Toward the Future: The Lessons of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Report, and the Ways in Which We Can Protect All Children From Sex Abuse
By MARCI HAMILTON
----
Thursday, Dec. 27, 2007
Recently, the National Review Board for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released the results of its five-year study evaluating how the hierarchy has handled clergy abuse since the public first learned of its scope and prevalence from the Boston Globe in 2002. The report is just what one would expect from any corporation undergoing a scandal; It details new programs, promises to do better in the future, and admits the problem is complex (which, translated, means that the Bishops have not put the problem behind them, not by a long shot).
As I read the report and reflected upon the last five years, I had very mixed feelings. On the one hand, every American (and even world citizen) should be grateful to Providence (as well as the Globe) for revealing the scope of child abuse and cover-up within the ranks of the Roman Catholic Church. We really did not know, let alone understand, the gravity and extent of the scourge of child sex abuse society-wide until we saw it entrenched in the one institution everyone had trusted - Catholic or not. This was the religious institution whose clergy every lawyer hoped would testify on their side, after all! The point could not have been made more clearly than by the scandal in the Church: Children are being sexually abused everywhere, and the ones not to trust are often the ones we trust the most.
There is another quite different lesson to be learned from the 2007 Bishops' Report, too, however: The bishops are not a terribly important element in the solution to society-wide child sex abuse. Yes, they have instituted programs to protect children, but it was well-known long ago in the public sphere that such programs are crucial. And they have created their Victims Assistance Programs and appointed Directors. Though victims and their families have not found these programs terribly helpful or supportive, at least they exist. Yet, it simply does not matter what program the hierarchy creates for the victims it has generated. Why? Because its victims count for such a small number of child sex abuse victims overall. Even perfect care for all of its victims puts barely a dent in the larger problem.
The Bishops might have been leaders in the national movement to right the laws that affect child sex abuse survivors, but they have chosen to take the opposite path. If public records are accurate, the New York Catholic Conference is paying well over $100,000 per year to lobbyists and public relations firms to defeat legislation that would make it easier for victims (both within and outside the Church) to get to court, by reducing the barriers created by the statute of limitations. That is just another signal that they are part of history on this problem, not the future..
The Bishops do not stand alone in proposing solutions that do not touch the vast majority of the problem. We have Megan's Law public reporting statutes, pedophile-free zones, and increased sentencing for molesters, but we still have not made the changes necessary to identify the many predators currently living among us. As I have discussed in previous columns such as this one, the statutes of limitation on child sex abuse must go. At the same time, there needs to be a concerted effort to turn the insights gleaned from the Church's clergy abuse problems into aggressive plans to stop the problem in the future.
Ultimately, It Will Take Private and Public Institutions and Legislatures, to Win the War Against Child Sex Abuse
We are at a promising turning point for our children. It will take the actions of private and public institutions as well as legislators to turn the tide on child sex abuse. The National Child Protection Training Center at Winona State University is one organization that holds out hope for the future. President Bush just signed legislation granting $1.22 million to the Center, which is engaged in groundbreaking work. Director Victor Vieth explained part of the Center's mission, which is centered around education and more education: "[W]e will provide training to over 10,000 child protection professionals, will assist dozens of universities in implementing model undergraduate or graduate child protection curricula, and will grow our forensic interview training program--a program that will positively impact a million children by the end of this decade." Vieth's vision includes a call to eliminate child sex abuse altogether in several generations, through programs and multi-tiered education. That is the clarion call needed to right the wrongs now so deeply embedded in the psyche of this society.
The Training Center is part of NAPSAC (the National Association to Prevent the Sexual Abuse of Children), of which I am a Board Member. NAPSAC also houses the National District Attorneys Association, a point that highlights another crucial element in making this world a safer place for children: We need prosecutors who are sensitized to these issues and inclined to protect the children, not the adults who ask them to keep their "dirty laundry" hidden.
With these private and public projects and legislators with the guts to roll back the statutes of limitations on child sex abuse so we can identify the perpetrators among us, we can become a country that is truly proud of its commitment to children. Words, reports, and individual institutions will never be enough; it will take passionate action on the part of many.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Bob Hoatson's Letter to the National Review Board
Judge Michael Mertz, Chairperson
National Review Board
Office of Child and Youth Protection
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3211 Fourth St, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20017
Dear Judge Mertz and Members of the National Review Board:
As a priest, survivor of clergy sexual abuse, and advocate for hundreds of
survivors of clergy sexual abuse, I feel I must respond to your
recently-released
report to the Catholic Faithful of the United States regarding the
protection of children, teenagers, young adults, and vulnerable adults in
the American
Catholic Church. Unfortunately, I neither share your optimism nor agree
with your conclusions.
The overall tone of the report is of concern to me. There is no
acknowledgment of the "epidemic" of clergy sexual abuse that has been
exposed and
continues to be exposed to this day. The National Review Board was
established because the bishops of the country were incompetent to act
legally,
ethically, and morally toward those who were abused. My experience,
research, and immersion in the recoveries of survivors indicate that the
climate and
culture that created the problem in the beginning are still in place and
very much the prevailing practices. The Catholic bishops of the United
States, for the
most part, have never been held accountable for their illegal, immoral,
and unethical methods and practices.
It is understandable why you would be hesitant to confront your bosses.
Governor Frank Keating was "eliminated" as the first Chairperson of your
group, and
perhaps you fear the same response if you act wisely, independently, and
transparently. It is clear to me that you will never have the authority to
act as you
need to act.
As for the "diversity of the Board," which you noted in the second
paragraph of your report, there are no survivors or survivor-advocates on
the Board, there are
no "experts" in the field of clergy abuse survivors, such as Fr. Tom Doyle
or Dr. Richard Sipe, and there are no parents or family members of
survivors on the
Board. What do you mean by diversity; that there are men and women on the
Board? That does not equal diversity as it relates to the mission and
purpose
of the Board or the needs of survivors of clergy sexual abuse.
As for the accomplishments that you listed:
1) Safe environment programs are well and good. However, they do not
guarantee that bishops are not transferring criminal abusers around their
diocese and
inter-dioceses.
2) Diocesan procedures to respond promptly to allegations do not guarantee
that bishops treat survivors with care, compassion, and honesty. There
still is a
climate of secrecy, cover-up, and lack of transparency in diocesan
offices, especially that of the bishop.
3) Publishing reports of credible allegations is great, except it does
nothing for the vast majority of survivors who cannot report their abuse
because they have
had bad experiences with Church authorities, are too damaged to come
forward, or are thoroughly convinced (rightly so!) that the Church is
similar to a Mafia
-like organization that simply protects its own.
The Board has not reached out in any way, shape, or form to survivors to
ask them what they think, feel, and believe about the Church's attempts to
clean up
its act. Survivors' advocacy groups, such as Road to Recovery, Inc., SNAP,
and others are not included in your deliberations or those of the bishops.
As for the research projects that have been conducted or are currently
being conducted:
1) The current study, Causes and Contexts, has been carefully nuanced to
avoid an analysis of what needs to be known. It was made clear to me at a
Voice
of the Faithful Conference workshop that this study has eliminated the
most important focus groups: survivors, survivor families, and survivor
experts and
advocates. It also will not include a key group that can provide
invaluable information; namely, priest-survivors who have lived in the
seminary system, been
abused in the seminary or clerical system, and know the "inner workings of
the system."
2) It is clear to me that the Causes and Contexts study will not expose
the clerical culture and sexual dysfunctionalism of the seminary/rectory
system;
rather, it will skirt (again!) what has to be uncovered if the Church is
going to recover from its addiction to power, authority, sex, and
clericalism.
3) Please do not spend time on perpetuating the "pity party for priests."
You seem to want to give deference in research reports to priests who
covered up,
remained silent, and very often saw the sexual abuse of children taking
place. My experience in the religious life and priesthood leads me to
conclude that
almost no religious brother, sister, priest, or deacon is immune from the
knowledge of, participation in, or looking the other way from the sexual
abuse of
children.
4) Your report apparently ignores (again!) the ongoing needs of survivors.
I work with over 200 survivors of clergy sexual abuse. Many are not
healed, will not
be healed, and cannot access treatment because of unreliable or
non-existent policies and programs of dioceses. For example, one survivor
met privately
with a bishop who promised the survivor that he would finally get the
house he has wanted for his family and him. The bishop promised him a
substantial
settlement, separate from the "mass settlement" that was being negotiated.
When the survivor went to his "settlement meeting," he was told he was
part of
the mass settlement and that he was scheduled to receive a settlement much
lower than he was promised. Because he felt betrayed, this man's PTSD was
triggered, the pain returned, and he spent his entire settlement on drugs!
5) In New Hampshire at the beginning of December, clergy abuse survivor
Leeland Eisenberg held hostages at the campaign headquarters of Hillary
Clinton.
During the previous months, he phoned every psychiatrist in New Hampshire
looking for a therapist who would accept third-party payments from the
Archdiocese of Boston. None would accept the payments! So, Lee took to
drinking and drugging to help his head stop spinning, and ended up in
Hillary
Clinton's headquarters to bring attention to the state of mental health
care in his State.
Your report said nothing about the ongoing needs of survivors, such as
housing, food, mental health care, and a host of other needs. If you ask
some of us
who are "in the trenches," we will tell you what needs to be done.
While I am not confident that you will respond to this letter in any
meaningful way, it is my hope that "something will get through"
eventually, so effective
change can take place in the midst of the evil and corruption.
Sincerely,
Rev. Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D.
Founder and President
CC: Members of the National Review Board
Teresa Kettelkamp, Director of the USCCB Office of Child and Youth
Protection
Members of the Bishops' Committee on Child and Youth Protection
National Review Board
Office of Child and Youth Protection
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3211 Fourth St, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20017
Dear Judge Mertz and Members of the National Review Board:
As a priest, survivor of clergy sexual abuse, and advocate for hundreds of
survivors of clergy sexual abuse, I feel I must respond to your
recently-released
report to the Catholic Faithful of the United States regarding the
protection of children, teenagers, young adults, and vulnerable adults in
the American
Catholic Church. Unfortunately, I neither share your optimism nor agree
with your conclusions.
The overall tone of the report is of concern to me. There is no
acknowledgment of the "epidemic" of clergy sexual abuse that has been
exposed and
continues to be exposed to this day. The National Review Board was
established because the bishops of the country were incompetent to act
legally,
ethically, and morally toward those who were abused. My experience,
research, and immersion in the recoveries of survivors indicate that the
climate and
culture that created the problem in the beginning are still in place and
very much the prevailing practices. The Catholic bishops of the United
States, for the
most part, have never been held accountable for their illegal, immoral,
and unethical methods and practices.
It is understandable why you would be hesitant to confront your bosses.
