donnelly. Stephen Donnelly’s memoir A Saint and a Sinner details the rise and fall of a beloved Catholic priest living two lives. Having been enticed by a lifestyle that involved drinking and drugging in his 20s, it may seem odd that Stephen entered seminary to become a priest in his 30s. But at the age of 42, Stephen was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. He stood before God, the bishop, and the congregation and made promises he struggled to keep.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Three years into his priesthood, Stephen descended deeper into a world of cocaine, alcohol abuse, and relationships with women. When his drug use became known, fellow priests intervened and after multiple stints in rehab, Stephen turned his life around and became well-known in Alcoholics Anonymous circles as the Irish priest with a problem.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Stephen’s memoir includes many stories about repentance, regret, transformation, forgiveness, and redemption. His story is a brutally honest reminder that drug addiction can affect anyone, even a Roman Catholic priest. Stephen, my Catholic priest friend, my sober Catholic priest friend. This was super fun. Stephen’s story it’s a perfect example of how addiction doesn’t care who you are, what promises you made and to whom. I love this line that “Stephen descended deeper into the world of cocaine, alcohol abuse, and relationships with women” because I was like, “That sounds really fun.” Stephen thought so too.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

What I thought was interesting, aside of course from the Roman Catholic priest part, was addiction spoke to Stephen during his times of use and while he was in seminary, and then of course all the way up unto the point where had an intervention because the spiritual aspect, a lot of the time in the 12 steps it talks about a spiritual malady. And through this, Stephen is engaged in a very robust spiritual life while also being addicted to cocaine and living this double and sometimes even triple life.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I found it very interesting to hear a perspective where that wasn’t enough and I know a lot of people think that, “Oh, if you have a strong faith or if you go to church, these people don’t do these things.” There’s a lot of thoughts around like, “If you do this, if you go to church every Sunday, or if you are truly devout, that will stop you from doing these other things.” And here’s an example of addiction just being stronger. And I love that he talks about what he’s done in his recovery and really explains the mindset of a priest in the grips of addiction. I know you will be very entertained and intrigued by this story so I look forward to hearing all of your feedback.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Talk to us on Instagram about any of your thoughts, ideas, questions. We look forward to hearing from you. Episode 121. Let’s do this.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You’re listening to The Courage to Change, a recovery podcast. We are a community of recovering people who have overcome the odds and found the courage to change. Each week, we share stories of recovery from substance abuse, eating disorders, grief and loss, childhood trauma, and other life-changing experiences. Come join us no matter where you are on your recovery journey.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Stephen, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

Stephen Donnelly:

And I thank you for having me as a guest.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

This is very exciting. We start this show with a bad hair picture, a bad hair photo, and I have your photo here. We posted it on our Instagram with the episode. Tell me about the photo that you sent me. Tell me about what’s going on in this photo and tell me about your hair cut.

Stephen Donnelly:

Well, that first and foremost was back in the ’70s. I was in college at the time and perms were an order of haircuts for many of us, male and female. I had a friend who was a beautician, hair dresser, and I went to her and I said, “Annette, is there any chance that I can get a perm?” And she said, “Of course.” So she permed me and I probably had that hairstyle my sophomore and junior years of college. And any time that it started to grow out, I would just go back to Annette and get another perm. And it was very easy especially in the summertime, go swimming come out of the water and you didn’t even need a pick, you just fluffed it up and all was well.

Stephen Donnelly:

And a little bit else with that perm is back in the mid ’70s there was a soap opera, General Hospital, and the two stars of the show were, using stage names, Luke Spencer and Laura and Luke was tall, slim, and had a perm, Anthony Geary’s his real name. And oft times people would when I was walking down the sidewalk or in a restaurant, people would look and I was even asked frequently was I Anthony Geary, was I Luke from General Hospital. And I got a little play out of it but that was, my God, 45 years ago. A long time ago.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I love it. I have really naturally curly hair that I straighten so to me the idea of a perm is insanity. I can see how that would be really in. How old are you in this photo that I have, that’s on our Instagram?

Stephen Donnelly:

Probably 19, 20, 21, right around 20 years old, 46 years ago. Sure, mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Okay, okay. So for a little background information, at this time, so you’re one of four kids and your father was an alcoholic, mom threw him out, and you were one of the only kids that went to church every week and you thought that you were a kid of faith and you also wanted to be a police officer, a priest or a police officer. And at this time is around the time that you actually start drinking and using, right, around 21?

Stephen Donnelly:

Yes, yes. As I had drank and smoked pot in my teens, but it was around that period 20, 21 where I was introduced to cocaine at 21 in California with my cousin and the drinking started to build and build from 20, 21 years old and foreword.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So I find it interesting, I was reading through some of your background and I was like, “Okay.” I’m trying to put a picture together of you, who you were, and what the order of events were. I find it very interesting that you had aspirations, you’re a child, a kid of faith and you also wanted to go into law enforcement and then started using cocaine and alcohol. And I wondered, a lot of parents think that if your kid goes to church, if they have a strong faith that these are inoculations against drug use or alcohol abuse. What do you think of that? How did you reconcile those things?

