The Rev. Daniel Greenleaf, pastor for Prince of Peace Parish, welcomes all into his church. 

But a stranger creeping around his living room at 4 in the morning? That’s where the pastor has to draw the line. 

On Thursday morning Jan. 23, Greenleaf chased away a suspected burglar who was later arrested for breaking into two homes, stealing a purse and a car from one of them. 

When the pastor encountered the stranger before dawn, he had no idea he was facing 49-year-old Jason Folkner, a transient with a history of drug trafficking and other crimes. 

All Greenleaf knew at that time is that he wanted the mysterious stranger out of his house, and the sooner the better. 

It was shortly before 4 a.m. when Greenleaf woke up and started moving about the rectory, which is attached to the Holy Family Church on Sabattus Street in Lewiston. He was meeting with others at 4:45 a.m. before a drive to Portland so he didn’t waste any time getting ready. 

It was just another cold winter morning for a busy priest.

Until, that is, Greenleaf opened a door and spotted the stranger lurking in his living room.

The pastor’s first impulse was to slam the door shut. But then he started to think: what if this stranger is actually another priest? What if someone is in trouble? 

But when the stranger stepped in the hall, it was plain to see that this was no priest. This was a strange man who clearly wasn’t here for confession. 

“He said he came in to get warm and couldn’t find his way out,” Greenleaf says.  

The man happened to be standing in front of the exit even as he mumbled this explanation. 

Greenleaf wasn’t having it. 

“I just started shouting, ‘Get out of my house!'” the pastor says. “My instinct was to stand up tall and scream really loud at him!” 

The tactic worked. The stranger made a hasty exit from the rectory without further confrontation.  

It was at that point that Greenleaf, rattled and relieved, noticed that several drawers were open around the room where the stranger had been encountered. 

“He was obviously looking for something,” the pastor says. “And I started to wonder how long he’d been in here. It was creepy.” 

The Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul and four other churches Greenleaf oversees have been targeted in recent months by break-ins and vandalism. 

Windows have been broken. Statues have been stolen or smashed. Graffiti has been scrawled on the side of the church. 

Because of this, Greenleaf has a good number of security cameras around the church properties. 

Once the stranger had been chased out of the rectory, Greenleaf went to review his camera footage, which revealed Folkner creeping through a window at 3:53 a.m. That was just about 15 minutes before Greenleaf encountered the man in his living room. 

“He was not in the house for very long,” Greenleaf says. 

There’s some comfort in that, sure. But Greenleaf has concerns about the type of man who will break into a home while people are sleeping. 

Police agree with that assessment. When Folkner was arrested last week — with the help of Greenleaf’s security camera footage — the investigators said this type of break-in is considered particularly dangerous. 

In addition to the burglary at the church, police said Folkner also broke into a Sabattus Street home where a woman reported walking into her kitchen to find her purse missing and the room ransacked.  

It was also discovered, police said, that Folkner had stolen the woman’s vehicle after leaving her home. 

Later that morning, police received information that one of the victims’ stolen credit cards had been used at a local business. Police responded at once and found Folkner in the area. 

They also found the stolen purse and the woman’s car nearby. 

Folkner was arrested and taken to the Androscoggin County Jail in Auburn where he is being held on $10,000 cash bail. 

Greenleaf would come to learn that Folkner was known on the streets as “Crazy,” and that the man had recently served 72 months in federal prison for being part of a drug ring that brought dope from Rochester, New York, to be distributed in central Maine. 

It’s a lot to take in for a man of God. And while Greenleaf is grateful that things turned out without anyone getting hurt, he is left to wonder about the way crime and mayhem in Lewiston seems to be sprawling. 

“The downtown is already considered somewhat dangerous,” he says, “and now it feels like it’s starting to creep out toward this area, too.” 

For me personally, I was relieved to hear that Greenleaf came out of the ordeal unscathed.

I first became acquainted with the pastor in 2021 when he pushed back against Gov. Janet Mills’ executive order limiting church gatherings to just 50 worshippers.

I admired Greenleaf a great deal at the time for his stance on that issue. I also appreciated that he never held my lack of religious knowledge against me, even as I floundered my way through conversations on religious matters.

Greenleaf is a good man; the kind of man you’d like to have a beer with and all that.

He’s also rather strapping, as priests go, and that makes me wonder: if it had been a little old lady who confronted the burglar in the rectory that morning, would things still have turned out OK?

Greenleaf questions whether he did the right thing in taking on the intruder directly.

“What if he’d had a gun?” he wonders. “I never even thought about that until he was out the door.”

But I guess all is well that ends well. Greenleaf wasn’t hurt and the suspected bad guy is locked up tight, for the time being.

And if Jason Folkner ever decides to repent of the crimes for which he stands accused, Greenleaf would be a good guy to talk to about it.

Just use the front door this time, friend, and during regular church hours.

It’ll just be safer for all involved.