Governor Frank Keating was "eliminated" as the first Chairperson of your
group, and
perhaps you fear the same response if you act wisely, independently, and
transparently. It is clear to me that you will never have the authority to
act as you
need to act.
As for the "diversity of the Board," which you noted in the second
paragraph of your report, there are no survivors or survivor-advocates on
the Board, there are
no "experts" in the field of clergy abuse survivors, such as Fr. Tom Doyle
or Dr. Richard Sipe, and there are no parents or family members of
survivors on the
Board. What do you mean by diversity; that there are men and women on the
Board? That does not equal diversity as it relates to the mission and
purpose
of the Board or the needs of survivors of clergy sexual abuse.
As for the accomplishments that you listed:
1) Safe environment programs are well and good. However, they do not
guarantee that bishops are not transferring criminal abusers around their
diocese and
inter-dioceses.
2) Diocesan procedures to respond promptly to allegations do not guarantee
that bishops treat survivors with care, compassion, and honesty. There
still is a
climate of secrecy, cover-up, and lack of transparency in diocesan
offices, especially that of the bishop.
3) Publishing reports of credible allegations is great, except it does
nothing for the vast majority of survivors who cannot report their abuse
because they have
had bad experiences with Church authorities, are too damaged to come
forward, or are thoroughly convinced (rightly so!) that the Church is
similar to a Mafia
-like organization that simply protects its own.
The Board has not reached out in any way, shape, or form to survivors to
ask them what they think, feel, and believe about the Church's attempts to
clean up
its act. Survivors' advocacy groups, such as Road to Recovery, Inc., SNAP,
and others are not included in your deliberations or those of the bishops.
As for the research projects that have been conducted or are currently
being conducted:
1) The current study, Causes and Contexts, has been carefully nuanced to
avoid an analysis of what needs to be known. It was made clear to me at a
Voice
of the Faithful Conference workshop that this study has eliminated the
most important focus groups: survivors, survivor families, and survivor
experts and
advocates. It also will not include a key group that can provide
invaluable information; namely, priest-survivors who have lived in the
seminary system, been
abused in the seminary or clerical system, and know the "inner workings of
the system."
2) It is clear to me that the Causes and Contexts study will not expose
the clerical culture and sexual dysfunctionalism of the seminary/rectory
system;
rather, it will skirt (again!) what has to be uncovered if the Church is
going to recover from its addiction to power, authority, sex, and
clericalism.
3) Please do not spend time on perpetuating the "pity party for priests."
You seem to want to give deference in research reports to priests who
covered up,
remained silent, and very often saw the sexual abuse of children taking
place. My experience in the religious life and priesthood leads me to
conclude that
almost no religious brother, sister, priest, or deacon is immune from the
knowledge of, participation in, or looking the other way from the sexual
abuse of
children.
4) Your report apparently ignores (again!) the ongoing needs of survivors.
I work with over 200 survivors of clergy sexual abuse. Many are not
healed, will not
be healed, and cannot access treatment because of unreliable or
non-existent policies and programs of dioceses. For example, one survivor
met privately
with a bishop who promised the survivor that he would finally get the
house he has wanted for his family and him. The bishop promised him a
substantial
settlement, separate from the "mass settlement" that was being negotiated.
When the survivor went to his "settlement meeting," he was told he was
part of
the mass settlement and that he was scheduled to receive a settlement much
lower than he was promised. Because he felt betrayed, this man's PTSD was
triggered, the pain returned, and he spent his entire settlement on drugs!
5) In New Hampshire at the beginning of December, clergy abuse survivor
Leeland Eisenberg held hostages at the campaign headquarters of Hillary
Clinton.
During the previous months, he phoned every psychiatrist in New Hampshire
looking for a therapist who would accept third-party payments from the
Archdiocese of Boston. None would accept the payments! So, Lee took to
drinking and drugging to help his head stop spinning, and ended up in
Hillary
Clinton's headquarters to bring attention to the state of mental health
care in his State.
Your report said nothing about the ongoing needs of survivors, such as
housing, food, mental health care, and a host of other needs. If you ask
some of us
who are "in the trenches," we will tell you what needs to be done.
While I am not confident that you will respond to this letter in any
meaningful way, it is my hope that "something will get through"
eventually, so effective
change can take place in the midst of the evil and corruption.
Sincerely,
Rev. Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D.
Founder and President
CC: Members of the National Review Board
Teresa Kettelkamp, Director of the USCCB Office of Child and Youth
Protection
Members of the Bishops' Committee on Child and Youth Protection
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Priests Accused of taking children out of class to abuse them when they were children.
Saturday, Dec 22, 2007
Posted on Thu, Dec. 20, 2007
Two men allege molestation in lawsuit against former priest, Catholic diocese
By JOE LAMBE
The Kansas City Star
Two men sued a former Roman Catholic priest and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph on Thursday for alleged molestation when the men were altar boys.
John Doe B.B. of Kansas, 52, contends that the Rev. Thomas Reardon sexually abused him in 1968 in the St. Elizabeth rectory in Kansas City after his mother asked the priest to explain “the facts of life” to the 12-year-old boy.
John Doe M.D., 46, of Missouri and his wife contend that Reardon, now 65, abused him at St. Gabriel’s parish in Kansas City when Doe was in the fifth to eighth grades.
According to the lawsuits, Reardon kept the boys quiet by persuading them that the acts were a normal part of life or even beneficial.
Reardon, who has 14 other abuse-related lawsuits pending against him in Jackson County, has denied ever abusing children. He declined to comment Thursday. His attorney did not return phone calls.
The lawsuits allege that the diocese was at fault in part for negligent supervision, including covering up Reardon’s actions for years. The church also committed fraud and intentionally inflicted distress by portraying Reardon as a responsible priest, the suits contend.
The diocese has not seen the lawsuits, has not learned the plaintiffs’ names and is not in a position to comment, a spokeswoman said in a written response. Reardon has not worked as a priest since 1989, she said.
David Biersmith of Kansas City, president of Voice of the Faithful, a church reform group, read statements from the two plaintiffs at a news conference announcing the lawsuits. Describing himself as a former close friend of Reardon’s, he said he attended seminary with him many years ago. Reardon, he said, was a charming man who could easily manipulate children.
Doe M.D. wrote that he felt he had been violated, lost his innocence and more: “I lost my faith, I lost respect for myself as well as others,” Biersmith read. “I feel I have lost a part of my life.”
According to Doe M.D.’s lawsuit:
Reardon first abused him in the St. Gabriel’s rectory after calling him out of grief counseling class when the boy was in the fifth grade. Reardon kept calling him out of classes for more abuse in the rectory and sometimes gave him money and alcohol. He also molested him in the sacristy before the start of Mass.
Doe B.B.’s written statement said that he did not tell anyone of his abuse at age 12 because he was too scared. He now understands that to end such sexual abuse in the church, people must come forward.
David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, urged other abuse victims to do the same. He said one of these plaintiffs finally came forward after a recent media account about Reardon and another priest.
Last month, The Kansas City Star revealed widespread allegations of abuse against Reardon and Monsignor Thomas O’Brien, whom many adolescent boys called the “party priests.”
Other lawsuits against both men detail accusations of rape, sodomy, oral sex and masturbatory acts. The lawsuits allege a pattern of molestation that began in the early 1960s with O’Brien and continued with Reardon through the 1980s.
The lawsuits contend that the priests used their positions of power to prey on youngsters, plying them with alcohol, groping them and sometimes offering money for sex.
Since 2004, a dozen men have sued O’Brien, 81, who denies all the allegations. Those and the 16 lawsuits against Reardon make up the bulk of at least 32 pending Jackson County lawsuits against priests or former priests.
As of last month, priest sex abuse cases nationwide had cost the Roman Catholic Church at least $2.3 billion since 1950.
Thursday, Clohessy said that the church needed to take stronger action against the priests’ co-workers and supervisors — “the people who drove the getaway car.”
A diocese statement issued Thursday says that every suspicion or report of abuse is now taken seriously and reported to the state. Any credible accusation against a priest or any other church worker means that person is dismissed, it said.
“The ongoing goal of the diocese is simple but clear: to do everything humanly possible to address past acts of sexual abuse and to protect children and young people in the future,” the release said.
Clohessy called the reforms too weak and said they did not hold high church officials accountable for past acts.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@ Go to KansasCity.com for video of attorneys for two men whose lawsuits claim they were sexually abused.
Posted on Thu, Dec. 20, 2007
Two men allege molestation in lawsuit against former priest, Catholic diocese
By JOE LAMBE
The Kansas City Star
Two men sued a former Roman Catholic priest and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph on Thursday for alleged molestation when the men were altar boys.
John Doe B.B. of Kansas, 52, contends that the Rev. Thomas Reardon sexually abused him in 1968 in the St. Elizabeth rectory in Kansas City after his mother asked the priest to explain “the facts of life” to the 12-year-old boy.
John Doe M.D., 46, of Missouri and his wife contend that Reardon, now 65, abused him at St. Gabriel’s parish in Kansas City when Doe was in the fifth to eighth grades.
According to the lawsuits, Reardon kept the boys quiet by persuading them that the acts were a normal part of life or even beneficial.
Reardon, who has 14 other abuse-related lawsuits pending against him in Jackson County, has denied ever abusing children. He declined to comment Thursday. His attorney did not return phone calls.
The lawsuits allege that the diocese was at fault in part for negligent supervision, including covering up Reardon’s actions for years. The church also committed fraud and intentionally inflicted distress by portraying Reardon as a responsible priest, the suits contend.
The diocese has not seen the lawsuits, has not learned the plaintiffs’ names and is not in a position to comment, a spokeswoman said in a written response. Reardon has not worked as a priest since 1989, she said.
David Biersmith of Kansas City, president of Voice of the Faithful, a church reform group, read statements from the two plaintiffs at a news conference announcing the lawsuits. Describing himself as a former close friend of Reardon’s, he said he attended seminary with him many years ago. Reardon, he said, was a charming man who could easily manipulate children.
Doe M.D. wrote that he felt he had been violated, lost his innocence and more: “I lost my faith, I lost respect for myself as well as others,” Biersmith read. “I feel I have lost a part of my life.”
According to Doe M.D.’s lawsuit:
Reardon first abused him in the St. Gabriel’s rectory after calling him out of grief counseling class when the boy was in the fifth grade. Reardon kept calling him out of classes for more abuse in the rectory and sometimes gave him money and alcohol. He also molested him in the sacristy before the start of Mass.
Doe B.B.’s written statement said that he did not tell anyone of his abuse at age 12 because he was too scared. He now understands that to end such sexual abuse in the church, people must come forward.
David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, urged other abuse victims to do the same. He said one of these plaintiffs finally came forward after a recent media account about Reardon and another priest.