Stephen Donnelly:

I would reconcile it by saying that regardless of one’s level of faith, and I would suppose, I would almost state that my faith was very profound but for an addictive person is once we need to get outside of ourselves and yes, we can turn to God but we can also turn away in the sense of my minor god became my addiction, became my alcohol, became my cocaine. And even though I continued to go to church, I continued to pray, I was so wrapped up into my drugs of choice that the religion was just something almost like a mask that, “Okay, I’m going to church, I’m okay.”

Stephen Donnelly:

And I found in ministry after I became a priest that that was quite common that people, I love the word you use inoculation is almost like now the key word is vaccination, but it’s the addiction has the power over it. And once I got completely absorbed in it, church was something that yes I went every week, I prayed every day but part of that prayer was praying that I would have enough money for my next gram of cocaine or whatever and drink. So I’m sure that for many people it was an inoculation, it prevented them from going off to the wild like I did, but I think when we come into recovery we go back to that God of our understanding, of our youth, and realize we do have a God of forgiveness and I just had turned away from that God in the sense of not turning my will over to God and letting God help me get away from my addiction which He has later on in life, of course.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. It’s interesting though because in a sense you use the term turning away from God and I think this is something that is talked about a lot in recovery, we turned our back on, these are terms that we hear. In your case though, you start using around 21 and then in your 30s you get called to the priesthood. You actually turned towards what one, there’s the house of God like the religion, the structural part of religion and God but go with me here, which is you were using and turned toward religion in this case. And to me, I went to Catholic school for eight years, I started in first grade at Sacred Heart. I’m not Catholic so it didn’t have the same effect on me going home and having my parents be Catholic, et cetera.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

But I can say that I thought that I would be interested to hear what kind of stories, what kind of dialog was going on in your head while you’re simultaneously drinking and using and then get called to the priesthood and continue that because as I have experienced, I’ll just stick to Catholicism, those two things are really hard to reconcile in the same moment.

Stephen Donnelly:

Absolutely. I concur. And I think for me is to put a timeline on it. Late 20s, early 30s, using. I was working. I was in retail store management, did well, never had any problems. I wasn’t calling out sick and I wasn’t doing chaotic things, so to speak. And after the call to the priesthood or during the call to the priesthood, my cocaine use went down, my drinking went down. And while in the seminary, it was a six-year program, I wasn’t abstinent in any means but I was a light weekend warrior. I was turning to God to study and pray and I think during that six-year period my usage certainly subsided quite a bit.

Stephen Donnelly:

And then I was ordained a Catholic priest at 42, it went wild. I was living a dualistic, a double life. And I think that turning to the religion was a very positive influence for me to cut back and reduce my consumption of alcohol and cocaine. And it was, not a dry period, not at all, but actually there was periods of abstinence completely especially during the season of Lent. And I didn’t think I had a problem because if I could give it up for 40 days, I don’t have a problem. The classic denial. Religion, Catholicism certainly helped me during that training period, so to speak, to reduce what I was doing.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

That makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. You grew up in Long Island in a town called Deer Park. Your dad was what you refer to as a full-blown alcoholic. What did you know when you were growing up, what was your home life like? And what did you know about alcoholism?

Stephen Donnelly:

What I knew about it was the fact that my father, there was always liquor and beer in the house. And I would’ve been eight, nine, 10 years old, and my parents got divorced when I was about 10. And what I knew is my grandfather, my dad’s father, was an alcoholic as well. My dad had three sisters who were all alcoholics. My grandmother on my mother’s side was an alcoholic. So any time there was a party at the house, alcohol was flowing. And I remember my father would be driving somewhere with a beer between his legs and I’d be sitting in the front seat so I was very cognizant of alcohol and not realizing what alcoholism was as a young lad of 10 but certainly lived around it.

Stephen Donnelly:

Then after the divorce, my father remarried and we would go stay with him every other weekend. And I still remember vividly on Friday afternoons before we got to his house, before we picked up the pizza pie for Friday night dinner, we’d stop at the liquor store as well. And dad was off over the weekend and drinking Friday night, Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening, and then of course Sunday he would take us to church or at least take a couple of us to church and then bring us home. I remember more times with my father drunk, his drunkenness than he was sober.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. I think that sounds like a very classic description. Had you ever heard that word?

