Once a Prima Donna, Always a Prima Donna?

Look who’s back. And he’s pontificating again. Like a moth to a flame, it seems Deal Hudson can’t keep himself away from the limelight. The erstwhile Editor and Publisher of Crisis magazine has resurfaced as Director of the Morley Publishing Group’s new website, InsideCatholic.com, where he writes columns and a blog.

In a column titled “Why I Am a Catholic Republican” (Sept. 13), Hudson says, “I would…look elsewhere if the GOP ever turned its back on the issues that brought me into its fold in the first place: pro-life and pro-family matters.” The NOR has amply proved that GOP President George W. Bush has by and large “turned his back” on prolife and pro-family matters, offering little more than lip service, and virtually nothing by way of action (NOR, Jan. 2005, pp. 15-20; Sept. 2005, pp. 15-18; Oct. 2005, pp. 12-13; Nov. 2005, pp. 9-10; Dec. 2005, pp. 16-18; March 2006, pp. 4-9; April 2007, pp. 16-18; June 2007, pp. 14-15).

Hudson himself has a sordid history on “pro-family matters.” Hudson was a Southern Baptist when he and his first wife divorced. After Hudson converted to Catholicism, he and his second wife divorced. He is now on his third marriage. He has a daughter, Hannah, who is in her teens, and an adopted son, Cyprian. In an article in the February 2002 issue of Crisis magazine, Hudson quotes Hannah as saying, “Dad, I really don’t want to be an only child. I think we should adopt a baby brother.” So Dad adopted a baby son. Hudson spends six pages detailing the story of his son’s adoption, with pictures throughout. If you were the Publisher of Crisis magazine, would you make a big deal about this? But then Hudson has always been a self-promoter. He wrote a column in Crisis (Nov. 2002) in which he pats himself on the back for the great job he’s done since coming aboard in 1994 and eventually seizing the reigns. Although his column is titled “Where We Stand,” the column contains a liberal sprinkling of “I,” “me,” and “my.”

What Hudson doesn’t mention is that he came to Crisis on the heels of a filthy sexual-misconduct scandal at Fordham University, where he had been a professor of philosophy. In early 1994, after a night of drinking tequila at a pre-Lenten party, Hudson committed a sex act on one of his female students, Cara Poppas, at his office at Fordham — something akin to date rape. For Hudson, it was also an act of adultery. Poppas then sued Hudson, after which Hudson agreed to pay $30,000 worth of hush-money. Poppas agreed to keep the settlement and the abuse confidential.