Last month, The Kansas City Star revealed widespread allegations of abuse against Reardon and Monsignor Thomas O’Brien, whom many adolescent boys called the “party priests.”
Other lawsuits against both men detail accusations of rape, sodomy, oral sex and masturbatory acts. The lawsuits allege a pattern of molestation that began in the early 1960s with O’Brien and continued with Reardon through the 1980s.
The lawsuits contend that the priests used their positions of power to prey on youngsters, plying them with alcohol, groping them and sometimes offering money for sex.
Since 2004, a dozen men have sued O’Brien, 81, who denies all the allegations. Those and the 16 lawsuits against Reardon make up the bulk of at least 32 pending Jackson County lawsuits against priests or former priests.
As of last month, priest sex abuse cases nationwide had cost the Roman Catholic Church at least $2.3 billion since 1950.
Thursday, Clohessy said that the church needed to take stronger action against the priests’ co-workers and supervisors — “the people who drove the getaway car.”
A diocese statement issued Thursday says that every suspicion or report of abuse is now taken seriously and reported to the state. Any credible accusation against a priest or any other church worker means that person is dismissed, it said.
“The ongoing goal of the diocese is simple but clear: to do everything humanly possible to address past acts of sexual abuse and to protect children and young people in the future,” the release said.
Clohessy called the reforms too weak and said they did not hold high church officials accountable for past acts.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@ Go to KansasCity.com for video of attorneys for two men whose lawsuits claim they were sexually abused.
Votf Response to the National Review Board Report
VOTF Response to National Review Board Report
December 13, 2007 - Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) supports the work of the National Review Board (NRB) as detailed in the report they presented Dec. 13 to the "Catholic Faithful of the United States”. Their report highlights that the clergy abuse crisis is far from over and that much still needs to be accomplished. We are anxious to see the results of the recently initiated on-site audits being conducted by the Gavin Group. These independent audits will be a better indicator of exactly what progress is being made by the bishops. In addition we need to audit the safe environment program at the parish level to be truly effective.
“The report correctly points out the need for: a greater understanding of victimization and its consequences, due process for priests, and an appropriate role for the Church in the supervision of offenders,” said Mary Pat Fox, VOTF President. “We await the issuance of the Causes and Context Study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and we urge the Bishops to cooperate fully with the researchers. We ask the NRB to push for a quicker resolution to all allegations of abuse. At present it takes upwards of four years for the Church to make a decision as to the truth of an accusation. We must speed up this process so that all victims and priests may receive swift justice,” said Fox.
December 13, 2007 - Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) supports the work of the National Review Board (NRB) as detailed in the report they presented Dec. 13 to the "Catholic Faithful of the United States”. Their report highlights that the clergy abuse crisis is far from over and that much still needs to be accomplished. We are anxious to see the results of the recently initiated on-site audits being conducted by the Gavin Group. These independent audits will be a better indicator of exactly what progress is being made by the bishops. In addition we need to audit the safe environment program at the parish level to be truly effective.
“The report correctly points out the need for: a greater understanding of victimization and its consequences, due process for priests, and an appropriate role for the Church in the supervision of offenders,” said Mary Pat Fox, VOTF President. “We await the issuance of the Causes and Context Study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and we urge the Bishops to cooperate fully with the researchers. We ask the NRB to push for a quicker resolution to all allegations of abuse. At present it takes upwards of four years for the Church to make a decision as to the truth of an accusation. We must speed up this process so that all victims and priests may receive swift justice,” said Fox.
Monday, December 17, 2007
National Review Board issues Five-year Report on Church Handling of clergy sex abuse of Minors. Frank Douglas comments.
From PRNewswire-USNewswire, 12.13.2007.
My comments are in red. [brackets]
* * *
National Review Board Issues Five-Year Report on Church Handling of Clergy Sex Abuse of Minors
WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The National Review
Board (NRB), a lay body appointed by the president of the United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to review the church’s handling of
the sexual abuse of minors by clerics, cited accomplishments and challenges
in a five-year report made public December 13.
Judge Michael R. Merz, NRB chair, commended church efforts to date, but
said the problem is complex.
[You can be sure that if Judge Merz didn’t commend the bishops’ effort to date, the bishops would replace him in a New York minute.]
“Church efforts for prevention, healing, and vigilance will be demanded
for the rest of our days,” Judge Merz said. “The price of this crime is
steep both in the pain felt by victims and the shadow cast on the
reputation of innocent Catholic priests. Most priests never have abused a
child or even someone’s trust in them, but they bear shame by association.
It’s not right, but that’s the fact.”
“Bishops have taken a strong approach to dealing with this crisis,”
Judge Merz said. “Sexual abuse of children is not a problem in the church
alone, but bishops as moral leaders must stand in the forefront of
protecting children. The NRB is proud to collaborate with the bishops in
the protection of children and young people.”
[The judge repeats the bishops’ sickening argument that “everybody does it.”
It is patently untrue that the bishops have taken a strong approach. The vast majority of them have not published the names of perpetrators and those credibly accused on diocesan websites. The vast majority have not visited parishes where abuse has taken place. The bishops have made no attempt to bring religious orders (Jesuits, Dominicans, Salesians, etc.) under the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, inadequate though it may be.]
The report is addressed to the U.S. Catholic faithful and is “a record
of accomplishments, unfinished work, and challenges that lie ahead,” it
said. The report praised the USCCB audit process by which “dioceses and
eparchies have been audited to assure the implementation and maintenance of
the standards established” in the Charter for the Protection of Children
and Young People, which the bishops created in 2002.
“Those audits provide substantial evidence of the bishops’ efforts to
protect children and respond to the abuses of the past and present. As of
2006, 98 percent of the dioceses and eparchies are participating in the
audits. Those audited are in full compliance with the standards” set for
the audits, the report said.
[The audits are a sham. They are managed and controlled by the bishops. If the bishops were really serious about protecting children, they would allow audits by an independent agency. The audits are a tool of the bishops to continue the cover up.]
The report also noted that “over six million children have participated
in educational programs and over 1.6 million background investigations have
taken place” as part of diocesan safe environment programs.
[The focus should not be on children, but on priests, bishops, and seminarians. Why have we heard nothing from the NRB about sexually active priests and bishops? Why have we heard nothing about what is being done in seminaries, particularly in the “purple palaces” where many have reported overt and extensive sexual activity taking place among seminarians with participation by some seminary faculty?]
However, the NRB urged an expansion of the audits to measure “the
quality of the work that the dioceses and parishes are doing.”
“The Board is encouraging the USCCB to do random audits of the parishes
and to work toward establishing best practices in educational programs,
victim care, background checks, and investigation of allegations,” the
report said. “During 2007, to provide a model to study for the future, a
number of dioceses volunteered to pilot audits at the parish level. The NRB
fully supports and encourages these parish audits.”
The report cited six challenges which the Board said “are not easily
resolved since they involve extremely complex issues.”
“One of the most significant issues is the need for a greater
understanding of victimization and its consequences. Discussions with
victims provide evidence of serious needs that still must be addressed in
order for the victims and their families to find the healing that they
need,” the report said.
“Another set of issues relates to the relationship of the Church to its
priests, the vast majority of whom are not involved in the scandal, but
many of whom feel alienated from both the bishops and the laity.” In
addition, “there is a particular need to provide appropriate protection and
restoration for those accused but later found innocent.”
[Is it really true that the vast majority of them were not involved in the scandal? How many priests knew of brother priests who spent inordinate time with young boys? How many knew of brother priests who habitually brought young boys to their rooms in the rectory?]
The board called for “greater speed in the process of determining
credibility of allegations and consequent responses, as well as
determination of an appropriate role for the Church in the supervision of
offenders.”
[Offenders are criminals. Why is there no mention here of the proper and appropriate involvement of the police and other appropriate law enforcement agencies?]
It also noted that parishes “also become victims of sexual abuse.
Members of parishes experience both a sense of betrayal or outrage over
accusations that lead to the removal of a pastor or associate. Often
parishioners do not know how to respond to victims and their families and
agonize over the lengthy process of determining appropriate responses. This
is an area that needs much more attention.”
[The outrage and sense of betrayal should be over the criminal acts of the perpetrators, not removal of the perpetrator from a parish.]
The NRB also cited the need to keep church members better informed on
the positive responses the Bishops have made and more active observers of
the programs and processes in their parishes and dioceses.
“Such communication is vitally important since the work of the National
Review Board is strengthened by vigilant parents and parishioners who
investigate the presence and quality of the programs in their parishes and
dioceses,” the report said. “The obligation to provide safe environments
that prevent damage to children, young people, families, parishes,
dioceses, and the Church rests with all Catholics.”
[The obligation to provide safe environments will rest with all Catholics when all Catholics have access to information about allegations of sexual abuse against priests, bishops, and seminarians. Currently only bishops have such access. Thus in the secrecy-obsessed culture of the hierarchy the obligation rests only with the bishops. Experience has shown that the bishops, their counterparts in the religious orders (the religious superiors; the provincials) AND THE POPE CANNOT BE TRUSTED.]
The full report can be found on the Web at
http://www.usccb.org/nrb/nrbreport2007.pdf.
SOURCE U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
My comments are in red. [brackets]
* * *
National Review Board Issues Five-Year Report on Church Handling of Clergy Sex Abuse of Minors
WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The National Review
Board (NRB), a lay body appointed by the president of the United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to review the church’s handling of
the sexual abuse of minors by clerics, cited accomplishments and challenges
in a five-year report made public December 13.
Judge Michael R. Merz, NRB chair, commended church efforts to date, but
said the problem is complex.
[You can be sure that if Judge Merz didn’t commend the bishops’ effort to date, the bishops would replace him in a New York minute.]
“Church efforts for prevention, healing, and vigilance will be demanded
for the rest of our days,” Judge Merz said. “The price of this crime is
steep both in the pain felt by victims and the shadow cast on the
reputation of innocent Catholic priests. Most priests never have abused a
child or even someone’s trust in them, but they bear shame by association.
It’s not right, but that’s the fact.”
“Bishops have taken a strong approach to dealing with this crisis,”
Judge Merz said. “Sexual abuse of children is not a problem in the church
alone, but bishops as moral leaders must stand in the forefront of
protecting children. The NRB is proud to collaborate with the bishops in
the protection of children and young people.”
[The judge repeats the bishops’ sickening argument that “everybody does it.”
It is patently untrue that the bishops have taken a strong approach. The vast majority of them have not published the names of perpetrators and those credibly accused on diocesan websites. The vast majority have not visited parishes where abuse has taken place. The bishops have made no attempt to bring religious orders (Jesuits, Dominicans, Salesians, etc.) under the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, inadequate though it may be.]
The report is addressed to the U.S. Catholic faithful and is “a record
of accomplishments, unfinished work, and challenges that lie ahead,” it
said. The report praised the USCCB audit process by which “dioceses and
eparchies have been audited to assure the implementation and maintenance of
the standards established” in the Charter for the Protection of Children
and Young People, which the bishops created in 2002.