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [0:17:09]

Stephen Donnelly:

No. I never remember my mother saying, “Your father’s an alcoholic.” I’m not saying it wasn’t in their vocabulary but I think my first time recognizing alcoholism, I don’t want to sound naïve, was probably in high school when I would hear about it maybe in a public health class or science class and different things. And to remember back then 50 years ago, people didn’t consider it a disease. I’d have to say in the 21st century, some people don’t consider it a disease. And it was talking with friends and when we would go out and drink after the football, basketball, baseball game somebody might say, “Oh, my uncle’s an alcoholic.” And I really could not have defined it at that point and time.

Stephen Donnelly:

And then I suppose when I got into college and would hear more of it and probably witness it. To remember also back then, people didn’t come out like they do today and, “John Brown is going away to rehab and John Brown starred in three different movies or played for the Los Angeles Lakers.” We didn’t hear that back then. So I guess it was in college I finally understood what alcoholism was. And of course, I denied that I was an alcoholic. I was certainly in my preliminary stages, maybe at the secondary stages, but I never said I was an alcoholic probably until I got into rehab at 42 years old.

Stephen Donnelly:

So when I got to rehab after the intervention, and then I had to admit that I was an alcoholic and the admittance is the easy part, the acceptance is so much tougher.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yes, yes. You went to school to be a police officer, is that accurate?

Stephen Donnelly:

Yes, it was. I went to college, I got a degree in criminal justice. This was in the mid ’70s and I took a number of civil service examinations for county police officers, New York City police officer, state trooper. And I would score well but it was also a time period where men and women were coming back from the Vietnam conflict and they would get 10 bettering credits, well deserved for doing their service. So for example, if I scored a 93 on examination and somebody else scored an 85 but had served in Vietnam in active duty, they would’ve got 10 extra points.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Got it, got it.

Stephen Donnelly:

So they bumped me out, which it happened. And as I look back, I was disappointed during that time. But as life moves forward, I accepted it that it wasn’t God’s call for me to become a police officer or going through law enforcement.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

How did you get the call to the priesthood? What did that look like?

Stephen Donnelly:

It was a beautiful story. I was very active in Knights of Columbus, some people call it the right arm of the Catholic church. It’s a Catholic internal organization, Knights of Columbus. The women have what they call the Columbiettes and they asked me to become the religious liaison because they knew, the people in Knights of Columbus, knew that I went to church frequently and had somewhat a repertoire.

Stephen Donnelly:

So one of my responsibilities as being the religion liaison was to arrange a clergy night where I went to the different faith-based communities in Deer Park and asked the pastor, minister, rabbi, invited them to a clergy night where we would all come together and they’d give a little story about their ministry, the church, or whatever. And I invited the pastor of St. Gerard Methodius, my home parish, to come and [inaudible 00:21:18]. And after that evening, at the end of the evening, he looked at me and he said, “Stephen,” he says, “have you ever considered becoming a priest?” He says, “You’d be a fine candidate.” And that was actually the first time that anybody had ever broached that question, that subject to me. And I said, “Well, I haven’t but I could think about it.”

Stephen Donnelly:

And lo and behold about six months later, the Dioceses of Rockville Centre, which is two counties Nassau and Suffolk counties here on Long Island, had a Call by Name program in which they asked people in church, in the pews, to think of somebody in their family or in their neighborhood who may be a candidate for priesthood or religious life to become a brother or a sister. And I listened to the pastor speak about the vocations and I said, “Wow, this sounds a little bit interesting.” Two weeks later, I received a letter from the bishop inviting me to an afternoon of reflection that somebody had considered me worthy of that call.

Stephen Donnelly:

I went that afternoon, this would’ve been June of 1990, and listened to different people speak about their personal vocation, their religious life and I signed up, I didn’t sign up in a sense of I was accepted the next day, but I spoke to the vocation director and said, “I would be interested.” And the summer passed by July, August, and then early September I got a phone call from Father Bill [Caney 00:22:51] inviting me to sit down and speak with him and I did that on September 17th, 1990. I began the application process, which was very extensive, and then on December 26th, which happens to be the Feast of Saint Stephen, many people know it as the day after Christmas or Boxing Day, but with the name Stephen I know it as the Feast of Saint Stephen, I received a letter with my acceptance to not so much the priesthood but to seminary which is the formation process leading up to priesthood.

Stephen Donnelly:

I was as happy as a pig in whatever and started to tell everybody. During the application process, I was very quiet about it because I’ve always had this fear of rejection and how would it be if I told Ashley and everybody else in my life that I was applying and that I did not get accepted? So late 1990, early 1991, I told many people and then I began the formation process in September of 1991. And in that time period, I took about five months off, I left my place of employment in March of 1991 and I just enjoyed life.

Stephen Donnelly:

And as I alluded to earlier, my alcohol and cocaine consumption, I wouldn’t say minimal, but certainly not alcoholic or drug-addicted behavior because I had something, a goal in front of me and I didn’t want to mess it up. That began a period from 1991 to ’97 where yes, I did use cocaine, I did drink but never publicly intoxicated or getting jammed up so to speak with cocaine.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

What is it about, as someone who used a lot of drugs and alcohol particularly at a young age, what is it about priesthood that spoke to you and made you think that this is something that I am capable of doing even though I am currently dabbling in these things? And why the desire, the celibacy aspect of it, was that daunting to you at all?

