Written By: David Yonke
Gerald Robinson, the Toledo priest found guilty of murdering a nun, was remembered in his funeral Mass today (July 11) for decades of service to God, but also for the cloud of controversy that followed his conviction.
Robinson was arrested by cold case detectives in 2004 for the 1980 murder of 71-year-old Sister Margaret Ann Pahl and was convicted of murder on May 11, 2006. He spent the last eight years of his life in prison and died July 4 at age 76, a month after suffering a severe heart attack, at a prison hospice in Columbus.
“We are not gathered here to accuse Father Robinson or to excuse him,” said the Rev. Thomas Extejt in the funeral homily, or sermon. “We are gathered here to celebrate the holy sacrifice of Mass.”
Regarding “the events of April 5th, 1980”—the Holy Saturday morning when Sister Pahl was choked nearly to death and then stabbed 32 times in what police called a ritual killing—“all we can say of that day is that whatever happened that day happened under the eye of almighty God,” Father Extejt said.
The Mass was held in St. Hyacinth Church in the Polish neighborhood near the University of Toledo’s Scott Park campus where Robinson grew up and where he celebrated his first Mass after his ordination in 1964. A crowd of more than 250, including nearly 50 priests, filled most of the pews.
Four Lucas County sheriff’s deputies stood outside the brick church building, but there were no protests or incidents during the one-hour Mass.
Members of SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) held a protest earlier in the day outside the Toledo Catholic Diocese’s downtown headquarters, asking the diocese not to grant Robinson a funeral with “the usual protocol” for priests in good standing.
The Rev. Charles Ritter, administrator of the diocese, said at the funeral that only God knows whether Robinson killed the nun.
“Father Robinson lived for many years under a heavy burden,” Ritter said from the pulpit. “Whether that was the burden of guilt, or the burden of a miscarriage of justice, I do not know. We do not know. Either way, the burden is lifted for him now.”
The Rev. David Lis, a former Roman Catholic priest who converted to the Eastern Orthodox church, said from the pulpit that Robinson “gifted me with his friendship.” He had high praise for the deceased priest who had been his teacher at Central Catholic High School.
“Never have I known a more honorable man,” Lis said. “Never have I met a man more committed to his relationship to Christ. And never have I known a priest so faithful to the that commitment he made 50 years ago when he said ‘yes’ to ordination.”
Robinson selected the readings for his funeral Mass after being told he was terminally ill following a heart attack in late May.
The first reading was from the Book of Wisdom: “But the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them … For if before people, indeed, they be punished, yet is their hope full of immortality.”
Most of the service was in English but it included several hymns and chants in Polish. Robinson was one of the few Toledo-born priests in recent decades who was fluent in Polish, and he was most popular among the tight-knit Polish-Catholic community.
The Rev. Stephen Stanberry, pastor of St. Peter Parish in Archbold and Our Lady of Mercy in Fayette, said he thought Father Extejt’s homily was “perfectly balanced” in recounting Robinson’s good deeds and criminal history.
But Father Stanberry was not pleased with Father Lis’ remarks.
“His canonization of Robinson could be offensive to Sister Margaret Ann Pahl’s family, as well as to victims of clerical sexual abuse,” Father Stanberry said.
Lee Pahl, Sister Pahl’s nephew, said in a statement that he did not understand “why the Catholic Church covered up Sister Margaret Ann’s murder 1980,” nor did he understand why the Vatican never defrocked Robinson after the murder conviction.
What hed does understand, Pahl said, “is that Father Robinson’s real judgment has now taken place. If he did not repent for his sins, we know he will be spending eternity in a worse place than the prison that held him for the past 8 years.”
Following the Mass, Robinson was buried at Calvary Cemetery.