“Those audits provide substantial evidence of the bishops’ efforts to
protect children and respond to the abuses of the past and present. As of
2006, 98 percent of the dioceses and eparchies are participating in the
audits. Those audited are in full compliance with the standards” set for
the audits, the report said.
[The audits are a sham. They are managed and controlled by the bishops. If the bishops were really serious about protecting children, they would allow audits by an independent agency. The audits are a tool of the bishops to continue the cover up.]
The report also noted that “over six million children have participated
in educational programs and over 1.6 million background investigations have
taken place” as part of diocesan safe environment programs.
[The focus should not be on children, but on priests, bishops, and seminarians. Why have we heard nothing from the NRB about sexually active priests and bishops? Why have we heard nothing about what is being done in seminaries, particularly in the “purple palaces” where many have reported overt and extensive sexual activity taking place among seminarians with participation by some seminary faculty?]
However, the NRB urged an expansion of the audits to measure “the
quality of the work that the dioceses and parishes are doing.”
“The Board is encouraging the USCCB to do random audits of the parishes
and to work toward establishing best practices in educational programs,
victim care, background checks, and investigation of allegations,” the
report said. “During 2007, to provide a model to study for the future, a
number of dioceses volunteered to pilot audits at the parish level. The NRB
fully supports and encourages these parish audits.”
The report cited six challenges which the Board said “are not easily
resolved since they involve extremely complex issues.”
“One of the most significant issues is the need for a greater
understanding of victimization and its consequences. Discussions with
victims provide evidence of serious needs that still must be addressed in
order for the victims and their families to find the healing that they
need,” the report said.
“Another set of issues relates to the relationship of the Church to its
priests, the vast majority of whom are not involved in the scandal, but
many of whom feel alienated from both the bishops and the laity.” In
addition, “there is a particular need to provide appropriate protection and
restoration for those accused but later found innocent.”
[Is it really true that the vast majority of them were not involved in the scandal? How many priests knew of brother priests who spent inordinate time with young boys? How many knew of brother priests who habitually brought young boys to their rooms in the rectory?]
The board called for “greater speed in the process of determining
credibility of allegations and consequent responses, as well as
determination of an appropriate role for the Church in the supervision of
offenders.”
[Offenders are criminals. Why is there no mention here of the proper and appropriate involvement of the police and other appropriate law enforcement agencies?]
It also noted that parishes “also become victims of sexual abuse.
Members of parishes experience both a sense of betrayal or outrage over
accusations that lead to the removal of a pastor or associate. Often
parishioners do not know how to respond to victims and their families and
agonize over the lengthy process of determining appropriate responses. This
is an area that needs much more attention.”
[The outrage and sense of betrayal should be over the criminal acts of the perpetrators, not removal of the perpetrator from a parish.]
The NRB also cited the need to keep church members better informed on
the positive responses the Bishops have made and more active observers of
the programs and processes in their parishes and dioceses.
“Such communication is vitally important since the work of the National
Review Board is strengthened by vigilant parents and parishioners who
investigate the presence and quality of the programs in their parishes and
dioceses,” the report said. “The obligation to provide safe environments
that prevent damage to children, young people, families, parishes,
dioceses, and the Church rests with all Catholics.”
[The obligation to provide safe environments will rest with all Catholics when all Catholics have access to information about allegations of sexual abuse against priests, bishops, and seminarians. Currently only bishops have such access. Thus in the secrecy-obsessed culture of the hierarchy the obligation rests only with the bishops. Experience has shown that the bishops, their counterparts in the religious orders (the religious superiors; the provincials) AND THE POPE CANNOT BE TRUSTED.]
The full report can be found on the Web at
http://www.usccb.org/nrb/nrbreport2007.pdf.
SOURCE U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Chaplains, sexual abuse and what the military knows.
Ensign P. recalls struggling during his third year at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. His mother was dying of an illness back home, and his grades dropped so low in 2004 he was put on academic probation. Raised a Roman Catholic, the 20-year-old cadet started counseling with a military chaplain, Navy Lt. Cmdr. John Thomas Mathew Lee. When Lee invited him to dinner off campus, Ensign P. thought it was an honor—officers don't usually socialize with Academy students. In fact, it was an ambush. Lee took the cadet to his apartment after dinner, poured him rounds of beer and Scotch, then began undoing the man's pants. Testifying softly in a military court earlier this month, Ensign P. said the chaplain engaged him in oral sex. Though he asked Lee to stop, for a few dreadful moments he felt too stunned to move: "This is a guy who knows all my darkest secrets."
More than 2,700 military chaplains minister to U.S. servicemen and cadets on bases around the world. Like that between psychologists and their patients, the dynamic between chaplains and the men and women they counsel tends to be marked by an imbalance of power. Chaplains often outrank the people who go to them for help and exert a spiritual authority that, as in Lee's case, can be exploited. During 11 years in the military, Lee sexually abused at least three men, according to his own admission (all three were identified in court only by their ranks and an initial). A judge at Marine Base Quantico in Virginia this month sentenced him to 12 years in prison and discharge without pay or benefits (under a plea agreement, he will serve only two years). In a disturbing twist, Lee is HIV-positive and admits to withholding that information even from men with whom he had consensual sex.
But while the vast majority of chaplains minister dutifully, Lee isn't the only sinner. According to court filings and an archive recently published by the group Bishop Accountability, up to 60 military chaplains have been convicted or at least are strongly suspected of committing sexual abuse over the past four decades, sometimes against the kids of military personnel. Their cases are a side act to the broader scandal of sex-abusing priests in the Catholic Church. But there may be a correlation. In a number of the cases reviewed by NEWSWEEK involving Catholic chaplains, complaints of sexual abuse were made to their churches well before they joined the military, but were never brought to the military's attention. "I've seen many instances where men were encouraged or allowed to go into the military and their own bishop did not disclose that they had something suspicious in their past," says Thomas Doyle, a Dominican priest and former Air Force chaplain.
Doyle might be the country's most knowledgeable source on the priest sex scandals. In the mid-1980s, he coauthored an internal report for the church on its molestation problem, and has since served as an expert witness in dozens of cases, including that of Michael Miglini of Dallas. Miglini describes being raped when he was just 14 by a military chaplain who had previously served as the pastor in his church and remained friends with the family. After getting therapy in college, Miglini brought a civil suit that was ultimately settled against the Dallas Diocese, the Military Vicariate and the chaplain. In the process, his lawyer uncovered complaints made against the chaplain by other church members that the military says it never saw.
For some victims, it can take years to realize they were exploited. Susan Loomans was a troubled cadet at the Air Force Academy in Colorado when she sought help from a Catholic chaplain. In their first session in 1985, he had her sit on his lap. (Loomans and Miglini are among only a few victims who talk publicly about their ordeals; most aren't named in court filings.) Within weeks, she says, he'd compelled her to engage in a sexual relationship that lasted nearly two years. Most of the time, Loomans thought what they were having was an illicit relationship. It wasn't until she returned to the Academy as faculty, and saw how vulnerable first-year cadets are, that she realized he'd manipulated the power differential.
So far, there's no suggestion that Lee, 42, engaged in sexual abuse before going on active duty in 1996. Susan Gibbs, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., where he served as an associate pastor, says no church would knowingly refer sexual abusers to the military. "Under the policies of virtually every diocese, they would have to attest that someone is in good standing and can serve as a priest," Gibbs tells NEWSWEEK. In court, Lee said little about his past but explained why one of his victims, Cpl. M., succumbed to his advances. "He felt intimidated by my rank and position," the chaplain said. But Cpl. M. also felt mad. Within weeks, he reported the incident to officers at Quantico, who carted Lee to jail.
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
More than 2,700 military chaplains minister to U.S. servicemen and cadets on bases around the world. Like that between psychologists and their patients, the dynamic between chaplains and the men and women they counsel tends to be marked by an imbalance of power. Chaplains often outrank the people who go to them for help and exert a spiritual authority that, as in Lee's case, can be exploited. During 11 years in the military, Lee sexually abused at least three men, according to his own admission (all three were identified in court only by their ranks and an initial). A judge at Marine Base Quantico in Virginia this month sentenced him to 12 years in prison and discharge without pay or benefits (under a plea agreement, he will serve only two years). In a disturbing twist, Lee is HIV-positive and admits to withholding that information even from men with whom he had consensual sex.
But while the vast majority of chaplains minister dutifully, Lee isn't the only sinner. According to court filings and an archive recently published by the group Bishop Accountability, up to 60 military chaplains have been convicted or at least are strongly suspected of committing sexual abuse over the past four decades, sometimes against the kids of military personnel. Their cases are a side act to the broader scandal of sex-abusing priests in the Catholic Church. But there may be a correlation. In a number of the cases reviewed by NEWSWEEK involving Catholic chaplains, complaints of sexual abuse were made to their churches well before they joined the military, but were never brought to the military's attention. "I've seen many instances where men were encouraged or allowed to go into the military and their own bishop did not disclose that they had something suspicious in their past," says Thomas Doyle, a Dominican priest and former Air Force chaplain.
Doyle might be the country's most knowledgeable source on the priest sex scandals. In the mid-1980s, he coauthored an internal report for the church on its molestation problem, and has since served as an expert witness in dozens of cases, including that of Michael Miglini of Dallas. Miglini describes being raped when he was just 14 by a military chaplain who had previously served as the pastor in his church and remained friends with the family. After getting therapy in college, Miglini brought a civil suit that was ultimately settled against the Dallas Diocese, the Military Vicariate and the chaplain. In the process, his lawyer uncovered complaints made against the chaplain by other church members that the military says it never saw.
For some victims, it can take years to realize they were exploited. Susan Loomans was a troubled cadet at the Air Force Academy in Colorado when she sought help from a Catholic chaplain. In their first session in 1985, he had her sit on his lap. (Loomans and Miglini are among only a few victims who talk publicly about their ordeals; most aren't named in court filings.) Within weeks, she says, he'd compelled her to engage in a sexual relationship that lasted nearly two years. Most of the time, Loomans thought what they were having was an illicit relationship. It wasn't until she returned to the Academy as faculty, and saw how vulnerable first-year cadets are, that she realized he'd manipulated the power differential.
So far, there's no suggestion that Lee, 42, engaged in sexual abuse before going on active duty in 1996. Susan Gibbs, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., where he served as an associate pastor, says no church would knowingly refer sexual abusers to the military. "Under the policies of virtually every diocese, they would have to attest that someone is in good standing and can serve as a priest," Gibbs tells NEWSWEEK. In court, Lee said little about his past but explained why one of his victims, Cpl. M., succumbed to his advances. "He felt intimidated by my rank and position," the chaplain said. But Cpl. M. also felt mad. Within weeks, he reported the incident to officers at Quantico, who carted Lee to jail.