Stephen Donnelly:

Yes. Great question. To address the second half, the celibacy yes, it was daunting but I figured that I was giving myself to God, and not that I’m being married to God, but that this would be my life. And for the first five years, four and a half years of my priesthood formation I remained celibate until on my internship year that I met a woman and began a relationship.

Stephen Donnelly:

But what called me to the priesthood, I could easily answer God and that would be correct, but it was the ability to help others. I always thought of myself as a generous person, a traveled person. And even though I had my own issues, I felt that I had the capacity to help others through different problems and situations. And I would think that so much of my ministry after I became a priest was helping others, especially, especially after I got clean and sober.

Stephen Donnelly:

But even before that, people would ask me, “Oh Father, I’m having this difficulty. Can I sit down and talk with you?” And I am codependent so I do enjoy helping others and putting the next person, the other person in front of myself. And not realizing during my active drinking and drugging that if I didn’t take care of myself, I certainly could not be 100% viable to someone else, but that’s only in retrospect.

Stephen Donnelly:

So my first few years of priesthood, helping others, yes, did people come to me and say, “Thank you very much, you got me through this situation, this crisis,” whatever but I realized after getting clean and sober how much better I was at helping others.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I’m curious about what it looks like for a priest to go buy cocaine. Is this a plain-clothes operation?

Stephen Donnelly:

Yes. Wonderful, wonderful because some people would say, “Who in their right mind would sell cocaine to a priest?” I wasn’t going down to 5th Avenue and 32nd Street to buy my cocaine. Early on, I was buying from a secondhand or middle person. And then after my consumption started to get bigger or greater is I asked him, “Who do you get this from? And can you introduce me?”, and rather than this gentleman stepping on it so to speak and shortchanging me, I went right to the source, a dealer who was getting cocaine right off the [inaudible 00:28:36] planes coming up from Bogota, Columbia.

Stephen Donnelly:

And of course, my usage went up. And he knew that I was a priest. This gentleman owned a restaurant and I would go to the restaurant, walk in the back door sometimes plain clothes, sometimes in a sweater or sport shirt, and a couple of times, not often, but a couple of times with the black shirt on and a white collar. And coming in through the back door, of course, who was in the kitchen? A couple of Latinos and I do have some proficiency in the Spanish language so I’d be talking to them and asking them where this gentleman was and then he would come back. He might’ve been out in the bar area, restaurant and we’d go into his office and I would get it from him.

Stephen Donnelly:

But it wasn’t as though, I would think, that from the time I was ordained to the time I stopped, to be honest, I don’t remember buying from anybody else except this gentleman. I just figured, “Okay, this is the way it goes.” And the stuff that I was buying was good. So if he wasn’t around … This is the thing too. I was able to abstain for periods of time and that’s why I never considered myself an addict because I could stop for a week or two. I went to Columbia in 1997 and didn’t use cocaine the whole time, the four weeks I was in Columbia.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Well, that’s silly.

Stephen Donnelly:

Yes. There’s invincibility about it. And I also was able to hide it, I had a girlfriend from the previous ordination until after coming back from rehab and hid it from her. When they had the intervention, five years of a fairly good relationship when I had to tell her I was up in rehab and she said, “Why?” And so I just had this aura about me that I was different, not because I was a priest, but because I was able to hide my usage. She knew that I drank and she accepted that and I would just not use in her presence.

Stephen Donnelly:

Yeah, I built up this, I don’t want to say wonderful, but this silly life of living probably three different lives. Stephen the priest helping others, taking care of church business. So being a boyfriend to her and then Stephen the drug addict/alcoholic in the privacy of his own room.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

That sounds like a lot to hold on your plate all at once. But the good news is probably that the cocaine probably helped your sermons because I can’t imagine it wouldn’t.

PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [0:31:32]

Stephen Donnelly:

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I do have this gift of gab. I did go to Ireland, being the name Donnelly, and did kiss the Blarney Stone but I didn’t need to get down on my back. At the Blarney Stone, you have to lay down and looking over a tower looking down to the ground and then you kiss the Blarney Stone. But I do have a gift of gab and it certainly helped. Yes, the cocaine certainly helped my energy level and what I would say. I do have to say that a good part of my priesthood was my preaching ability and yes pre recovery but certainly post recovery because many of the gospel passages would have Jesus healing the sick.

Stephen Donnelly:

And when I had the courage, after about eight years of recovery, to announce to people that I was in recovery, the reception that I got was fantastic. People were so supportive of it. I know that it made me a better priest getting into recovery.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh, I’m sure. Stay tuned to hear more in just a moment.

