More Bad News for the Catholic Church

Elderly caretakers of a home for Catholic priests claim the church wrongfully fired them for complaining about priests’ penchant for pornography and misuse of church funds.

John Slonimski, 75, and his wife Margaret, 65, sued the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts in Riverside County Court, alleging wrongful firing, discrimination, breach of contract, failure to pay overtime and other charges.

The Slonimskis say the church hired them in 2002 to live on and oversee the 80-acre property in Hemet, and attend to the needs of the tenant priests.

Fast-growing Hemet, pop. 71,800, is in central Riverside County, not quite in the western shadows of the San Jacinto Mountains, on the eastern side of which lies Palm Springs.

The Slonimskis say the church’s Hemet property “is, in essence, currently a housing organization used for priests, including those who have had legal problems wherein there have been accusations and claims of sexual abuse”.

The Slonimskis say they provided services as required, to the church and its priests, until they were unlawfully fired in July this year.

The Slominskis say they moved to Hemet from Idaho based on verbal assurances that they could live on the property for the rest of their lives. But when they got there, they say, they found the property largely uninhabitable.

“Consequently, plaintiffs spent the following months repairing and cleaning the real property,” according to the complaint. “Approximately forty acres of weed were removed by the plaintiffs a multitude of times, as well as the clean-up of the two mobile homes. Plaintiffs worked twelve hours a day during this period to make the property habitable and ready for the many retreats that the Congregation planned at the property.”

After the rocky start, the Slominskis say, their duties expanded to include booking and conducting retreats on the property and managing its archives.

Because their duties had changed, the Slonimskis say, the church agreed to modify their employment contract. From 2004 on, in addition to room and board, they were paid salaries. They say the church also agreed that they could be terminated only for cause, and that regardless of their job performance they would be allowed to live on the property.

But the Slominskis say they became concerned about the behavior of the priests, all of whom were essentially the couple’s supervisors.

The Slominskis say their complaints included, but were not limited to, members of the congregation “engaging in unlawful financial practices … regarding the handling of donations and priests’ salaries and other matters; … unlawful and inappropriate conduct … regarding sexual abuse of third persons; … and inappropriate practice of reviewing inappropriate and/or pornographic material on congregation’s premises.”

They say they also complained that they were being underpaid, and “were being required to conceal nor discuss with third persons the fact that [the] Congregation were engaging in unlawful (and/or which plaintiffs perceived to be unlawful) activities, including various financial improprieties.”

The Slonimskis say: “On a repeated basis throughout plaintiffs’ employment, plaintiffs repeatedly advised congregation of the fact that [the] Congregation were engaging in unlawful conduct and behavior and/or conduct that plaintiffs reasonably believed was unlawful conduct … which resulted in plaintiff, and each of them, being ostracized, receiving the cold shoulder from Congregation, being retaliated against and harassed and ultimately resulting in the termination of each plaintiffs’ employment, which included their right to continu[e] living on the Hemet property of Congregation for the remainder of plaintiffs’ lives.”

John Slonimski claims that in June 2004, while attending a financial meeting in Massachusetts with treasurers from congregations, he disclosed that he believed the defendants were violating state and federal law in their improper handling of donated funds and other financial matters.

The Slominskis say they took these matters to their supervising priests, but were repeatedly rebuffed and told no action would be taken.

They say matters escalated in January 2011, when a priest named Fr. Jerry Holland arrived on the scene. The Slominskis say Holland repeatedly engaged in conduct they considered at best inappropriate and potentially unlawful. They say the behavior included the routine use of profanity in the workplace and reading of inappropriate and/or obscene materials at work.

Then, “In February 2011, an article surfaced in the Los Angeles Times and New York times featuring the defendants’ representative, Father Martin O’Loghlen. He had been accused of trying to contract a woman that he had abused when she was a minor,” the Slominskis say. “Plaintiffs, over defendants’ objections, criticized and complained about Father Martin O’Loghlen’s conduct to third persons for which plaintiffs, and each of them, were further ostracized, criticized and retaliated against.”

On July 22 this year, the Slonimskis say, the defendants, through legal counsel, met with them at their home and fired them and offered them a severance agreement.

The Slominskis say that when they balked at signing the agreement without reading it, they were “rudely told that, in essence, they were lucky to even have anything at all offered to them.”

