The Vanishing Accused Priests

Ten years after the clergy sex abuse scandal first exploded in the United States, lawsuits have been settled, reports issued, policies overhauled. But even as the crisis has shifted to Europe and the Vatican prepares to issue new guidelines on how to handle sex abuse cases, something glaring is missing in this country: the accused priests.

Although the vast majority were removed from ministry long ago - barred from celebrating Mass in public, administering the sacraments, wearing their clerical collars or presenting themselves as priests - church officials say they have no way to monitor where the men are now. Nor do they keep official data on how many were defrocked, or stripped of their priestly status; how many were imprisoned or placed on sex-offender lists; how many are working; and how many are dead.

The priests have largely vanished from public view. Their fates are often a mystery to their victims, their parishioners and even their attorneys.

Independently compiling data about what happened to the men is nearly impossible. Reports by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops show that at least 5,768 priests were accused from 1950 to 2009. Although the church deems most of the allegations credible, the vast majority have never been proved, and many of the priests have never been publicly identified.

The same is true in the Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Arlington, where local church officials put the tally of accused priests at 42 without naming all of them. (At least five additional men who belong to religious orders have been accused in the Washington Archdiocese.)

But a comprehensive list of names does not exist. Victims groups often disagree with church officials on who should be included and maintain their own lists.

The Washington Post was able to identify 31 priests accused in the Washington area and locate nine who are alive. All declined to talk about their cases or their lives, but court documents and interviews with those around them offer glimpses. The outcomes vary so much that they defy sweeping generalizations about the way the allegations were handled by the church or the courts.

Many of the cases never made it into criminal court because the alleged abuse occurred decades earlier and fell beyond local statutes of limitations or made evidence difficult to gather. Sometimes the accusers did not want to press charges. But at least 11 men were sentenced to prison, and at least five were sued in civil court. Seven are dead, including Monsignor William Reinecke, longtime chancellor of the Arlington Diocese, who shot himself after a former altar boy confronted him after Mass. At least 10 were defrocked by the Vatican. Four of those convicted of crimes wound up on sex-offender registries.

-Read the full Washington Post article

Related articles

• Chicago: More than half of parishes had priest accused of abuse  (Queering the Church)
• Breaking News: German Cover-up of Abuse Revealed in Church Rep (Queering the Church)
• German Official Releases Damning Report about Handling of Abuse Cases in Munich Diocese (Bilgrimage)

Breaking News: German Cover-up of Abuse Revealed in Church Report

Is this the first sign of an extensive cover-up in Germany, in Cardinal Ratzinger's diocese of Munich and Freisung, including during his tenure as Archbishop? The report of an investigation commissioned by the Church itself seems to think so.

I reserve my own comment for now, but read the facts from Deutsche Welle, in a report that was commissioned to "try to air some dirty laundry":

German study finds systematic cover-ups in Catholic priest abuse cases

An investigation into cases of sexual abuse in the German Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, where Pope Benedikt XVI was once archbishop, has revealed a "systematic system of cover-up" and a lot of missing paperwork.

Delaware Parish to carry $3m of record damages award.

A Delaware court has awarded $30 million dollars in compensation to a victim of clerical sexual abuse. The plaintiff of course, will never see that amount: the guilty priest is personally liable for most of this, and of course does not have it. But in an unusual move which should terrify every church-going Catholic in the US, the jury determined that the local parish where the abuse took place should pay 10% of the award, a hefty $3 million, because it had failed to exercise adequate supervision over its priest. There could be more to pay, too. This amount does not include any punitive damages, which could still be added to the existing sum.

A jury in Delaware on Wednesday awarded $30 million in compensatory damages to a man who said he was sexually abused more than 100 times by a Roman Catholic priest — the largest such award granted to a single victim in a clergy abuse case, victims’ advocates said.

In an unusual outcome, the jury decided that the parish where the abuse occurred, St. Elizabeth in Wilmington, must pay $3 million of the damages, while the perpetrator is liable for the rest. Parishes have previously been held liable in only one or two cases involving abuse by Catholic priests, according to records kept by an advocacy group for victims known as bishopaccountability.org.

-(Full report at the NY Times)

Pause a minute, and let that sink in.

At a time when so many churches are being closed for lack of funds, how many parishes could cope with a legal claim for $3 million and more, as well as the legal costs and administrative nightmare of defending  a case? It's not enough to simply say that in practice, the diocese will pick up the tab. They might, if this were the only case. It is not, not by a long chalk.

This is just one defendant. A recent study suggested that possibly half of all parishes may have had an abusive priest working with them in the past. Imagine if half of all parishes in a diocese were to find themselves in the same position as this one?No way could the diocese take on a payment of $3 mil per victim for half their parishes.

Adding salt to the wounds, is that the offences took place many years ago. The parishioners who failed in their supervision of the priest, are probably no longer around. The people who will be acting for the parish, and find ways to produce the money, are almost certainly not the ones who were personally responsible for the lapses of oversight in the first place.