Ashley Jo:

Hi. It’s Ashley Jo, producer of The Courage to Change and I wanted to chime in and let you know about our new mobile app Lionrock.life. It is now available for download on your phone or tablet from the app store or the Google play store. So here’s the down low on the app. The app is designed to streamline your online recovery experience allowing you to view live meetings in progress, join meetings quickly, and build stronger connections in recovery.

Ashley Jo:

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Ashley Jo:

If you have questions or need help, simply visit Lionrock.life/mobile-app. Thanks.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

What was your intervention like? What was the thing that caused you to get into recovery?

Stephen Donnelly:

The intervention was November 29th, 2000 and what had happened is the sister, the nuns, Sister Lorraine was the principal of the school was in recovery and I’m not breaking [inaudible 00:35:00] because the same way in the book I used names to protect the innocent. But she noticed things about me and it was in October of 2000 that there was a subway series between the New York Mets, my favorite baseball team, and the New York Yankees and I remember going into the school cafeteria and I had a Met jacket on and always got along with the children, the students and whatever.

Stephen Donnelly:

And I got a chant going where half the cafeteria, maybe 150 children were shouting, “Mets,” and the other half were shouting, “Yankees.” And the sister came down wondering what the devil was going on and she saw me, the mastermind, and that was one piece of it as I look back. Plus, the housekeeper in the rectory had a daughter who was a cocaine addict and I was a sloppy, at least on one occasion I was a sloppy cocaine addict and I had a cut straw in the top of my wastepaper receptacle and she saw that, she gave it to the pastor. She said that she believed it was cocaine and he had it tested and sure enough it was. So I think it was between the principal of the school, the cut straw that they determined, and my mannerisms and actions of course as I look back.

Stephen Donnelly:

And the priesthood has an EAP, an Employment Assistance Provider, and they set the intervention up and I was completely thrown a left [inaudible 00:36:36] by it. And when I was told that I was going up to a rehab that afternoon, of course, denial set in. My mother was ill at the time and so I needed to take care of my mother but I hadn’t been taking care of, that all fell in the lap of my younger sister. And lo and behold, two hours after the intervention, there was a van outside the rectory and I was going to upstate New York to rehab not knowing what I was getting into. I can’t say I went kicking and screaming, I was receptive. But basically, the curtain’s drawn and there was no more getting away from it so to speak. So on the afternoon of November 29th, 2000, I’m up at a rehab upstate New York.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

How did your, and you’re also coming clean to your girlfriend at this time, right?

Stephen Donnelly:

I had to that evening when I called because we would speak two or three times a day and see each other two or three times a week at least and I had to tell her. And it was very hard to do. In fact, I was disingenuous that evening because I said, “They sent me to a facility.” I said, “I don’t even know why. They said something with my emotions.” I didn’t even have the courage to be honest with her that night and say that I was an addict and alcoholic.

Stephen Donnelly:

And because I can talk with the best of them, I was able to sneak her up there under the guise that it was my older sister the first Sunday I was there. And the normal policy was you couldn’t have any visitors for eight days but I was connived and manipulated and got her up there under my older sister’s name. And people probably looked suspicious as more people was of Columbian descent and she certainly didn’t look Irish and maybe thought that she just had a different father, I don’t know. And it was very difficult to tell her and yet she supported me 150%. It was just amazing. Amazing.

Stephen Donnelly:

And I guess when the cat got out of the bag, it was just, “Okay, I need to come clean.” Yet, I still struggled with coming clean about everything. When we talk about the fourth step, there were things that I didn’t put down on my first fourth step, not at all, not at all. It took months to come clean with certain things.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

How big of a deal is the celibacy as a Catholic priest? As I understood it, it’s a pretty prominent part of being a priest.

Stephen Donnelly:

Yes, it’s very prominent in the sense that when you’re ordained as a priest you take three vows. You take a vow of obedience, which means that you obey the bishop of your diocese and any of his successors. You take the vow of simple lifestyle, not poverty. Certain religious orders you take a vow of poverty but our call was to simple lifestyle which meant that you weren’t going to the French Riviera every year on vacation, you probably weren’t driving a BMW or Mercedes. Some priests had inherited money and they didn’t get their money taken away but you weren’t living an exorbitant lifestyle. And then third vow was the vow of celibacy which meant no sexual relationships with anybody including yourself. It’s a struggle.

Stephen Donnelly:

And as having conversed with many priests, I can say ultimately that there are many homosexual priests, some who choose to live celibate and some who don’t. There are heterosexual priests, as I was, who may, as I did, have a girlfriend. And what percent maintain that vow of celibacy, I’m not going to put a statistic, but I would say that there’s many, many priests break the vow of celibacy during their priesthood.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I would imagine. I would imagine that that would be a very difficult, if not nearly impossible, order for most people.