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Abuse in Indianopolis Diocese recalled in deposition.
Ex-priest admits abusing boys
In deposition, Harry Monroe describes using drugs, playing sex games while serving in Indianapolis Archdiocese
By Robert King
robert.king@indystar.com
December 14, 2007
A former Catholic priest has admitted to lewd behavior or sex acts with at least five boys during his tenure with the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, according to records filed this week in a case that goes to court Monday.
Harry Monroe, the subject of 13 sexual abuse lawsuits that name him and the archdiocese as co-defendants, said he no longer contests the allegations against him but can't remember specifics about all the incidents, alleged to have taken place from 1974 to 1984.
Yet the cases may never move to trial.
In a hearing scheduled for Monday in Marion Superior Court, Judge David A. Shaheed will consider the archdiocese's request to dismiss one of the first lawsuits filed. The church argues that, like the statutory limit for criminal charges in the cases, the statute of limitations for lawsuits has expired.
Pat Noaker, the attorney representing all 13 plaintiffs, said the statute shouldn't apply in the case to be heard Monday because his client learned only recently that the church knew of Monroe's predatory habits early on.
The attorney for the archdiocese, Jay Mercer, could not be reached Thursday. Archdiocesan spokesman Greg Otolski said he could not comment on the litigation and had not seen Monroe's pretrial deposition.
In that deposition, Monroe gave his first formal response to the allegations. He described his decade as a priest as a time filled with drugs, alcohol, pornography and sex games with adolescent boys at parishes in Indianapolis, Terre Haute and Tell City.
According to the deposition, Monroe said church officials knew he was taking boys into his private parish living quarters and on overnight camping trips. He also said church officials heard a recording of him having a lewd conversation with a boy during one of his first parish assignments in Indianapolis.
The Indianapolis Star reported on the case last year and included interviews with several of the men who said Monroe abused them. Many of their accounts are corroborated by Monroe's deposition. Some of the victims and their families told The Star they complained to the archdiocese about Monroe as early as 1981.
A letter filed with Monroe's deposition seemed to show that the archdiocese kept giving Monroe parish assignments with access to children after it recognized his conduct was a problem.
The 1982 letter from then-Indianapolis Archbishop Edward T. O'Meara assigned Monroe to his final priestly appointment, in Tell City. The address for Monroe listed on the letter is at the House of Affirmation, a California center that attempted to rehabilitate sexually abusive priests.
Monroe said that to his knowledge, no one in the archdiocese ever called police to report his abuse.
Each time Monroe was transferred, Noaker said, the archdiocese failed to warn his new parish of his abusive nature.
Nothing to lose
In June, Monroe, who spent seven hours under oath answering questions about his past, said he was broke, in poor health and living with his domestic partner in Nashville, Tenn. He said he can no longer afford an attorney. Now 59, Monroe said there was much in his life that he regrets, particularly his behavior with young boys, and that he had "nothing else to lose" by answering the questions.
"I'm trying to be as honest with you as I know how to be," Monroe said during the deposition. "I just want to get this past me."
He blamed much of his behavior on his use of alcohol, marijuana and powerful drugs such as Valium that led him to behave erratically, including riding a motorcycle naked on Southern Indiana roads. He said it also factored into his actions with boys.
He said he remembered playing games with two boys from St. Catherine's in Indianapolis, including "running around naked, putting shaving cream on people's privates and stuff like that." He said they later blackmailed him, asking for money to keep the abuse quiet, an allegation the plaintiffs' attorney denies. The payoff Monroe said the two boys demanded: less than $50.
Monroe made the payment but said he remembers feeling "crushed" by this early rejection.
"I thought we were close," he said.
In another instance during the deposition, Monroe said he made an agreement to give a boy a hunting knife if the boy would allow Monroe to perform oral sex on him. He admits to having sexual contact with another boy at St. Catherine's that amounted to "probably just touching."
Frequently struggling with his memory, Monroe said he probably had engaged several other boys in sexual horseplay. But he issued the caveat that his heart problems and bypass surgery had left holes in his long-term memory. Handed photographs and copies of his parish assignment letters, some of the details came back to him.
At some moments during the deposition, Monroe expressed remorse. He said his mother died from knowing the grief her son had caused. Yet he also said his behavior was a byproduct of his substance abuse and his own immaturity, saying he never intended to hurt anyone.
"When I would drink and use drugs, I kind of reverted to adolescence myself," he said. "I never thought of myself as an adult, which is just tragic for them."
At one point in the questioning, Monroe said he recognized that, in a room with attorneys for the archdiocese and the plaintiffs, no one else was on his side. "Everyone here is covering someone else's rear end, and I'm covering mine," he said. "If I drop dead right now, it would probably benefit everyone."
Removed from priesthood
Archdiocesan officials say they dismissed Monroe from the priesthood in 1984 because of sexual misconduct allegations. Monroe testified in June that he was never laicized, or formally returned to being a layperson. Shortly after his dismissal, he sought work with the Catholic Diocese of Nashville but was turned down.
Monroe said he bounced around several jobs, including one as an overnight desk clerk on a psychiatric ward serving adolescent patients at St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville. Then, he said, he spent 15 years doing crisis intervention for adults at the Parthenon Pavilion, a Nashville psychiatric hospital.
Monroe could not be reached Thursday. The Nashville phone number he gave at his deposition was disconnected. A man who answered the number Monroe gave for his domestic partner said he did not know Monroe.
Asked during his deposition whether he ever recognized how destructive it might be for the adolescent boys to be having sexual contact with an adult male, Monroe said he did. But at the time, he said, he didn't recognize it as taking advantage of them.
"If I could take my life and turn it around," he said, "I would do it in a heartbeat."
In deposition, Harry Monroe describes using drugs, playing sex games while serving in Indianapolis Archdiocese
By Robert King
robert.king@indystar.com
December 14, 2007
A former Catholic priest has admitted to lewd behavior or sex acts with at least five boys during his tenure with the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, according to records filed this week in a case that goes to court Monday.
Harry Monroe, the subject of 13 sexual abuse lawsuits that name him and the archdiocese as co-defendants, said he no longer contests the allegations against him but can't remember specifics about all the incidents, alleged to have taken place from 1974 to 1984.
Yet the cases may never move to trial.
In a hearing scheduled for Monday in Marion Superior Court, Judge David A. Shaheed will consider the archdiocese's request to dismiss one of the first lawsuits filed. The church argues that, like the statutory limit for criminal charges in the cases, the statute of limitations for lawsuits has expired.
Pat Noaker, the attorney representing all 13 plaintiffs, said the statute shouldn't apply in the case to be heard Monday because his client learned only recently that the church knew of Monroe's predatory habits early on.
The attorney for the archdiocese, Jay Mercer, could not be reached Thursday. Archdiocesan spokesman Greg Otolski said he could not comment on the litigation and had not seen Monroe's pretrial deposition.
In that deposition, Monroe gave his first formal response to the allegations. He described his decade as a priest as a time filled with drugs, alcohol, pornography and sex games with adolescent boys at parishes in Indianapolis, Terre Haute and Tell City.
According to the deposition, Monroe said church officials knew he was taking boys into his private parish living quarters and on overnight camping trips. He also said church officials heard a recording of him having a lewd conversation with a boy during one of his first parish assignments in Indianapolis.
The Indianapolis Star reported on the case last year and included interviews with several of the men who said Monroe abused them. Many of their accounts are corroborated by Monroe's deposition. Some of the victims and their families told The Star they complained to the archdiocese about Monroe as early as 1981.
A letter filed with Monroe's deposition seemed to show that the archdiocese kept giving Monroe parish assignments with access to children after it recognized his conduct was a problem.
The 1982 letter from then-Indianapolis Archbishop Edward T. O'Meara assigned Monroe to his final priestly appointment, in Tell City. The address for Monroe listed on the letter is at the House of Affirmation, a California center that attempted to rehabilitate sexually abusive priests.
Monroe said that to his knowledge, no one in the archdiocese ever called police to report his abuse.
Each time Monroe was transferred, Noaker said, the archdiocese failed to warn his new parish of his abusive nature.
Nothing to lose
In June, Monroe, who spent seven hours under oath answering questions about his past, said he was broke, in poor health and living with his domestic partner in Nashville, Tenn. He said he can no longer afford an attorney. Now 59, Monroe said there was much in his life that he regrets, particularly his behavior with young boys, and that he had "nothing else to lose" by answering the questions.
"I'm trying to be as honest with you as I know how to be," Monroe said during the deposition. "I just want to get this past me."
He blamed much of his behavior on his use of alcohol, marijuana and powerful drugs such as Valium that led him to behave erratically, including riding a motorcycle naked on Southern Indiana roads. He said it also factored into his actions with boys.
He said he remembered playing games with two boys from St. Catherine's in Indianapolis, including "running around naked, putting shaving cream on people's privates and stuff like that." He said they later blackmailed him, asking for money to keep the abuse quiet, an allegation the plaintiffs' attorney denies. The payoff Monroe said the two boys demanded: less than $50.
Monroe made the payment but said he remembers feeling "crushed" by this early rejection.
"I thought we were close," he said.
In another instance during the deposition, Monroe said he made an agreement to give a boy a hunting knife if the boy would allow Monroe to perform oral sex on him. He admits to having sexual contact with another boy at St. Catherine's that amounted to "probably just touching."
Frequently struggling with his memory, Monroe said he probably had engaged several other boys in sexual horseplay. But he issued the caveat that his heart problems and bypass surgery had left holes in his long-term memory. Handed photographs and copies of his parish assignment letters, some of the details came back to him.
At some moments during the deposition, Monroe expressed remorse. He said his mother died from knowing the grief her son had caused. Yet he also said his behavior was a byproduct of his substance abuse and his own immaturity, saying he never intended to hurt anyone.
"When I would drink and use drugs, I kind of reverted to adolescence myself," he said. "I never thought of myself as an adult, which is just tragic for them."
At one point in the questioning, Monroe said he recognized that, in a room with attorneys for the archdiocese and the plaintiffs, no one else was on his side. "Everyone here is covering someone else's rear end, and I'm covering mine," he said. "If I drop dead right now, it would probably benefit everyone."
Removed from priesthood
Archdiocesan officials say they dismissed Monroe from the priesthood in 1984 because of sexual misconduct allegations. Monroe testified in June that he was never laicized, or formally returned to being a layperson. Shortly after his dismissal, he sought work with the Catholic Diocese of Nashville but was turned down.
Monroe said he bounced around several jobs, including one as an overnight desk clerk on a psychiatric ward serving adolescent patients at St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville. Then, he said, he spent 15 years doing crisis intervention for adults at the Parthenon Pavilion, a Nashville psychiatric hospital.