But look on the bright side.  Far too many parish priests simply do not permit any meaningful lay oversight over their activities, and too many parish councils simply step back, and defer to the priests wishes. If they know that courts could find themselves responsible for earlier misdeeds of their priests, they might just be bolder in future, and be less likely in future to simply accept in good faith the priests' reassurances of good behaviour.

Related articles

• $30 Million Is Awarded Over Abuse by Priest (nytimes.com)
• Chicago: More than half of parishes had priest accused of abuse (queering-the-church.com)
• Bishop Morlino Involved In Another Crash On The Catholic Interstate (enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com)
• Breaking News: German Cover-up of Abuse Revealed in Church Report (queeringthechurch.wordpress.com)

Chicago: More than half of parishes had priest accused of abuse

In Chicago, a careful analysis by activists based on the Church's own database and on court records has been simply dismissed by the diocese. The report concluded that over half of the diocese's parishes have at one time or another been served by a priest accused of sexual abuse. The diocesan response was that the priests concerned have been dismissed from ministry.

A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Chicago said officials have not seen the study, but told of the report's highlights questioned its conclusions.
"From the description of what we have heard, it appears that the analysis and conclusions are questionable," said Colleen Dolan of the archdiocese in an e-mailed statement. "The priests referred to in the ... report have all been removed and are not in ministry in the Archdiocese of Chicago."

This response is entirely beside the point. The report is not about the current situation, but an attempt to illustrate the geographical scale of the problem. Once again, the Church's response is to entirely ignore the evidence.
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More than half of Chicago's Roman Catholic parishes have had a priest accused of sexually abusing a child working there at some point, according to a study released today that was quickly questioned by the Chicago Archdiocese.

In some cases, multiple priests accused of misconduct worked at the same church, according to the study, conducted by reform groups Voice of the Faithful, African American Advocates for Victims of Clergy Sexual Abuse and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

"In almost 60 percent of the parishes, an accused predator worked there," said Barbara Blaine, president of SNAP.

For example, from 1980 to 1990, 57.7% of Chicago parishes had an accused priest working there, said Bob Kopp, one of the study's researchers and vice president of Chicagoland Voice of the Faithful. Other decades examined in the study had similar percentages of affected parishes, he said.

Read more

Related articles

• News conference, concerned Catholics and clergy sex abuse victims will disclose and discuss a new study Monday, October 11th (chicagonow.com)
• Chicago Priests Challenging Cardinal George Receive Support (bilgrimage.blogspot.com)
• Chicago Priests Call Cardinal George, President of U.S. Catholic Bishops, to Accountability (bilgrimage.blogspot.com)

New twist in Belgian Catholic abuse legal row

After the Belgian police controversially raided the bishops' offices and Cardinal Daneels' home, confiscating truckloads of material relating to allegations of church sexual abuse, two lower courts ruled that the raid had been inaoppropriate, and ordered that the material would be inadmissable as evidence. However, this is not over yet.  "Expatica" yesterday reported from Belgium that there has been a

New twist in Belgian Catholic abuse legal row

BRUSSELS: Belgium's highest court ordered magistrates on Tuesday to re-examine evidence seized by police relating to decades of child abuse and alleged Roman Catholic Church cover-ups.

The court overturned two previous decisions by lower courts that rendered inadmissible evidence taken from church headquarters, the home of a former archbishop and a church-backed commission investigating sex crimes perpetrated by priests.

Responding to lawyers acting for alleged victims who lodged appeals, the judges said the lower courts were wrong not to hear civil parties and therefore magistrates should look again at the evidence in a new light.

It means that truckloads of material gathered by police in spectacular raids in June that drew the ire of Pope Benedict XVI himself could potentially be used to relaunch state prosecutions for abuse.

However, it does not automatically mean a prosecution case will be launched, because the lower judges could reach the same decisions as before, saying they have done so this time while considering aggrieved parties' accusations.

The raids on June 24, conducted as a Vatican ambassador was meeting with church leaders, opened the eyes of the world to the scale of the scandal within the Belgian Catholic Church, but the church and retired archbishop, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, asked that the material seized be declared out of bounds.

Read more:

After the material was returned, the Church's own investigator completed and delivered a hard-hitting report on the abuse problem. When I reported on his findings, I overlooked one important detail.

Child psychologist Peter Adriaenssens then unleashed nationwide controversy with the release on September 10 of a report by a commission he led which revealed nearly 500 people reported abuses by priests since the 1950s and 13 victims committed suicide.

Adriaenssens subsequently called on the pope to resign.

Related articles

• Belgian Cardinal Attempted to Secure Silence on Abuse (clericalabusewatch.blogspot.com)
• Belgian Bishops Put Money Before Victims (clericalabusewatch.blogspot.com)
• Belgian Cardinal: "Damage Control" Before Concern For Victims (clericalabusewatch.blogspot.com)
• Belgian Abuse Report: "Almost Every Diocese". (clericalabusewatch.blogspot.com)

• Godfried Danneels, Belgian Cardinal, Offered To Keep Sex Abuse Case Quiet Until Bishop's Retirement (huffingtonpost.com)
• Belgian child abuse report exposes Catholic clergy (guardian.co.uk)

Belgian Bishops Put Money Before Victims

The Belgian bishop of Tournai, Guy Harpigny, has admitted what was probably a factor in the episcopal cover-up of sexual abuse in the church not only in Belgium, but everywhere else as well. They were concerned that breaking their silence would have exposed them to claims for financial compensation. They put financial considerations ahead of concern for the victims.

