Rectory

The Rev. Paul F. Maurer, 87, a priest, teacher and organist who lived for more than half a century in one South Philadelphia rectory, died Tuesday of a heart attack at St. Francis Country House, a Darby nursing facility for priests. Father Maurer, pastor emeritus of Epiphany of Our Lord Church, resided in the church rectory at 11th and Jackson Streets for 55 of his 57 years in the priesthood, serving as parish pastor from 1974 to 1988 after teaching for many years at Roman Catholic High School.

In a tape-recorded statement played for a Camden County jury yesterday, the Rev. John J. McElroy spoke in graphic detail of two incidents of sexual contact with a teenage boy. "I knew it was wrong," the 30-year-old priest known as "Father Jack" says on the May 1988 tape of the incidents that allegedly took place in the rectory of St. Francis de Sales Parish in Barrington. "Do you have a problem?" Camden County investigator Reginald Beckett asks Father McElroy on the tape. "Oh, I'd say that a counselor would do me good," the priest replies on the tape.

The Rev. Peter D. Burke, 64, pastor of St. Cyril of Alexandria Roman Catholic Church in East Lansdowne, died Tuesday of cancer at the rectory. When the church bells tolled Tuesday to announce his death, parish secretary Mary Lou Love said, "people flocked to the rectory" to share their grief. In his nine years as pastor, Father Burke "had an open-door policy," Love said. "He wanted the rectory to be a community hub. " At Christmas he hosted a tree-lighting party with Santa riding on an East Lansdowne fire engine.

Msgr. Frederick J. Helduser, 67, pastor of St. Dorothy Roman Catholic Church in Drexel Hill since 1989, died of a heart attack Wednesday at Lankenau Hospital in Wynnewood. "He was a brilliant orator and homilist," said the Rev. Michael Murphy, who assisted Msgr. Helduser at St. Dorothy's. "People would call the rectory to find out what Mass he was saying to hear his sermons. " Murphy said that the pastor had great compassion. "He loved visiting the sick and the housebound," Murphy said.

After four months of controversy and at the urging of his parish financial committee, the Rev. John J. Foster told worshipers his side of the $42,000 theft story - in Sunday's church bulletin and in letters. He did so as he packs to leave his five-year post as pastor of St. Matthew Roman Catholic Church in Conshohocken to become pastor of St. Joseph the Worker Church in Fallsington, Bucks County. No one has been charged in the September theft of $42,000 from a church rectory closet.

The air on Benson Street was thick yesterday afternoon with the stench of the Wednesday fire that consumed the Bible Church of God and its attached rectory. The sidewalk was thick with preachers and other good Samaritans. They came to offer the Rev. Ulysses Banks, 60, and his wife, Lena M., 52, food and clothing and bedding and donations. By the end of the day, Mr. Banks had a place to preach to his flock of about 60 on Christmas Sunday. And the 10 members of the minister's extended family, who lost their home and everything else in the fire, were beginning to see their material life somewhat restored.

The former pastor of a Medford, N.J., Catholic church was charged yesterday with helping a second priest who was facing allegations of molesting four teenage girls flee to his native Philippines. The Rev. Joseph M. LaForge, 56, former pastor at St. Mary of the Lakes Church, wrote a $5,000 check from church accounts to the other priest, the Rev. Florencia P. Tumang, 70, and then had the check stub altered, prosecutors said yesterday. Father LaForge, who was St. Mary's pastor for 10 years and had been a Delran High School principal in the 1970s, now works at a North Carolina church.

A prisoner was mistakenly released from the Burlington County Jail last week after court papers mysteriously disappeared from his file, authorities said. Sometime after 5 p.m. on Friday, inmate Darryl Hunt, 27, was led from his cell and out the prison doors after his girlfriend posted $500 bail. He faced charges that he assaulted two Catholic priests last summer and burglarized five churches, a nursing home, a private school and a social service building. Jail Warden Wayne Muggleworth said yesterday that Hunt was wanted for crimes he allegedly committed in Union and Essex Counties and that he was to be transferred to another prison following proceedings in Burlington County.

Parishioners and neighbors stood astonished yesterday at the fire-gutted Episcopal Church of the Annunciation at 12th and Diamond Streets in North Philadelphia. In a neighborhood whose face has changed again and again, the 105-year-old church was one of few constants. Until late Friday night. Yesterday, the oak front doors of the brick, 15th-century-style church stood open to a scene of complete devastation. Inferno-blackened pews and twisted iron altar gates sat under pillars and beams that, somehow, had remained in place, gaunt charcoal sticks arched against a gray sky. Plastic storm windows had melted and hardened like candle wax against the old exterior brickwork.

The Rev. Robert K. Orr, rector of a small Episcopal church in Wyncote, was arrested Monday evening on two counts of sexual abuse of children, a charge that refers to the possession of child pornography. The Montgomery County District Attorney's Office said yesterday that the arrest was made after two members of the All Hallows Church parish told authorities the priest, 54, was seen in the church office downloading child pornography from the Internet. Father Orr was arraigned yesterday and released from Montgomery County prison after posting $50,000 cash bail.