Monroe could not be reached Thursday. The Nashville phone number he gave at his deposition was disconnected. A man who answered the number Monroe gave for his domestic partner said he did not know Monroe.
Asked during his deposition whether he ever recognized how destructive it might be for the adolescent boys to be having sexual contact with an adult male, Monroe said he did. But at the time, he said, he didn't recognize it as taking advantage of them.
"If I could take my life and turn it around," he said, "I would do it in a heartbeat."
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Attention should also be focused on Women abused as youths by priests.
Women abused as youths by priests deserve equity
By PAT KINNEY, Courier Business Editor
WATERLOO --- A victim of child sex abuse by clergy in the Roman Catholic Church says women in her position deserve as much attention as their male counterparts.
Rosalyn Zieser believes society tends to focus on male victims of clergy sex abuse --- possibly because such reports have been more prevalent. She also thinks some may consider the thought of male priests abusing boys more aberrant than priests abusing girls.
Zieser was born in Iowa but lives in Unity, Wis. She said she is glad she went through the claim and settlement process in her own case.
"I gained through it. I wouldn't have otherwise. It helped me think things through. I remembered a lot more things."
Zieser, an author in her early 70s with six grown children, has lived in Wisconsin since 1976. She said she was abused at age 10 by the Rev. Patrick McElliott in the late 1940s when he was at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Monti in Buchanan County.
After leaving that congregation, McElliott served as pastor of St. John's Catholic Church in Waterloo from 1954 to 1963. More recently, he has been the subject of suits alleging abuse during his tenure there, many of which were settled over the past two years. McElliott died in Waterloo in 1987.
"I know I did all I could to fix this for myself," Zieser said following her settlement last spring.
"I hope it'll give some courage to others. It opened up all the old wounds. But now, they'll heal better."
Having gone through therapy provided by the Archdiocese of Dubuque as part of her settlement, and looking back, Zieser believes women may be able to take additional steps to make the process less difficult.
"I would not go through the litigation process again without having been in therapy already and remaining in therapy during the process," she said.
Some women also may feel more comfortable having a female therapist, attorney or other professional help.
"Maybe not all women would feel they need that," Zieser said.
Attorneys
Two Waterloo attorneys who worked for many people making claims within the Dubuque archdiocese said they helped draw attention to the suffering of female as well as male abuse victims.
Tom Staack and Chad Swanson represented a comparatively high proportion of female clients in two sizable settlements. By comparison, in other regions of the country an overwhelming portion of cases reportedly involved male victims.
"I think we did a lot to change the perception, in this area, that the problem was just one that dealt with boys. From that perspective, I thought we were doing a good thing," Staack said.
Swanson said 12 of the 29 victims involved in the two settlements were women.
"In our first settlement we had eight females and in the second group we had four," he said.
Swanson said he and Staack are pursuing additional abuse claims with male and female clients.
"We do recognize the individual needs that can be specific to a person's sex," Swanson said.
The portion of abuse cases reported by women in the Dubuque archdiocese is significantly higher that even an adjoining diocese.
Attorney Craig Levien in the Quad Cities has represented victims in a number of abuse cases in the Davenport diocese and was involved in a major settlement recently. He said the overwhelming majority of the nearly 100 individuals he worked with are men.
In the area of clergy sex abuse in general, Levien said, the victimization of women has been "even more underreported" than abuse of men.
"And it's been significantly underreported by men," he said.
Other views
Others say women deserve attention.
"Every other female victim I've spoken to indicated there is a definite difference in the way female victims are treated in comparison to male victims," said Heather Smith of Waterloo, co-founder of the Northeast Iowa chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP.
Her conversations have been with victims involved in other settlements in other states. Her own abuse occurred in another state.
"I think society as a whole, whether it's clergy abuse, whether it's by incest, or whether it's by rape, it's perceived as more horrific if it's a male victim," Smith said.
Despite that perception on a wider scale, officials within the Archdiocese of Dubuque say they have not heard other clergy sex abuse survivors here complain of disparate treatment based on gender. Those officials also note Dubuque Archbishop Jerome Hanus has had a policy of appointing women to leadership positions on the issue. The archdiocese has male and female victim assistance coordinators; the two directors of archdiocesan Office for the Protection of Children have been women; and six of the 12 members of the Archdiocesan Review Board on clergy child sex abuse are women, including its chair.
Archdiocesan officials point out victims pursuing claims always have the option of choosing their own attorney, male or female. They also noted psychologists used for testing and evaluating victims as part of the claims process are cleared with victims' attorneys.
Three nationally recognized figures on clergy sex abuse can't pinpoint whether clergy sex abuse victims of one gender are systematically treated better than the other. But they acknowledge differences exist in the circumstances and handling of cases with male and female victims.
"I'm not sure about disparate treatment in the judicial system, but there's certainly the feeling that female clergy sex abuse victims tend to get considerably less attention than males," said Dave Clohessy, national director of SNAP.
"I think male-on-male sex crimes are viewed as inherently more salacious, titillating, outrageous. I'm not saying they are. I'm saying they're viewed that way."
Tahira Khan Merritt, an attorney in Dallas, says the majority of cases involve male victims. She has represented a number of clergy sex abuse victims and also served as a special prosecutor in a major criminal proceeding against a priest.
"I would say 90 percent of them are male victims," she said, though she doesn't think they are handled particularly differently.
Merritt, though, notes "jury bias in every case," which may reflect society as a whole.
For example, Merritt said she is representing one of several teenage victims impregnated by a priest and must overcome biases in that case.
"It's kind of like, did they seduce him? All those kinds of things you don't have to deal with if it's male-on-male," she said.
Meanwhile, Merritt said homosexual abuse may be considered more of a taboo and more terrible, especially in the view of different ethnic cultures.
Gender issues
Dave Lewcon, a clergy sex abuse survivor from Massachusetts, provides counseling and support as a victim advocate with Merritt's clients. He says support group meeting attendance indicates the number of actual abuse incidents may be more evenly divided by gender than actual suits indicate.
"I would say the overwhelming majority of those attending were women, definitely," Lewcon said.
Clohessy reports in his group a 50-50 split between male and female victims.
"The bishops claim it's 80 percent boys, but I think those figures are highly suspect," Clohessy said.
"I think, among some older Catholic parents, if Sally has been assaulted by a priest as a girl, dad puts his arm around her and says, 'I'm sorry,'" Clohessy said.
"If Johnny is sexually assaulted, there's a slightly higher chance that the dad puts his arm around Johnny and says, 'We're going to do something about this.'"
Some pastors receiving abuse reports may have acted similarly, Clohessy suggests. He also notes that, nationally, male victims have received some of the larger settlements.
The settlements are "all fundamentally far from perfect" and can be judged with a variety of standards, Clohessy said.
Smith, with the Survivors Network in Northeast Iowa, said how damages are determined in group settlements can raise difficult questions.
"How can they walk a mile in my shoes? How can they live with devastation, and the changes in personality, and the effect it has on my daily life?" she asks.
"No one else can know that. And how can they say what happens to me is less damaging than what happens to whomever?"
Similarly, Smith suggests a perception exists that women in general can be victims, but not abusers --- despite the fact many boys were abused by nuns.
"Whether the victim is male or female, the effects on males and females are just as devastating," Smith said.
Contact Pat Kinney at (319) 291-1484 or pat.kinney@wcfcourier.com.
By PAT KINNEY, Courier Business Editor
WATERLOO --- A victim of child sex abuse by clergy in the Roman Catholic Church says women in her position deserve as much attention as their male counterparts.
Rosalyn Zieser believes society tends to focus on male victims of clergy sex abuse --- possibly because such reports have been more prevalent. She also thinks some may consider the thought of male priests abusing boys more aberrant than priests abusing girls.
Zieser was born in Iowa but lives in Unity, Wis. She said she is glad she went through the claim and settlement process in her own case.
"I gained through it. I wouldn't have otherwise. It helped me think things through. I remembered a lot more things."
Zieser, an author in her early 70s with six grown children, has lived in Wisconsin since 1976. She said she was abused at age 10 by the Rev. Patrick McElliott in the late 1940s when he was at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Monti in Buchanan County.
After leaving that congregation, McElliott served as pastor of St. John's Catholic Church in Waterloo from 1954 to 1963. More recently, he has been the subject of suits alleging abuse during his tenure there, many of which were settled over the past two years. McElliott died in Waterloo in 1987.
"I know I did all I could to fix this for myself," Zieser said following her settlement last spring.
"I hope it'll give some courage to others. It opened up all the old wounds. But now, they'll heal better."
Having gone through therapy provided by the Archdiocese of Dubuque as part of her settlement, and looking back, Zieser believes women may be able to take additional steps to make the process less difficult.
"I would not go through the litigation process again without having been in therapy already and remaining in therapy during the process," she said.
Some women also may feel more comfortable having a female therapist, attorney or other professional help.
"Maybe not all women would feel they need that," Zieser said.
Attorneys
Two Waterloo attorneys who worked for many people making claims within the Dubuque archdiocese said they helped draw attention to the suffering of female as well as male abuse victims.
Tom Staack and Chad Swanson represented a comparatively high proportion of female clients in two sizable settlements. By comparison, in other regions of the country an overwhelming portion of cases reportedly involved male victims.
"I think we did a lot to change the perception, in this area, that the problem was just one that dealt with boys. From that perspective, I thought we were doing a good thing," Staack said.
Swanson said 12 of the 29 victims involved in the two settlements were women.
"In our first settlement we had eight females and in the second group we had four," he said.
Swanson said he and Staack are pursuing additional abuse claims with male and female clients.
"We do recognize the individual needs that can be specific to a person's sex," Swanson said.
The portion of abuse cases reported by women in the Dubuque archdiocese is significantly higher that even an adjoining diocese.
Attorney Craig Levien in the Quad Cities has represented victims in a number of abuse cases in the Davenport diocese and was involved in a major settlement recently. He said the overwhelming majority of the nearly 100 individuals he worked with are men.
In the area of clergy sex abuse in general, Levien said, the victimization of women has been "even more underreported" than abuse of men.
"And it's been significantly underreported by men," he said.
Other views
Others say women deserve attention.
"Every other female victim I've spoken to indicated there is a definite difference in the way female victims are treated in comparison to male victims," said Heather Smith of Waterloo, co-founder of the Northeast Iowa chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP.
Her conversations have been with victims involved in other settlements in other states. Her own abuse occurred in another state.
"I think society as a whole, whether it's clergy abuse, whether it's by incest, or whether it's by rape, it's perceived as more horrific if it's a male victim," Smith said.
