Forgive Us Our Debts...

...and lead us into bankruptcy.

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Getting the sales pitch in the 'burbs.
IMAGE: STEPHEN VOSS

Just this spring, Wilsonville megachurch leader Mary Manin Morrissey was vowing to personally see that the parishioners who had loaned the Living Enrichment Center almost $8 million had their money--and their faith--restored.

Instead, court documents show, Morrissey is devoting her considerable energy to paying her own attorneys.

Since August, a for-profit entity, the Friends of Mary LLC, DBA Success NW, has been collecting the proceeds of Morrissey's public appearances. (Next up is the Miracle Mastery Conference, to be held at the Columbia DoubleTree Jan. 27-30.)

The money goes to a legal-defense fund. Since spring, the Oregon Division of Finance & Corporate Securities has been investigating the LEC's tangled finances. In addition, civil lawsuits have been filed against Morrissey personally, including one by "Jane Doe," the mentally disabled former member of Morrissey's "television congregation" whose story was highlighted by WW earlier this year ("The Prophet Margin," May 19, 2004).

Meanwhile, the LEC's creditors, which include parishioners, private vendors and various government entities (to which the LEC owed taxes), can't expect much relief. On Dec. 8, the church filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, meaning non-government creditors, at least, will be limited to whatever cash the bankruptcy trustee can scrounge up by selling church assets.

That won't be much: The church's only major asset--its building and 93-acre campus--was taken back by its mortgage holder earlier this year.

Although that property is still for sale, at $16.6 million, the listing agent is no longer Lake Oswego real-estate agent Howard Busse. That may be because Busse, a former member of the LEC's board, has been named as a co-defendant in "Jane Doe" lawsuit.

03.23.2005 at 10:00 Reply

Story Forum Archive

Thank you for the updateThank you again to Janine Robben for her continued coverage of this unfolding saga. I read with interest the new developments. —Andrew Parodi

09.14.2005 at 09:00 Reply

My family and I were deceived by a community and spiritual leader, Mary Manin Morrisey.I believed in Mary and her messages with all my heart. I bought her $5 tapes almost every week for 5 years and gave a total of $900 to her fundraising "pledge drives" to "refinance" LEC, which seemed a very worthy cause during those years, as she pulled at our heart-strings to save LEC "$30,000 per month" so it could "continue to do more good for the community and its worldwide ministry." Man do I feel like a SUCKER now!! That $300 I paid over three consecutive years (2001-2003) was a real stretch and sacrifice for my family and I, with two young kids and my wife and I both working overtime. This was money I decided was for a HIGHER GOOD CAUSE and certainly never even CONSIDERED that it would be thrown away and WASTED OR SQUANDERED on personal means by Mary and Ed!!Might you think a lot of us are just a bit DISILLUSIONED now about Mary?!? She was a world leader in this Movement, and sitting as President of The Association of Global New Thought!OF COURSE MARY KNEW about almost 10 MILLION DOLLARS going from little loyal congregants like us to she and her husband Ed's accounts!! We're not stupid!! I could use that money right now! Maybe in the dictionary under the word "HYPOCRITE" should be a picture of Mary. I guess in this country if you become (even somewhat) famous and popular, you automatically get excused from being legally, ETHICALLY, AND MORALLY RESPONSIBLE human beings. Just like O.J., Tanya and pretty soon Michael Jackson, if you have the "best defense attornies money can buy" and have enough INFLUENCE and SOCIAL POWER you can make under-the-table, back-room deals and not serve any time in prison (LIKE THE REST OF US COMMON FOLKS WOULD) for cheating with clear deception MILLIONS of OUR HARD-EARNED MONEY out of her most loyal followers, (of which I used to be).How about sentencing her to at least A LOT of "community service". Mary did in fact say many times that "service to others was the highest calling we could ever achieve in this life". I try listening to the more than 250 audio tapes of Mary's Sunday sessions, seminar's etc. and I just can't do it, because her messages contradict what she did or at least WILLINGLY ALLOWED to happen for many years - WHILE AT THE SAME TIME PLEADING FROM HER HEART TO OUR VERY SOULS TO GIVE, GIVE, AND GIVE MORE ("even if it's a stretch for you" which it certainly was for me in those years, because it will all come back to us "tenfold" due to the law of circulation...Well Mary's law of circulation was a semi-law, in which the only thing "circular" was a semi-circle route of funds stretched into a straight line to her nice big home! And this had most likely all started several years before my family and I committed to LEC as our spiritual home. Anyone want to buy 250 tapes (no offer too low) from a very dynamic, soul-searching, heart-tugging, convincingly truthful SOUNDING lady named Mary Manin Morrisey? I mean it doesn't really matter if she even REALLY BELIEVED - IN HER HEART OF HEARTS in the very words she was preaching to us, DOES IT?!? The whole thing just makes me sick. I've moved on and found an honest church, and have written this off as a deeply disturbing, expensive and negative learning experience -(although I don't think this lesson should've cost me almost a GRAND!) -that PEOPLE ARE SOMETIMES NOT WHAT OR WHO THEY APPEAR TO BE - even sometimes the people we BELIEVED in, had total FAITH in and TRUSTED for guidance and TRUTH the most. —John Sandels

07.25.2006 at 09:00 Reply

Forgive Us Our Debts...Someone is whining about giving LEC $900. I gave well over $7,000 and I don't regret it. Mary wasn't living high off the hog on our money, in fact in 2 separate years she donated her salary to LEC in order to help keep things going. Her big mistake was trusting the wrong people, and losing site of her goals for the church as she participated more and more in the International Peace Movement. I am sorry people lost money, but do you realize the person who launched the investigation of missing money at LEC was Mary Morrissey herself?WW has been especially vitriolic, other papers seem much less emotional about the mess that was created, I wonder why that is. —c trier

08.31.2006 at 02:38 Reply

Former LEC Congregant

c trier's comments are completely incorrect. Mary Morrissey is not the one who launched the investigation. The investigation was launched as a result of multiple lawsuits from several members of the congregation. I recommend visiting to following links for accurate information.

1. Support group for former members of Living Enrichment Center:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lecworldrefugees/

2. Encyclopedia page about Mary Morrissey:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Manin_Morrissey

3. The Corporate Securities ruling, barring Mary Morrissey from selling securities or heading any non-profit organization. Note Mary Morrissey's signature on these documents, thereby agreeing that she herself misled her congregation:

http://www.cbs.state.or.us/external/dfcs/news_releases/morrissey_complaint.pdf

http://www.cbs.state.or.us/external/dfcs/news_releases/morrissey_judgment.pdf

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Forgive Us Our Debts...

...and lead us into bankruptcy.