The Slominskis say they were booted from the property. When they objected, they say they were told that if they had no written employment contract, then they had no agreement.

The Slonimskis said they asked whether they had a right to rely on a priest’s word, but got no response from the attorneys.

They say the entire exchange came just two days after they had told the congregation that their daughter, who suffers from encephalitis, was coming to live with them while she underwent and recovered from life-threatening brain surgery.

They claim the defendants subsequently violated their rights to privacy “by disclosing to third persons who were not in a need-to-know position, confidential and private information about plaintiffs’ employment and the cessation thereof … and certain terms and conditions of said employment.”

The Slominskis seek lost wages with prejudgment interest, and punitive damages for unpaid overtime and benefits, wrongful termination, retaliation, breach of contract, failure to provide rest and meal periods, failure to timely pay wages, violation of right to privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Complete Article HERE!

Bishops Say Rules on Gay Parents Limit Freedom of Religion

Roman Catholic bishops in Illinois have shuttered most of the Catholic Charities affiliates in the state rather than comply with a new requirement that says they must consider same-sex couples as potential foster-care and adoptive parents if they want to receive state money. The charities have served for more than 40 years as a major link in the state’s social service network for poor and neglected children.

The bishops have followed colleagues in Washington, D.C., and Massachusetts who had jettisoned their adoption services rather than comply with nondiscrimination laws.

For the nation’s Catholic bishops, the Illinois requirement is a prime example of what they see as an escalating campaign by the government to trample on their religious freedom while expanding the rights of gay people. The idea that religious Americans are the victims of government-backed persecution is now a frequent theme not just for Catholic bishops, but also for Republican presidential candidates and conservative evangelicals.

“In the name of tolerance, we’re not being tolerated,” said Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Ill., a civil and canon lawyer who helped drive the church’s losing battle to retain its state contracts for foster care and adoption services.

The Illinois experience indicates that the bishops face formidable opponents who also claim to have justice and the Constitution on their side. They include not only gay rights advocates, but also many religious believers and churches that support gay equality (some Catholic legislators among them). They frame the issue as a matter of civil rights, saying that Catholic Charities was using taxpayer money to discriminate against same-sex couples.

Tim Kee, a teacher in Marion, Ill., who was turned away by Catholic Charities three years ago when he and his longtime partner, Rick Wade, tried to adopt a child, said: “We’re both Catholic, we love our church, but Catholic Charities closed the door to us. To add insult to injury, my tax dollars went to provide discrimination against me.”

The bishops are engaged in the religious liberty battle on several fronts. They have asked the Obama administration to lift a new requirement that Catholic and other religiously affiliated hospitals, universities and charity groups cover contraception in their employees’ health plans. A decision has been expected for weeks now.

At the same time, the bishops are protesting the recent denial of a federal contract to provide care for victims of sex trafficking, saying the decision was anti-Catholic. An official with the Department of Health and Human Services recently told a hearing on Capitol Hill that the bishops’ program was rejected because it did not provide the survivors of sex trafficking, some of whom are rape victims, with referrals for abortions or contraceptives.

Critics of the church argue that no group has a constitutional right to a government contract, especially if it refuses to provide required services.

But Anthony R. Picarello Jr., general counsel and associate general secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, disagreed. “It’s true that the church doesn’t have a First Amendment right to have a government contract,” he said, “but it does have a First Amendment right not to be excluded from a contract based on its religious beliefs.”

The controversy in Illinois began when the state legislature voted in November 2010 to legalize civil unions for same-sex couples, which the state’s Catholic bishops lobbied against. The legislation was titled “The Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Unions Act,” and Bishop Paprocki said he was given the impression that it would not affect state contracts for Catholic Charities and other religious social services.

In New York State, religious groups lobbied for specific exemption language in the same-sex marriage bill. But bishops in Illinois did not negotiate, Bishop Paprocki said.

“It would have been seen as, ‘We’re going to compromise on the principle as long as we get our exception.’ We didn’t want it to be seen as buying our support,” he said.

Catholic Charities is one of the nation’s most extensive social service networks, serving more than 10 million poor adults and children of many faiths across the country. It is made up of local affiliates that answer to local bishops and dioceses, but much of its revenue comes from the government. Catholic Charities affiliates received a total of nearly $2.9 billion a year from the government in 2010, about 62 percent of its annual revenue of $4.67 billion. Only 3 percent came from churches in the diocese (the rest came from in-kind contributions, investments, program fees and community donations).