Stephen Donnelly:

Yeah. It’s because it’s against the natural order of who we are as human beings. I believe human beings are made to be in relationship and what level of relationship and to maintain celibacy, which I did not do until my last eight years of priesthood, that I was a celibate priest from 2010 until 2018 when I was suspended and it’s difficult. It’s very difficult. One of the difficulties that I found is not that people, if you’re a virgin going in you’ve got to be a virgin coming out, but having been involved in relationships pre priesthood and during priesthood, it’s almost like, I don’t want to minimalize it, but if you’ve never had an ice cream soda, sundae, you don’t know what it is and somebody says, “Oh, you want a chocolate ice cream soda?” And you just, “No, no, thank you.”

Stephen Donnelly:

Well, having been involved in a sexual relationship, it’s difficult to put it to bed, no pun intended, but to live a celibate life. And it’s a struggle. It is a struggle.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

The Protestants allow you to get married. If it’s such a big piece of it, and you’re standing up at the pulpit and you’re telling people how to live their lives, how does that not conflict even in recovery, especially in recovery where there’s such a degree of emphasis on honesty and practicing the principles and all of our affairs? How does that track because that would seem like something that would be a really important piece of these two things don’t work for me anymore?

Stephen Donnelly:

Yes. I got into recovery, I continued my relationship with [Martika 00:43:31] and then I, as crazy as I was, I got involved with another woman. Here I was sober, I was going to meetings, but I wasn’t honest because I was still breaking that vow. And then when the proverbial stuff hit the fan and the two women found out about each other, I was up the river without a paddle. But even in recovery, I still had that manipulative part of me of weaseling my way out of situations. And it then in 2003, I took a leave of absence because it just got to be overwhelming. I was sober and I guess through talking to my sponsor and talking to priests as well, I never had a sponsor who was a priest, but every one of my sponsors has been Catholic not that that makes a difference, but it was when I decided I have to straighten out.

Stephen Donnelly:

And then the first relationship was over and my second relationship basically said to me, “What is it you’re going to do? We can’t continue like this.” My first relationship was very accepting of the fact that I was a priest and I was her boyfriend. The second woman wasn’t as congenial and that type so I decided to take a leave of absence from the priesthood and I went to work in a government position. And then I felt so good about myself because I was sober, I had this girlfriend, I was working, not that priesthood wasn’t work you do get a salary. But I was living a clean life, a clean life and that felt good. And then we broke up.

Stephen Donnelly:

And then for a few year period, I did not have any relationship with anybody and people started to ask me, “Why don’t you go back? Why don’t you go back? You were a great priest.” I went to the bishop in 2009 and asked him, I told him that I’d been living clean and sober but also living a celibate life. So they took me back and I returned to priesthood in 2010. And even at that point, I never thought of going back into relationship with a woman. I just said, “This is what I want to do.” And my time at this one parish in Huntington, New York were the best seven years of my life. I was clean, I was sober, no relationships, no thoughts of relationships, and lived a very good life. Very good life those seven years.

Stephen Donnelly:

And then 2017, I was transferred to another parish and there was a woman there who I tried to help and she took it to another level of helping. And then she made accusations against me and I was suspended, sent to a psychological facility, went through a polygraph examination and all of the stuff of the other women came out. The church did not know of these other women previous to this so I was suspended in 2018, three years ago.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So the woman who made the accusation, the accusation was what? Just that you guys had had sex or was there some-

Stephen Donnelly:

Right.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Okay. So it’s an accusation that’s not legal for the church but it’s not illegal anywhere else?

PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [0:47:37]

Stephen Donnelly:

Correct. And since then she has filed a civil suit against Stephen Donnelly, the parish that I was in Maria Regina and the Diocese of Rockville Centre. I was originally going to be deposed May of 2020 but because of COVID that deposition never came to fruition and then in September of 2020, almost a year ago, the diocese filed for bankruptcy and you cannot have litigation against a corporation in bankruptcy. So the case is basically in limbo. What her charges are against me is that I had used my supervisory position, I was not a supervisor, I was not the pastor, and really the case has no merit but she’s just, as many other people, looking for money I would suppose. I’ve had no contact with her since July of 2018 nor do I care to and it is what it is. Yes.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

It seems like your relationship with the belief system of the Catholic church has been quite a struggle with the vow of celibacy, the premarital sex, all the different aspects of it that it has not been a kind process to you. That’s a different relationship than your, I’m guessing, personal relationship with God but that relationship with the actual church and the organization that that’s one relationship. And it doesn’t sound like it’s been a very pleasant one.