From the Daily Telegraph:

Belgian Catholic Church sex abuse: we feared compensation claims

Belgium's Roman Catholic Church did not apologise for decades of endemic child sexual abuse by its clerics because an official apology would triggered a flood of expensive compensation claims, a senior bishop has admitted.

Guy Harpigny, the bishop of Tournai and the senior cleric responsible for rooting out sex abusers within the Belgian church's ranks, has further inflamed outrage by confessing that financial concerns over litigation stopped an official apology.

"We did not dare. If you officially apologise, then you are acknowledging moral and legal responsibility. Then there are people who ask for money and we don't know what lawyers and the courts will do about that," he said.

San Deurinck, 65, a Catholic activist who tried to commit suicide after he was abused by two priests as a teenage boy, has called on the Church to "respect victims" and to ensure justice by handing paedophile priests over to the police.

"I always had hope, but then I lost it," he said. "Let the Church understand that justice must do her work. The Church must comply to respect of victims.

Read the full report

 

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Belgian Abuse Report: "Almost Every Diocese".

In the extraordinary saga of the police / state tussle investigation into the Belgian Church history of child abuse, the church’s own investigator has found that abuse was widespread, occurring in “almost every” diocese, and in “virtually every school” run by the Church. Yet as recently as March of this year, the Belgian bishops believed that abuse was a problem affecting only the USA and Ireland, and was of only minor extent in their own country.

A court had ruled this week that the evidence seized by police in a church raid would not be admissible in court, as the raid had been “disproportionate”. Almost immediately, the church’s investigator, Peter Adriaenssens, released his report.

In the church’s favour, the very existence of the report goes some way to vindicate it in its hostile reaction to the police raid. Suggestions at the time were that police action was prompted by suspicions that the church was incapable of investigating itself – a suspicion supported by the patent inaction under the previous head of the Church, Cardinal Daneels. The damning evidence shows that finally, the church is now willing to examine itself, just as the Irish Church did last year.

Also in its favour, is Adriaenssens’ finding that the scale of the problem is clearly in decline.

The abuse went back to the 1950s, was most common in the 60s and was tailing off by the 1980s, Adriaenssens said.

"The exposed cases are old, of course," he said. "Society has developed. But there's nothing to indicate that the number of paedophiles has diminished. Where are they today?"

Most of the victims were now middle-aged, but remained traumatised.

- The Guardian

However, several disturbing questions remain. If the problem was indeed so widespread, why was it not known, even by the current bishops, until recently? Was there a cover-up and protection of offending priests, as occurred in Ireland and the US – and as Cardinal Daneels tried to buy time for  bishop Roger Vangheluwe of Brugge as recently as this year?

The next question is, what will be the Church’s response? It will not be enough to simply say that things have improved. On BBC News last night, one survivor of English church abuse pointed out that although the offences may have occurred in the past, they are not “past” to the victims, but are ever-present in their lives today. This is also the sentiment of the Belgian victims:

"There are days when I thank God for having the chance to speak," testified one woman.

"Four years of psychotherapy have taught me that silence kills. I have had enormous depressions, going as far as attempted suicide. At other times I think it would be wise to let sleeping dogs lie. But in the end I've chosen to speak ... Since the resignation of the bishop of Bruges, I am living again in anxiety and fear. And I am far away. I've chosen to live far from my country, hoping that the past won't rejoin me."

This testimony was from a woman abused in the 1980s, but most of the cases concerned young boys and teenagers, as well a documented case of a two-year-old boy being molested.

Another victim told of being repeatedly sexually molested by his parish priest for five years from the age of seven.

"From being a violated child, I myself became, several years later, an abuser of adolescents and was sentenced to eight years in jail of which I served four and a half … The priest's violations certainly strongly shaped my sexual identity and influenced my life choices."

Will the investigations still under way in other countries show the same pattern? Germany too believed that the problem was primarily restricted to the English speaking countries – until Der Spiegel began to report on a few German cases, and the floodgates opened, as more and more victims who had previously kept silent, began to come forward. The same occurred in Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands. These have not yet reported  their findings in any detail but they will. What of the rest of the world, countries which have not conducted any formal enquiries into past abuse? There is no reason at all to suppose that they have been immune.

Finally, what will be the response of the global church to the systemic problems this crisis has revealed? Pope Benedict has said that we need prayer and repentance, rather than institutional reform. He is wrong – we need both.

Quite apart from the problem of abuse itself by individual clergy, which really does seem to be on the decline, there remains the problem of a Church which remains aloof and distant from the real world, which continues to see itself too often as above the secular law. The world’s largest global corporation and largest employer operates in every country of the world, but does not see itself  as accountable to any – because it still sees itself as an independent “state”.

This independent statehood is no more than a polite legal fiction. The politicians of the world really do now need to stand up to the Vatican and hold it to account.