After 20 years of work, Oblate of St. Francis de Sales Father
Anthony Pinizzotto, 57, has called it quits – not with the
priesthood, but with the FBI.
The man with five degrees, a thick book of compiled
publications and three heavily researched government studies
to his name retired earlier this summer after spending the
last two decades using forensic psychology to study law
enforcement stress reactions and safety issues. Forensic
psychology is the “blend between the law and psychology” that
deals with connecting, examining and presenting evidence, he
said.
The FBI is not a typical career path for a priest, to be
sure, and Father Pinizzotto said he never “wanted, imagined
or desired working for the FBI,” when he was first ordained.
“I’m more surprised than anybody,” said the Pennsylvania
native, speaking from his office at St. Timothy Parish in
Chantilly, where he currently is in residence.
Father Pinizzotto’s resume is a remarkable 12 pages long,
with lists of universities attended, publications written and
projects completed. Only a small section refers to his being
ordained as a priest.
Father Pinizzotto’s faith journey is pretty straightforward:
Impressed by the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales who taught
him in grade school and drawn to their recognition that the
human person is fundamentally good, he felt a calling to the
order. His aspiration: to teach at Northeast Catholic High
School in Philadelphia.
But while earning his degree in English at Allentown College
in Allentown, Pa., in 1974 (now De Sales University), he was
drawn to the area of social justice. After his ordination in
1978, wanting to find a practical application for this new
passion, he did coursework in the administration of criminal
justice at American University in Washington, D.C., where he
was earning his master’s in theology at De Sales Graduate
School.
His classes at American led to a three-year stint as an
in-uniform reserve police officer with the Metropolitan
Police Department in Washington in the mid-1970s.
“I had, up to that point, known that there was evil in the
world, but now I was putting handcuffs on it,” he said.
“Those fields of law and psychology grew together and that’s
when I became fascinated about the area of forensic
psychology.”
He earned a master’s in the subject from John Jay College of
Criminal Justice in New York in 1981, followed by a doctorate
in psychology from Georgetown University, with a
concentration in forensic psychology. While earning his
doctoral degree, Father Pinizzotto began teaching psychology
at Georgetown and was recruited by the FBI in 1988 to
investigate the killings of on-duty law enforcement officers.
That subject resonated with the priest.
“I responded to those calls and I’m still here,” he said,
referring to his time with the D.C. police a decade earlier.
Why were these particular officers killed, he wanted to know.
He spent the next 20 years trying to figure it out, with the
hope of preventing more officers from being killed.
Though a priest working for the FBI is an unusual
partnership, Oblate of St. Francis de Sales Father Barry
Strong, director of province administration the eastern
province of the Oblates, said that no matter what, the
order’s charism is to promote the spirituality of St. Francis
de Sales.
“Our founder desired that we would jump into the world with
both feet,” Father Strong said. “Our constitution basically
tells us that the apostolate of the Oblate is not in any way
limited to any specific service. While this might be unusual
for a priest to be working in the blend of life that Father
Tony has, it’s not out of the realm of possibility.”
As Father Pinizzotto put it: “My superior looked at this and
said ‘this is valuable.”
So he accepted the position at the FBI, first as clinical
forensic psychologist in the Uniform Crime Reporting Program
and later as a senior scientist.
His first publication for the U.S. Department of Justice,
published jointly with Edward F. Davis in 1992, was “Killed
in the Line of Duty: A Study of Selected Felonious Killings
of Law Enforcement Officers,” which looked at the offenders,
victims and circumstances surrounding the killings of law
enforcement officers in Washington. It took three years for
the study to be completed, during which time Father
Pinizzotto visited prisons all over the country, spending an
average of four hours with each offender.
“I was constantly challenged to bring back that perspective
of St. Francis de Sales on human nature,” he said – that the
human person is fundamentally good.
“Killed in the Line of Duty” was just a springboard: Father
Pinizzotto authored numerous articles as well as two other
major studies: the 1997 publication, “In the Line of Fire:
Violence against Law Enforcement,” and “Violent Encounters: A
Study of Felonious Assaults on Our Nation’s Law Enforcement
Officers” in 2006.
“What I helped to do in these studies was give back to (the
officers) what they gave to me,” he said.
In addition to his research, Father Pinizzotto spent the last
13 years teaching behavioral science courses at the National
Academy in Washington and the FBI academy in Quantico.
Following his retirement from the FBI and Georgetown, Father
Pinizzotto moved from St. William of York Parish in Stafford,
where he had been living, to set up shop at St. Timothy.
While in Chantilly, he’ll serve as a consultant to Arlington
Bishop Paul S. Loverde, most likely in the Child Protection
Office. He currently serves on the bishop’s advisory board on
the protection of children/young people and the prevention of
sexual misconduct and/or child abuse.
Father Pinizzotto will maintain his ties with local law
enforcement – this time the Fairfax County Police Department
– to look at how clinical forensic psychology can be included
in their program to increase officer safety awareness that is
already there,” he said. “I will simply be enhancing what
they already have.”
The transition back to the “on-the-street approach to law
enforcement,” should be a smooth one, he said. “It has a very
practical approach to dealing with people.”
Though Father Pinizzotto never fulfilled his dream of an
Oblate life as a parish priest and high school teacher, the
priest is hardly dissatisfied with how his career evolved.
“I’ve gotten to be Father O’Malley and Dr. Freud,” he said,
laughing and calling it the “best of both worlds.”
Even though his career has been atypical, Father Pinizzotto
said he doesn’t feel like he was cheated out of his vocation
as a priest.
“Whatever we do, if our intention is to further the kingdom
of God, that is where we find holiness,” he said. “I firmly
believe since I never intended any of this to happen, that
I’m following what Our Lord wanted me to do. I’d like to
think that the work I have done has helped somebody.”
