![]() ![]() ‘‘I saw so many prayers answered, some I’d even consider miracles,’’ Kearney said. Tom Kearney, a board member since 1990 who resigned days after the split with the church, said he wasn’t aware of any abuse or wrongdoing by Brown, whom he’s known since the early 1980s. ‘‘It is a form of 'death penalty’ to an organization,’’ he says. He says suppression isn’t to be taken lightly. Nick Cafardi, a dean emeritus and professor at Duquesne University who’s an expert in church law, calls the archdiocese’s actions severe. A plea for donations is also included.īrown and her remaining followers have resumed ‘‘our mission of contemplative, intercessory and spiritual warfare prayer,’’ she writes.īut religious scholars say it’s unlikely the Intercessors will be able to recover. She vows in the letters to carry on the Intercessors’ prayer mission. Letters from Brown on the Intercessors website say she’s never strayed from the Catholic Church’s teachings or been disobedient. He said the group didn’t have much money for its first 10 or 15 years, then income from Brown’s books and tapes started rolling in. A few of the smaller properties near the main compound were recently put up for sale.įormer Intercessors board member Bob Schropp, who stepped down about a year ago but has stayed in contact with the group, said there were no financial problems when he left. The records show the Intercessors bought or otherwise acquired at least $3.3 million in property since 1993. Online records kept by the Douglas County property assessor show the group owns at least 86 acres in Ponca Hills that have been acquired piecemeal over the years. Its net assets at the end of 2008 were listed as more than $6 million. Intercessors’ 2008 tax return, filed last November, shows the group had almost $4 million in revenue, mostly from its retreats and conferences, and nearly $1.9 million in expenses. Paul, Minn., sisterhood that’s now known as the Contemplatives of the Good Shepherd to form the group, which became affiliated with the Catholic Church in 1992. Intercessors was registered in Nebraska as a religious nonprofit in 1980, with Brown as its founder. Several of the buildings have teal and white accents, matching the colors of the Intercessors' robes. Brown lives at the gated compound with 10 or so members who’ve stayed loyal to her.Īccess to the property is restricted, and the rolling landscape and trees make it difficult to see activity there. Messages left for her at the Intercessors’ office have not been returned, and no one else there has made themselves available for comment. ‘‘They’re always worried about a group becoming a cult,’’ he says.īrown, 80, has denied any wrongdoing. Lawrence Cunningham, theology professor at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., says that as church-affiliated groups grow in size, Catholic leaders become increasingly concerned that their mission is in keeping with church teachings. Suppression is typically reserved for floundering parishes and inactive church groups, but is occasionally used to silence wayward organizations. The church’s split with the Intercessors - known in Catholic circles as ‘‘suppression’’ - is more about control over the group’s form and function, the scholars say. To religious scholars, the dispute typifies the fragile relationships between the mainline church and offshoot groups that take it in uncomfortable directions. Brown claims she was forced out and escorted off the group’s property by authorities. The path that led to the archdiocese’s serious move to ‘‘suppress’’ the group is disputed.Īrchdiocese officials said Brown resigned voluntarily after it raised issues with the way the group was being run. ![]() Known as the Intercessors of the Lamb, the band of penniless men and women took prayer requests from around the world and raked in millions of dollars through religious gatherings and the sale of books and tapes by founder Nadine Brown.īut in mid-October, the Archdiocese of Omaha denounced the group, sending a bus to the compound to whisk away 50 or so members to a retreat 70 miles away.Ĭatholics were warned to disregard Brown’s teachings and stop funding her group amid claims the group’s finances were mismanaged and Brown intimidated its members, who live with few possessions other than the robes she gives them. They lived as hermits, giving up their families, jobs and possessions to live in poverty and pray for man’s sins. ![]() For more than two decades, a group of Roman Catholics secluded themselves on a sprawling, wooded compound in the Ponca Hills north of Omaha. ![]()
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