Stephen Donnelly:

Well, I would say that I recognize church laws. Do I agree with every church law? No, not particularly. Of course, to come out at the pulpit and say something like that it would be abominable, I would never think of doing that. But yes, I did have that struggle and I think part of the struggle wasn’t in my formation process but it was having started a relationship previous to my ordination and then it was like I just thought it was okay. It certainly wasn’t okay according to church teaching but I just thought it was okay. So yes, it was a personal struggle about what I believed was okay and then there was the struggle with what the church believed was okay. But I do say that at the present time, I still go to church. I only go to church on Sundays, I pray every day and different people will ask me for prayers and I would respect that and honor that.

Stephen Donnelly:

And when people have asked me about, “Well, being the fact that you seem to like women, why wouldn’t you jump and become an Episcopal priest or Presbyterian or Protestant minister and get out of the relationship?” But since I’ve been suspended in 2018, my two badges of courage, so to speak, is number one that I’ve not relapsed. I’ve not picked up a drink or a drug even though at the present time I have nobody monitoring me in any way whatsoever. And two, that I’ve not even had a date. It’s really crazy to think about it when I was an active priest, I was involved in relationships and now that I’m living, I don’t want to say the life of bachelor, but living-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Civilian.

Stephen Donnelly:

… a civilian life. Yeah, that’s a proper word, in the world is I’m not interested in getting involved in a relationship. What a dichotomy, isn’t it?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

It is. It really is. Us alcoholics, we are dichotomous people.

Stephen Donnelly:

Yes, we are. Yes, we are.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I buy it hook, line, and sinker.

Stephen Donnelly:

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Ashley.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You’re welcome. So you’ve been in recovery for 19 years both in and out of priesthood. What are the things, the basic things, that have kept you sober no matter what is going on in your life?

Stephen Donnelly:

I choose to stipulate three different words that has helped me on a daily basis because I do live this program one day at a time. I don’t look in the rear view mirror. I see through the windshield about what’s ahead of me and I see good things. Yes, I have to recognize those things in the rear view mirror the further away they get, the more distant they are. But three words that I use every day, every day, and when I work with sponsees and I do have three of them at the present time is the first word I use is gratitude. I give gratitude to God of my understanding each and every day and frequently throughout the day. The gratitude of a new day, the gratitude of my health. I’m 66 years old, I don’t take any medicine whatsoever. I’m healthy, I exercise, I walk every day. So I give gratitude to God for that.

Stephen Donnelly:

I surrender. I surrender each morning to this disease of alcoholism, to the disease of addiction knowing where it took me. And I threw up the white flag a long time ago. I didn’t lose the battle, I won the war. I won the war against addiction for today, and only for today. And the third word that I, part of my mantra, would be acceptance. I accept the fact that I am an alcoholic. I accept the fact that I’m a drug addict. I accept the fact that I cannot pick up a drink, that I cannot pick up a drug. And I’ve been very blessed in my sobriety in a sense that I’ve been in situations where alcohol was flowing, so to speak. As a sports fan, I’ve been to many sporting events through my years of sobriety and never thought of having a beer. I still have a brother and two nephews who drink, I don’t want to take anybody’s inventory.

Stephen Donnelly:

But if I live those three words every day of gratitude, surrender, and acceptance, I have a good chance. I go to about four or five AA meetings a week. I’m active. At the current time, I’m not doing any service except the service of helping others. I don’t have any commitments presently. I speak to my sponsor once a week, I speak to my sponsees every other day. And I just try to do the right thing each day. You know, bringing these principles into all of our affairs, I do that. When people say what step you’re working on, I say all 12 because that’s basic where I am today and I embrace other people, anniversaries, and whatever. I do celebrate, actually it’s one month from today I’ll celebrate 19 years. But I celebrate every day. To me, 19 years, nine years, nine months, nine days, if you haven’t picked up a drink or a drug today, you’re doing the right thing.

Stephen Donnelly:

So for me, it’s living this program one day at a time and living life on life’s terms. A lot of the different AA idioms and sayings and “Let go, let God” and “One day at a time”, I do live it one day at a time, but I suppose I subscribe to them. And it’s a great life. A great life. During this past year with COVID, I heard of people who’ve gone out, people who have come back, and people who came in during COVID where the only alternative for many of them was Zoom. And I give them so much credit to begin their journey of sobriety with Zoom, without that personal contact. I love people and I love being at meetings.

Stephen Donnelly:

And during COVID, I was blessed to be in a group where there would be eight of us who met in a living room. No, we did not wear masks but yes, we did social distance and we were meeting every morning. And then as it got warmer, we moved the meeting outside. Then as it started to get colder, there was a patio and the gentleman that runs the house put up this big tank with space heaters. New York gets very cold, by the way. We’re not the weather you’re, although today we’re probably hotter than you are but that’s okay. I would say in the last year, I’ve been to a minimum of 300 meetings.