In Illinois, Catholic Charities in five of the six state dioceses had grown dependent on foster care contracts, receiving 60 percent to 92 percent of their revenues from the state, according to affidavits by the charities’ directors. (Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Chicago pulled out of foster care services in 2007 because of problems with its insurance provider.)

When the contracts came up for renewal in June, the state attorney general, along with the legal staff in the governor’s office and the Department of Children and Family Services, decided that the religious providers on state contracts would no longer be able to reject same-sex couples, said Kendall Marlowe, a spokesman for the department.

The Catholic providers offered to refer same-sex couples to other agencies (as they had been doing for unmarried couples), but that was not acceptable to the state, Mr. Marlowe said. “Separate but equal was not a sufficient solution on other civil rights issues in the past either,” he said.

Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Rockford decided at that point to get out of the foster care business. But the bishops in Springfield, Peoria, Joliet and Belleville decided to fight, filing a lawsuit against the state.

Taking a completely different tack was the agency affiliated with the conservative Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, which, like the Catholic Church, does not sanction same-sex relationships. Gene Svebakken, president and chief executive of the agency, Lutheran Child and Family Services of Illinois, visited all seven pastoral conferences in his state and explained that the best option was to compromise and continue caring for the children.

“We’ve been around 140 years, and if we didn’t follow the law we’d go out of business,” Mr. Svebakken said. “We believe it’s God-pleasing to serve these kids, and we know we do a good job.”

In August, Judge John Schmidt, a circuit judge in Sangamon County, ruled against Catholic Charities, saying, “No citizen has a recognized legal right to a contract with the government.” He did not address the religious liberty claims, ruling only that the state did not violate the church’s property rights.

Three of the dioceses filed an appeal, but in November filed a motion to dismiss their lawsuit. The Dioceses of Peoria and Belleville are spinning off their state-financed social services, with the caseworkers, top executives and foster children all moving to new nonprofits that will no longer be affiliated with either diocese.

Gary Huelsmann, executive director of Catholic Social Services of Southern Illinois, in the Belleville Diocese, said the decision was excruciating for everyone.

“We have 600 children abused and neglected in an area where there are hardly any providers,” he said. “Us going out of business would have been detrimental to these children, and that’s a sin, too.”

The work will be carried on, but the Catholic Church’s seminal, historic connection with it has been severed, noted Mr. Marlowe, the spokesman for the state’s child welfare agency. “The child welfare system that Catholic Charities helped build,” he said, “is now strong enough to survive their departure.”

Complete Article HERE!

A Renewed Push to Allow Later Reports of Sexual Abuse

With reports of child sexual abuse rocking two college sports programs, New York State lawmakers plan to revisit lifting time limits on lawsuits by victims, an issue that has pitted the Roman Catholic Church and other institutions against advocates for children.
Related

Fearing millions in payouts, the church, as well as schools, municipalities, synagogues and others with potential liability, has helped block similar measures in New York. The Assembly has passed legislation three times, with the bills dying in the Senate.

Assemblywoman Margaret M. Markey, a Queens Democrat, is the chief sponsor of the current bill, which includes a one-year window for victims to file previously barred claims. The current statute of limitations in New York for civil claims is five years after the episode has been reported to the police or five years after the victim turns 18. (State lawmakers in 2008 lifted the time limits altogether for first-degree rape, aggravated sexual abuse and multiple acts of sexual conduct against a child.)

Ms. Markey said that abuse was an issue across society and that recent cases at Penn State University, Syracuse University and other institutions had undercut the claim that her bill was anti-Catholic.

“It is something we have to deal with as a society and protect our children,” Ms. Markey said. She said research shows that 20 percent of children are affected by sexual abuse, that the trauma is lifelong and that, for many victims, the one-year window might be the only way to get justice. She has sought support for her measure from the administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

On Wednesday, Mr. Cuomo said he would introduce legislation to require college and high school coaches to report possible child sexual abuse to the police. “Parents need to be sure that their children are safe in programs and activities that are organized by and at colleges,” he said.

College employees are currently not required to report suspected child sexual abuse to the authorities, according to the governor’s office, though for public school teachers, reporting is mandatory. Mr. Cuomo said his proposal would close that gap.

Assemblymen James N. Tedisco and George Amedore made a similar proposal in November.

Complete Article HERE!