Despite that perception on a wider scale, officials within the Archdiocese of Dubuque say they have not heard other clergy sex abuse survivors here complain of disparate treatment based on gender. Those officials also note Dubuque Archbishop Jerome Hanus has had a policy of appointing women to leadership positions on the issue. The archdiocese has male and female victim assistance coordinators; the two directors of archdiocesan Office for the Protection of Children have been women; and six of the 12 members of the Archdiocesan Review Board on clergy child sex abuse are women, including its chair.
Archdiocesan officials point out victims pursuing claims always have the option of choosing their own attorney, male or female. They also noted psychologists used for testing and evaluating victims as part of the claims process are cleared with victims' attorneys.
Three nationally recognized figures on clergy sex abuse can't pinpoint whether clergy sex abuse victims of one gender are systematically treated better than the other. But they acknowledge differences exist in the circumstances and handling of cases with male and female victims.
"I'm not sure about disparate treatment in the judicial system, but there's certainly the feeling that female clergy sex abuse victims tend to get considerably less attention than males," said Dave Clohessy, national director of SNAP.
"I think male-on-male sex crimes are viewed as inherently more salacious, titillating, outrageous. I'm not saying they are. I'm saying they're viewed that way."
Tahira Khan Merritt, an attorney in Dallas, says the majority of cases involve male victims. She has represented a number of clergy sex abuse victims and also served as a special prosecutor in a major criminal proceeding against a priest.
"I would say 90 percent of them are male victims," she said, though she doesn't think they are handled particularly differently.
Merritt, though, notes "jury bias in every case," which may reflect society as a whole.
For example, Merritt said she is representing one of several teenage victims impregnated by a priest and must overcome biases in that case.
"It's kind of like, did they seduce him? All those kinds of things you don't have to deal with if it's male-on-male," she said.
Meanwhile, Merritt said homosexual abuse may be considered more of a taboo and more terrible, especially in the view of different ethnic cultures.
Gender issues
Dave Lewcon, a clergy sex abuse survivor from Massachusetts, provides counseling and support as a victim advocate with Merritt's clients. He says support group meeting attendance indicates the number of actual abuse incidents may be more evenly divided by gender than actual suits indicate.
"I would say the overwhelming majority of those attending were women, definitely," Lewcon said.
Clohessy reports in his group a 50-50 split between male and female victims.
"The bishops claim it's 80 percent boys, but I think those figures are highly suspect," Clohessy said.
"I think, among some older Catholic parents, if Sally has been assaulted by a priest as a girl, dad puts his arm around her and says, 'I'm sorry,'" Clohessy said.
"If Johnny is sexually assaulted, there's a slightly higher chance that the dad puts his arm around Johnny and says, 'We're going to do something about this.'"
Some pastors receiving abuse reports may have acted similarly, Clohessy suggests. He also notes that, nationally, male victims have received some of the larger settlements.
The settlements are "all fundamentally far from perfect" and can be judged with a variety of standards, Clohessy said.
Smith, with the Survivors Network in Northeast Iowa, said how damages are determined in group settlements can raise difficult questions.
"How can they walk a mile in my shoes? How can they live with devastation, and the changes in personality, and the effect it has on my daily life?" she asks.
"No one else can know that. And how can they say what happens to me is less damaging than what happens to whomever?"
Similarly, Smith suggests a perception exists that women in general can be victims, but not abusers --- despite the fact many boys were abused by nuns.
"Whether the victim is male or female, the effects on males and females are just as devastating," Smith said.
Contact Pat Kinney at (319) 291-1484 or pat.kinney@wcfcourier.com.
Friday, December 7, 2007
From the Commonweal Blog on Cardinal Law
Posted by Barbara
on December 7th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
What is or ought to be the bitterest irony is that the Church was forced to conform its conduct to the law, and really, its own teaching by none other than the “dictatorship of relativism” that the Church so loves to sneer at. If Law had been the superintendent of the Boston school system he would be in jail — or more likely, and to what ought to be our greater sorrow, he would have acted differently.
And next in line for repulsiveness is the fact that the Church was granted a good faith exemption by the state from child abuse reporting laws in order to protect priests from being forced to break their vows of confessional secrecy, and that exemption was used to hide the sins of the confessors and protect them from the consequences of their crimes against some of their most vulnerable sheep.
And yet, the irony of this, and its impact on the credibility and authority of the Church is simply lost on many in the Church, who to this day reserve their greatest moral outrage for the Boston Globe.
on December 7th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
What is or ought to be the bitterest irony is that the Church was forced to conform its conduct to the law, and really, its own teaching by none other than the “dictatorship of relativism” that the Church so loves to sneer at. If Law had been the superintendent of the Boston school system he would be in jail — or more likely, and to what ought to be our greater sorrow, he would have acted differently.
And next in line for repulsiveness is the fact that the Church was granted a good faith exemption by the state from child abuse reporting laws in order to protect priests from being forced to break their vows of confessional secrecy, and that exemption was used to hide the sins of the confessors and protect them from the consequences of their crimes against some of their most vulnerable sheep.
And yet, the irony of this, and its impact on the credibility and authority of the Church is simply lost on many in the Church, who to this day reserve their greatest moral outrage for the Boston Globe.
The Heat is Still on in LA
LOS ANGELES (CA)
The District Weekly
THE MICHAEL BAKER TIMELINE: A FEW DETAILS
Rachel Powers
Thu. December 06
On Monday, when Will Swaim and I first wrote about admitted child molester
Michael Baker and his plea deal, we knew relatively little about his
personal
history: simply that he had done terrible things, that some of those
things had taken place in Long Beach, and that church officials had
allowed him to retain
everything that he had ever needed to abuse children (chiefly clerical
authority, access to minors, and a succession of positions throughout the
southland.)
There are still a lot of gaps, but we've learned a few things:
In December of 1986, 21 years ago, Baker met with Cardinal Mahoney and
confessed to his attraction to children, and to his abusive relationships
with two
different boys over a 7 year period. (Baker later described Mahoney as
having been "very solicitous and understanding" during the meeting.) After
a 5-month
stay at a residential treatment facility for priests with such
difficulties, and with orders to avoid minors, Baker went back to work.
Over the next 14 years he
served in at least 7 different parishes.
In 2000, after the church was forced to make a confidential $1.3 million
payout to the family of two boys who had been victimized by Baker at the
ages of 5
and 7, Mahoney gave up. Baker was "laicized"-defrocked-and sent on his
way.
Criminal charges were brought against Baker and dozens of other priests in
2002, then dismissed in 2003 due to the Supreme Court's reinstatement of
the
statute of limitations. We'll know more about those charges and how Baker
came to the attention of prosecutors soon.
There are reports that in 2003 Mahoney finally notified the police of
Baker's crimes. But at the same time the Archdiocese, directed by Mahoney,
began to
vigorously fight subpoenas of clerical personnel files.
Baker wasn't arrested again until January of 2006.
Just a few of the lingering questions: Did Mahoney actually report the
abuse, and if so, why did he wait for three years? What brought on the
crisis of
conscience? And doesn't the law (never mind personal morality) require
that church officials alert the authorities to violent, habitual
offenders? Does the
record support the church's claim that it was hoodwinked by Baker's
alleged insistence that he was on good behavior?
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Archdiocese of New York Coloring Book on Predators
Of Interest...
Thursday December 6, 2007
from the New York Post
December 4, 2007—A new coloring book being distributed by the Archdiocese of New York teaches children to protect themselves from adults – including, apparently, priests – who cannot stay within the lines.
Although priests are never explicitly the villains of “Being Friends, Being Safe, Being Catholic,” the female guardian angel who narrates the morality tale warns on one page that an altar boy should never remain alone in a room with any adult unless the door is open.
“If a child and an adult happen to be alone, someone should know where they are, and the door should be open or have a big window in it,” the smiling angel says in the panel as she floats above an altar boy donning his church smock, apparently in a church sacristy, as a man who seems to be a priest looks at him.
The coloring books have been distributed to 300 schools and 400 religious groups.
Edward Mechmann, director of the archdiocese’s Safe Environment program, which commissioned the books, said church officials were wary of targeting priests directly.
“We are in the business of dealing with kids, and we don’t want to rob them of their innocence,” he said. “We wanted to be fair to the priests so we weren’t stigmatizing them.”
But advocates of those who have been abused by priests complain that the church must more clearly point the finger at the most likely perpetrators preying on children.
“Too much is made of the creepy stranger, when predators are actually most often the adults we have taught kids are trustworthy,” said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP). “It does seem as though church officials are still reluctant to admit that, in fact, their own clergy can be – and are – predators.”
In the book, after a series of dire warnings about strangers bearing gifts and online predators wishing to meet children, priests are finally mentioned – but as part of a word search for a list of adults that can be trusted.
Even a comic book aimed at older kids avoids a clear indictment of a member of the clergy. In that story, a parent at the school preys on female students.
Advocates said they were not questioning the motives of the archdiocese, headed by Edward Cardinal Egan, but said that church officials were so careful, they missed the heart of the matter.
“No matter how you try to teach children about child sex abuse, if you don’t point out that it is the priest, the teacher, the Boy Scout leader, who have a position of real power and trust over children, you have missed the point,” said Michael Dowd, a lawyer who has represented hundreds of victims of child sexual abuse.
The coloring book was first reported in Newsweek magazine.
jeremy.olshan@nypost.com
Thursday December 6, 2007
from the New York Post
December 4, 2007—A new coloring book being distributed by the Archdiocese of New York teaches children to protect themselves from adults – including, apparently, priests – who cannot stay within the lines.
Although priests are never explicitly the villains of “Being Friends, Being Safe, Being Catholic,” the female guardian angel who narrates the morality tale warns on one page that an altar boy should never remain alone in a room with any adult unless the door is open.
“If a child and an adult happen to be alone, someone should know where they are, and the door should be open or have a big window in it,” the smiling angel says in the panel as she floats above an altar boy donning his church smock, apparently in a church sacristy, as a man who seems to be a priest looks at him.
The coloring books have been distributed to 300 schools and 400 religious groups.
Edward Mechmann, director of the archdiocese’s Safe Environment program, which commissioned the books, said church officials were wary of targeting priests directly.
“We are in the business of dealing with kids, and we don’t want to rob them of their innocence,” he said. “We wanted to be fair to the priests so we weren’t stigmatizing them.”
But advocates of those who have been abused by priests complain that the church must more clearly point the finger at the most likely perpetrators preying on children.
“Too much is made of the creepy stranger, when predators are actually most often the adults we have taught kids are trustworthy,” said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP). “It does seem as though church officials are still reluctant to admit that, in fact, their own clergy can be – and are – predators.”
In the book, after a series of dire warnings about strangers bearing gifts and online predators wishing to meet children, priests are finally mentioned – but as part of a word search for a list of adults that can be trusted.
Even a comic book aimed at older kids avoids a clear indictment of a member of the clergy. In that story, a parent at the school preys on female students.