Stephen Donnelly:

And when people say, “Why do you go to so many meetings? You’re clean and sober.” I say, “Because I don’t know which one I need.” I could hear something on a Tuesday morning, I could hear something on a Thursday afternoon and not hear anything the rest of the week that I really embrace. And I’m there for others. I’m there for myself but I’m there for others. What a wonderful program. Wonderful program. I definitely am a happy customer of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Absolutely. What made you decide to do your fourth step out loud through the book?

Stephen Donnelly:

Wonderful, wonderful question. What happened with that, and I love how you stated that because it is a fourth step, what happened was a woman Diane O’Brien who was a ghost writer, coauthor, whatever, words you’d like to use for it called me in January of 2019. She knew I had been sent away and she asked how I was doing. And I said, “Very good.” She says, “You know, Father, there’s so many different rumors floating around.” I said, “Well, I’ll give you the gospel truth.” And I told her and she said to me, “You know, Father, you are the most compelling person I have ever met and I’d love to work with you on a book.” My jaw dropped six feet to the ground, well, five and a half feet to the ground and I said, “Why?”

Stephen Donnelly:

And I had helped her and her family through a very tragic incident back in 2011 and stayed close to her family through that time. And when we first got together, I said, “How is it that we’ll do this?” And she says, “Tell me your story.” It was almost like I saw Diane as a sponsor or maybe even a confessor and I just had that grace to be rigorously honest, brutally honest, whatever words they are and it just started to flow. As we know, half measures availed us nothing. And I said, “If we’re going to go through with this project of writing this book, I’m going to be 100% honest.”

Stephen Donnelly:

Although there’s things that [inaudible 00:59:45] at some people may disagree with or whatever, this is my story and I’m holding to it. Yeah, it’s a four-step to the world. But I do respect people’s anonymity, I do respect people I worked with in the program, and I’ve never broken anybody’s anonymity or shared things, “Oh, do you know what John did?” No, I’m not like that and that’s part of my Catholicism as being a confessor on Saturday afternoons. Things that people told me never broke the confessional shield and I never shared them with anybody. And I hold the same thing when I work with sponsees. I would never reveal what a sponsee shared with me and I’ve done a lot of fifth steps with people, both sponsees and non sponsees in the program.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

It’s such a testament and it’s such an example of how alcoholism, addiction has no, it doesn’t care what color, race, creed, age. It affects everyone equally. And just the example of you having done this and talking about it out loud, I think, is really important. I’m sure there’s a lot of people who struggle to see priests as human beings and also can’t imagine, maybe they think that their faith should be something that protects them from addiction and when it doesn’t I’m sure that that’s incredibly painful. Your story is one that can really break through to that group of people. What has the reception been like of the book?

Stephen Donnelly:

Very well. I currently live in an apartment in Huntington and I would think, I can’t put a number, but anywhere from 500 to 1,000 people in Huntington alone have read the book and 98%, almost 99%, of people who’ve come up to me and seen me in restaurants, supermarkets, gas stations, the day-to-day living have just said, “What an amazing story and the courage that you have.” One percent, maybe one and a half percent have said, “How could you have remained on the altar as a cocaine addict with a girlfriend?” And my response to them is, “I’m an addict and alcoholic and I wasn’t being rational with my life.” I really believe that my story is one of forgiveness, one of redemption in a sense of how we can fall down but get back up.

Stephen Donnelly:

And it’s in getting back up, it’s in the recovery and the distancing ourselves from a situation whether it be addiction, alcoholism, or whatever it is is what makes us true heroes. And I’m not trying to put a crown on my head or whatever because all I have is today. I could relapse tomorrow and start over. That doesn’t come into my focus per se but I see it as I fell down, I got back up, I fell down, I had different issues in my life with addiction and women and today I know that the God of my understanding loves me, supports me, forgives me, and carries me through today and for the grace of God tomorrow and the next day.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I love it. I love it. And thank you so much for sharing your story, coming on here. Your book is called A Saint and a Sinner: The Rise and Fall of a Beloved Catholic Priest, A Memoir. And where can people find your book or your website Asaintandasinner.com?

Stephen Donnelly:

Yes. The easiest way right now is to get on Amazon, Amazon.com, A Saint and a Sinner. We sold many copies there. We are in a couple of local bookstores here on Long Island and we have just recently, about a month ago, started working with publicists who’s getting it out to influencers and other people. One day we would hope to be in a bookstore, but for today, for the moment, as people could find it on Amazon.com.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Awesome. Thank you so, so much for being here. I really appreciate it. And I appreciate your time and I know lots of people are going to love hearing this.

Stephen Donnelly:

Thank you so much, Ashley. Thank you for your time. Thank you for having me on.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

This podcast is sponsored by Lionrock.life. Lionrock.life is a recovery community offering free online support group meetings, useful recovery information, and entertainment. Visit www.lionrock.life to view the meetings schedule and find additional resources. Find the joy in recovery at lionrock.life.

PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [1:04:28]