The Cult of David Higbee

David Higbee is the founder and leader of St. Irenaeus Ministries, a "Christ-centered faith community" in Rochester, NY. While it is a 501(c)(3) non-profit not affiliated with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester, the St. Irenaeus Ministries claims a Catholic identity. St. Titus Fellowship, one of the particular ministries of the group, has been a meeting place for young adults, primarily in their 20s, for several years. St. Titus Fellowship's pro-life activities are truly admirable.

I've been going to the Friday night discussion groups for more than two years, when I've been in Rochester, though I've been in Steubenville for the majority of the time. In all, I've been to the St. Titus Fellowship approximately 30 times.

I began to see problems with the group almost from the start. While most of the visitors and regulars were assuredly decent and good-hearted individuals, I began to notice the strange dynamics of the group's leader, David Higbee, and his inner circle.

Higbee is a charismatic personality. Passionate, confident in his convictions, and well-read. Higbee converted to the Catholic religion nearly 20 years ago. In 1998 he was even featured on EWTN's The Journey Home where he told his conversion story.

But as I say, something was very strange. At the beginning of every St. Titus meeting, we would sit in a circle and were handed sheets of paper filled with various scriptural verses, lots of commentary, and some questions for discussion. I always wondered, "Who is writing this commentary?" and "Why is the group automatically assuming that it's right?" I mean, what if some of the points happened to be wrong? But Higbee was guiding us. He was leading the discussion. So what could go wrong? Right?

The meetings consisted largely of Higbee pontificating on some subject while the yes-men beside him rang the note, "Yes, that's quite right." There were some genuinely insightful exegetical points made during the meetings. At the same time, Higbee and his yes-men were far too enamored with their own opinions and interpretations. I got used to Higbee's indignant responses to any questioning of the material with which we were provided. I tried to take these outbursts with a grain of salt. Still, I couldn't help but realize that, in a room of anywhere from 10 to 25 impressionable young adults, this was a man who loved his position of influence a little too much.

One day I decided to do a Google search on David Higbee. What I found shocked me. Rochester's local newspaper the Democrat & Chronicle had done a story on David Higbee back in April of 2002 (the 26th, I believe).

The headline read, "Catholic layman fired in abuse case." The story begins, "The dismissal of the religious education director at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Irondequoit stunned parishioners and colleagues of the former Protestant minister. David Higbee, 54, was fired Thursday after Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester officials discovered evidence that he had abused a boy years ago." See http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/674090/posts This was before Higbee was a Catholic, when he was a pastor in Chicago. More info concerning the case was on zoominfo.com under David Higbee at http://www.zoominfo.com/#!search/profile/person?personId=82540856&targetid=profile but this has recently been deleted.

I also found that Higbee had changed his name. His former name was David Kemmerer. I mentioned the name change in an email to Higbee's right hand man, having seen an old article written by him when his name was still Kemmerer (the article can be viewed at http://www.ctlibrary.com/ch/1988/issue18/1816.html). He told me, "I should explain the reason for David's name change. David was born David Higbee (the surname of his birth father) but raised David Kemmerer (the surname of his stepfather). Some time in the late eighties, his stepfather passed away. Two years later (David waited for a time out of respect), he changed his name back to Higbee."

Interestingly, EWTN's The Journey Home does not list the 2/27/98 show with David Higbee and his conversion story on its website (http://www.ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/seriessearchprog.asp?pgnu=22&SeriesID=-6892289). As you can see, it has been skipped in the listing.

Higbee's right hand man took issue with some of the "provocative things" I've said on my Facebook page concerning the Marian controversy and has written me a letter that if I do not stop saying them I will no longer be welcome in the group, for "there is no place here for a provocateur." Well, after this blog post, needless to say, I am no longer welcome in the cult of David Higbee.

**Note: I posted this because people associated with Higbee have the right to know. I spent years in this group ignorant of the facts. When I first started going I asked Higbee why St. Irenaeus Ministries was not listed on the diocesan website. His answer was essentially that he was orthodox and the diocese would never support him. He never told me that he had been fired from the diocese. This was a betrayal of trust. I hope that people can have the information by which to make their decisions.