Advocates said they were not questioning the motives of the archdiocese, headed by Edward Cardinal Egan, but said that church officials were so careful, they missed the heart of the matter.
“No matter how you try to teach children about child sex abuse, if you don’t point out that it is the priest, the teacher, the Boy Scout leader, who have a position of real power and trust over children, you have missed the point,” said Michael Dowd, a lawyer who has represented hundreds of victims of child sexual abuse.
The coloring book was first reported in Newsweek magazine.
jeremy.olshan@nypost.com
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Rudy's Friend: The Accused Pedophile Priest
December 4, 2007 by Michael Clancy
Many Voice readers may be aware of Rudy Giuliani's longtime friendship with Msgr. Alan Placa, a priest accused of not only molesting four minors on Long Island but covering up other child abuse cases that he was supposed to investigate for the Catholic Church. Wayne Barrett wrote about Giuliani and Placa in June in a larger article about Rudy's campaign on his supposed Catholic record.
Special grand jury reports from the Suffolk County Supreme Court, which were released in 2003, shed more light on Placa's alleged misdeeds with little boys.
A little background on Placa from the Barrett story:
Alan Placa is not just a major figure in Giuliani's marital life: He baptized both of Giuliani's children, and though already stripped of his priestly powers, he was given special dispensation from his bishop in Long Island to preside at Helen Giuliani's September 2002 funeral. A month earlier—despite still-pending allegations that he'd groped four minors in Long Island's Diocese of Rockville Center—he was hired as a three-day-a-week consultant at Giuliani Partners, where he remains today. Michael Hess, the managing partner of Giuliani's firm and the city's former top lawyer, represents Placa in the ongoing cases. When first reached by a reporter at Giuliani Partners, Placa claimed that he was only visiting—a falsehood quickly reversed by a firm spokeswoman....Indeed, even if one assumes that America won't be offended by the contradiction between Giuliani's marital choices and his professed Catholicism, that will almost certainly change as the country learns more about his best friend, business associate, and lifelong link to the church. New York papers have reported some devastating details, drawn largely from a Suffolk County grand jury report issued in 2003
.
Placa was the Catholic clergyman identified as "Priest F" in the grand jury report, according to Richard Tollner, one of his accusers who testified before the grand jury, and various media accounts.
The three-page section of the report that deals with Placa says that he started abusing an altar boy in his first assignment as a priest:
"Once, when he was working at the rectory on a slow evening, the boy was in the office watching TV, Priest F came in and asked if he could join him. He pulled a chair up next to the boy and put his right hand on his thigh. Slowly his hand began to creep up towards the boy's genital area. Alarmed, the boy covered his crouch. After Priest F's efforts to push his arm away failed, Priest F gave up and left. The boy remembered that Priest F was very nervous. He never told anyone at the time because he didn't think anyone would believe him"
In his next assignment, "Priest F" did not relent:
"Priest F was cautious, but relentless in his pursuit of victims. He fondled boys over their clothes, usually in his office. Always, his actions were hidden by a poster, newspaper or a book. He talked continuously as he fondled them. Everyone in the school knew to stay away from Priest F."
A footnote in the report about one of those instances of alleged abuse contains an absurd but heartbreaking detail: "One of the victims remembers the first incident of abuse taking place when preparations were underway to attend a right-to-life march on the anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision. The students were making banners with Priest F's help. It was a banner that was used as the foil on this occasion."
Literally fondling boys under a right-to-life banner. Wow. It's an irony that you might have to be Catholic to appreciate.
Many Voice readers may be aware of Rudy Giuliani's longtime friendship with Msgr. Alan Placa, a priest accused of not only molesting four minors on Long Island but covering up other child abuse cases that he was supposed to investigate for the Catholic Church. Wayne Barrett wrote about Giuliani and Placa in June in a larger article about Rudy's campaign on his supposed Catholic record.
Special grand jury reports from the Suffolk County Supreme Court, which were released in 2003, shed more light on Placa's alleged misdeeds with little boys.
A little background on Placa from the Barrett story:
Alan Placa is not just a major figure in Giuliani's marital life: He baptized both of Giuliani's children, and though already stripped of his priestly powers, he was given special dispensation from his bishop in Long Island to preside at Helen Giuliani's September 2002 funeral. A month earlier—despite still-pending allegations that he'd groped four minors in Long Island's Diocese of Rockville Center—he was hired as a three-day-a-week consultant at Giuliani Partners, where he remains today. Michael Hess, the managing partner of Giuliani's firm and the city's former top lawyer, represents Placa in the ongoing cases. When first reached by a reporter at Giuliani Partners, Placa claimed that he was only visiting—a falsehood quickly reversed by a firm spokeswoman....Indeed, even if one assumes that America won't be offended by the contradiction between Giuliani's marital choices and his professed Catholicism, that will almost certainly change as the country learns more about his best friend, business associate, and lifelong link to the church. New York papers have reported some devastating details, drawn largely from a Suffolk County grand jury report issued in 2003
.
Placa was the Catholic clergyman identified as "Priest F" in the grand jury report, according to Richard Tollner, one of his accusers who testified before the grand jury, and various media accounts.
The three-page section of the report that deals with Placa says that he started abusing an altar boy in his first assignment as a priest:
"Once, when he was working at the rectory on a slow evening, the boy was in the office watching TV, Priest F came in and asked if he could join him. He pulled a chair up next to the boy and put his right hand on his thigh. Slowly his hand began to creep up towards the boy's genital area. Alarmed, the boy covered his crouch. After Priest F's efforts to push his arm away failed, Priest F gave up and left. The boy remembered that Priest F was very nervous. He never told anyone at the time because he didn't think anyone would believe him"
In his next assignment, "Priest F" did not relent:
"Priest F was cautious, but relentless in his pursuit of victims. He fondled boys over their clothes, usually in his office. Always, his actions were hidden by a poster, newspaper or a book. He talked continuously as he fondled them. Everyone in the school knew to stay away from Priest F."
A footnote in the report about one of those instances of alleged abuse contains an absurd but heartbreaking detail: "One of the victims remembers the first incident of abuse taking place when preparations were underway to attend a right-to-life march on the anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision. The students were making banners with Priest F's help. It was a banner that was used as the foil on this occasion."
Literally fondling boys under a right-to-life banner. Wow. It's an irony that you might have to be Catholic to appreciate.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Monsignor removed from Brooklyn parish after admitting misconduct from 30 years ago
Monsignor removed from parish after admitting misconduct from 30 years ago
BY PETER KADUSHIN and ALISON GENDAR
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS WRITERS
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2007/12/04/2007-12-04_monsignor_removed_from_parish_after_admi.html
A Brooklyn monsignor has been yanked from his parish after admitting "inappropriate behavior" with up to five young people more than 30 years ago, authorities said.
Msgr. George Zatarga, 65, admitted allegations of sexual misconduct when he was a relatively new priest in the Diocese of Brooklyn in the late 1970s, according to a letter the Bishop of Brooklyn Nicholas DiMarzio sent to Zatarga's flock.
A law enforcement source said investigators also were checking out more recent abuse allegations. Zatarga served as chaplain at Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School in Brooklyn from 1971 to 1979, and chaplain at Archbishop Molloy High School in Queens from 1979 to 1989.
An adult victim broke the silence with a call to the diocese's toll-free sexual assault hotline two weeks ago, authorities said.
Zatarga admitted the misconduct and resigned over the weekend as pastor of the American Martyrs parish in Bayside, Queens, a post he had held for the past two years.
None of the alleged abuse took place at American Martyrs, said diocesan spokesman Frank DeRosa. Diocesan officials declined to name where Zatarga worked when the alleged assault occurred.
"The faith is great but something obviously went wrong," said a parishioner at American Martyrs, who gave his name only as Michael. "There's a problem in the church right now and something needs to be done. It is unacceptable that he could do something like that."
Zatarga is at a counseling center outside of the diocese, and the allegations have been turned over to the Brooklyn district attorney's office for investigation, DeRosa said.
The statute of limitations for sexual abuse is five years, law enforcement sources said.
He has been placed on administrative leave, meaning that he cannot present himself as a priest, wear clerical garb, celebrate the Mass or administer sacraments publicly. He will be allowed to celebrate Mass privately.
Zatarga was ordained in June 1968. He left Archbishop Molloy to serve Christ the King Church in Queens from 1989 to 1999. He served as the vicar for senior priests - ministering to retired priests from 1999 to 2005 before coming to American Martyrs.
Other American Martyrs parishioners said Zatarga was known for taking month-long vacations, including a ski trip to Colorado, and for an offbeat sense of humor.
The article above is complete.
BY PETER KADUSHIN and ALISON GENDAR
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS WRITERS
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2007/12/04/2007-12-04_monsignor_removed_from_parish_after_admi.html
A Brooklyn monsignor has been yanked from his parish after admitting "inappropriate behavior" with up to five young people more than 30 years ago, authorities said.
Msgr. George Zatarga, 65, admitted allegations of sexual misconduct when he was a relatively new priest in the Diocese of Brooklyn in the late 1970s, according to a letter the Bishop of Brooklyn Nicholas DiMarzio sent to Zatarga's flock.
A law enforcement source said investigators also were checking out more recent abuse allegations. Zatarga served as chaplain at Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School in Brooklyn from 1971 to 1979, and chaplain at Archbishop Molloy High School in Queens from 1979 to 1989.
An adult victim broke the silence with a call to the diocese's toll-free sexual assault hotline two weeks ago, authorities said.
Zatarga admitted the misconduct and resigned over the weekend as pastor of the American Martyrs parish in Bayside, Queens, a post he had held for the past two years.
None of the alleged abuse took place at American Martyrs, said diocesan spokesman Frank DeRosa. Diocesan officials declined to name where Zatarga worked when the alleged assault occurred.
"The faith is great but something obviously went wrong," said a parishioner at American Martyrs, who gave his name only as Michael. "There's a problem in the church right now and something needs to be done. It is unacceptable that he could do something like that."
Zatarga is at a counseling center outside of the diocese, and the allegations have been turned over to the Brooklyn district attorney's office for investigation, DeRosa said.
The statute of limitations for sexual abuse is five years, law enforcement sources said.
He has been placed on administrative leave, meaning that he cannot present himself as a priest, wear clerical garb, celebrate the Mass or administer sacraments publicly. He will be allowed to celebrate Mass privately.
Zatarga was ordained in June 1968. He left Archbishop Molloy to serve Christ the King Church in Queens from 1989 to 1999. He served as the vicar for senior priests - ministering to retired priests from 1999 to 2005 before coming to American Martyrs.
Other American Martyrs parishioners said Zatarga was known for taking month-long vacations, including a ski trip to Colorado, and for an offbeat sense of humor.
The article above is complete.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