Father Bob Maguire slams Cardinal Pell

High-profile priest Father Bob Maguire says Australia’s Catholic leader, George Pell, is punishing him for being “open to all” by forcing him to retire from his parish.

The church has ordered Father Maguire to resign after 38 years as South Melbourne’s parish priest.

Father Maguire, 77, said Cardinal Pell considers his parish a “dog’s breakfast” and described his exit as a “dishonourable discharge”.

“George Pell has declared those of us Vatican II-ists to be Cafeteria Catholics whereas he and his lot are authentic Catholics,” Father Maguire said.

“Well, that’s what we’re being punished for, for being Cafeteria Catholics.

“That means that we’re a bit all over the place like a dog’s breakfast, we live in the real world, we’re open to all, we’re not exclusive, not easily offended, we’re sacrificial, we put ourselves at the service of all kinds of people whether they’re church-going or not.”

Father Maguire, widely known as the co-host of the radio show Sunday Night Safran, will finish at Saints Peter and Paul’s Church in South Melbourne on February 1 next year when the Capuchin Order will take control of the parish.

The Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, said Father Maguire will be appointed Pastor Emeritus, saying the position offers him a “broader canvas” to work within the church.

But Father Maguire described the role as a “bullshit title” and said he will seek canon legal advice before considering an appeal to the Vatican.

Archbishop Hart said the parish needed a succession plan and that Father Maguire could still continue to work as a priest in Melbourne.

“We’re not preventing Bob from doing anything, we’re opening out to him possibilities and we are providing the Capuchins who will continue for an extended period … when we’re dead and gone the Capuchins will be there,” he said.

“I am deeply conscious of the day-to-day grinding demands which are there (for a parish priest) and I think that we can best use Bob and his wonderful abilities by providing him with a broader canvas, a bit of freedom, and a broader scope.”

Father Maguire said the move meant he was no longer an active officer within the church.

“Emeritus is the kind of thing where you’re given the flick, I’m taking it as a dishonourable discharge,” he said.

“They use (the title) in academia. It means you are no longer working as an academic, but you still have the title of academic.”

Complete Article HERE!

Law expert: U.S. bishops should persuade Finn to resign

The U.S. bishops should quietly persuade Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., to resign in the wake of his Oct. 14 criminal indictment for failure to report a priest for sexual abuse of minors, said Nicholas P. Cafardi, an expert in civil and church law.

Calls for Finn to resign in the public arena don’t “really accomplish much,” Cafardi said. Instead, the U.S. bishops should call upon Kansas City’s bishop to resign “in the spirit of fraternal correction.”
Finn’s indictment comes amid controversy of his handling of a priest arrested for child pornography.

Cafardi suggested the bishops tell Finn that his continued presence as a bishop “is causing the faithful to question our commitment to the safety of their children” and that he should consider stepping down.

Cafardi, a professor of civil and canon (church) law at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, is one of the original members and later chairman of the all-lay National Review Board established by the U.S. bishops in 2002 to oversee the bishops’ implementation of their new Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

With the criminal indictment of a bishop by a U.S. prosecutor, “a taboo has been broken,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, a director and spokeswoman for bishopaccountability.org, a website that tracks how Catholic bishops have responded or failed to respond to sexual abuse of minors by their clergy.

In the past, bishops have been given undue deference by civil authorities, and “I think it’s long overdue that prosecutors treat Catholic bishops like other American citizens and hold them equally accountable under the law” when there is substantive evidence that they have committed a crime, she said.

“The whole point of [state child sex abuse] reporting statutes is to make sure that the child abuser is stopped before having additional victims,” Cafardi said, “and my understanding is that between the time that Bishop Finn found out about the child pornography on Fr. [Shawn] Ratigan’s computer and the time he — or the diocese — did report him, there were additional victims, or at least one additional victim. … That, to me, is the horrendous part of this.”

In a telephone interview with NCR, Cafardi said, “It would appear, from what we now know about Philadelphia and what we now know about Kansas City, that at least some bishops — and I have reason to believe that it’s very few bishops — have given themselves a pass on the [2002] Dallas Charter.”

Cafardi’s comment on Philadelphia referred to last February’s decision by prosecutors to bring charges against Msgr. William Lynn, former director of the archdiocesan Office for Clergy, for endangering minors by reassigning at least two priests known to have sexually abused minors to posts where they could come into contact with minors.

The grand jury investigation that led to the indictment said it was clear Lynn was acting in accord with policies established by now-retired Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, then-archbishop of Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia grand jury investigation that led to Lynn’s indictment, which included substantial allegations of continued protection of abusive priests by Bevilacqua’s successor, Cardinal Justin Rigali, is widely believed to have triggered Rigali’s resignation just five months later as archbishop of Philadelphia.

“I think that when the church doesn’t police itself … we have to expect that civil society will police us instead,” Cafardi said. “Would we rather our bishops follow the Dallas norms and charter, or would we rather see them indicted?”

“If [Finn] had kept the Dallas norms, he would have been in compliance with the state law as well,” he added.

“There is no real [binding bishops’ conference] compliance mechanism with the Dallas norms” apart from an audit and declaration that a diocese is not in compliance, he said. “But with civil society, when you break a law — especially if it’s a criminal statute — you can expect to be indicted and tried.”
Referring to a June editorial in The Kansas City Star calling on Finn to resign, NCR asked Cafardi if he agreed that Finn should resign as bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

“I think that the people to ask for his resignation are his fellow bishops,” Cafardi said.

“I think they need to do that in a spirit of fraternal correction,” he added, referring to a classical theological principle in the church of offering positive moral guidance to someone who has departed from the appropriate path of Christian discipleship.
“Also, I think they need to do that in private — but I do think that they need to do it,” he said. “I think he’s let down his brother bishops. From the facts, it would appear — he’s not been found guilty yet, but from the facts it would appear — that he’s really let down his fellow bishops, and they should be the ones who are talking to him.
“I’m not sure public calls for a bishop to resign really accomplish much,” he said.

Cafardi said that on one hand, Finn might use a promise to resign as a bargaining chip in the civil criminal proceedings — as often occurs when politicians or other civil officials face criminal charges — and that might be a reason not to resign before his criminal case is resolved.

“But then the flip side of that,” he said, “is what does his staying in office say about the seriousness of the bishops in following the Dallas Charter and norms? I mean, that cuts both ways.”

“I can’t read his conscience,” Cafardi said. “I think if a resignation comes, it really is best brought about by the fraternal correction of his brother bishops. I would like to see that, and it may be happening. But when it does happen, it is never in public.”

NCR’s efforts to interview Deacon Bernard Nojadera, new director of the U.S. bishops’ conference’s secretariat for child and youth protection, about the Finn indictment were redirected to the conference’s office for media relations. Mercy Sr. Mary Ann Walsh, the bishops’ media spokeswoman, said the conference had no comment on the Finn case.

Bishop Robert Finn
Doyle, of bishopaccountability.org, said despite numerous reports of bishops who have protected sexually abusive priests and failed to report them to civil authoritie,s “not one bishop … has yet gone to jail” for violating civil laws on mandatory reporting of sex crimes against minors.

“The Kansas City prosecutor showed a lot of courage” in bringing an indictment against Finn, she said, and that action, along with the recent indictment of Lynn in Philadelphia, “is a very encouraging development.”

“It’s absolutely deplorable that in 2011 a bishop is still failing to report an abuser, but it’s very encouraging that prosecutors have finally stopped their deference to church officials … and are beginning to treat church officials like ordinary citizens,” she said.

Doyle noted that though the charter to protect young people passed by the U.S. bishops in 2002 calls for bishops to report all credible allegations of abuse to civil authorities, the legally binding essential norms for all bishops that were approved by the Vatican do not make that a requirement.

She said she thinks many bishops interpreted the Vatican rejection of a blanket reporting requirement as a church law, in favor of a more modest requirement that all bishops follow local laws on the subject, as a signal from Rome that the Vatican prefers non-reporting whenever legally possible.

While many church officials since 2002 have publicly interpreted the charter as requiring them to hand over all reasonable abuse allegations to civil authorities even when civil law does not mandate it, Doyle said she thinks there is a fairly large number of U.S. bishops who have interpreted the charter’s reporting guidelines more narrowly — in contrast to Cafardi’s belief that “very few” bishops have adopted such a narrow interpretation.

As to the overall fallout of the recent Kansas City events, Cafardi said: “How many Philadelphias, how many Kansas Cities does it take before the bishops realize that the steps they took in 2002 protect our kids, they protect our church, and they should be followed without question?”

Complete Article HERE!