Priest in Pike County sex case promoted after move to Paraguay
By Beth Brelje
A Roman Catholic priest who was accused of molesting boys in Shohola and Moscow, Pa., has been promoted to the No. 2 position in his diocese in Paraguay.
That is according to a database released this week, listing Catholic clergy from Argentina involved in sex abuse cases. The database was compiled by BishopAccountability.org, an organization that aims to keep a record of sex abuse in the Catholic Church.
Former Bishop Joseph Martino of the Diocese of Scranton allowed the Rev. Carlos Urrutigoity to transfer to a parish in the South American country of Paraguay after multiple witness statements in several court cases claimed that Urrutigoity routinely slept in bed with and had sex with boys in his care, calling it spiritual guidance.
Currently, Urrutigoity is vicar general of the Ciudad del Este diocese in Paraguay. That makes him the second in command, just under the bishop there. Part of his job is to investigate any claim of sexual abuse that might come to the diocese.
“Now he is in a position of power. I’m concerned for the children of Paraguay. From everything I’ve learned, Father Carlos has not stopped. This is a basic child protection issue,” said Patrick Wall, a former priest who is now a Minnesota-based advocate for victims of sexual abuse by clergy.
Between 1950 and the present, 6,193 Roman Catholic priests have sexually assaulted children, according to Wall.
“In my experience, if you allow a guy who has sexual proclivity for children to go unchecked, he will abuse several hundred children in his professional life as a priest,” Wall said.
Allegations of local abuse
A 2002 federal lawsuit was brought in the Middle District of Pennsylvania by “John Doe,” a student at St. Gregory’s Academy in Moscow, against Urrutigoity, the Rev. Eric Ensey, and then-Bishop James Timlin of the Diocese of Scranton.
The suit alleged that Urrutigoity and Ensey offered “spiritual direction” to the student by sleeping with him and that both priests sexually assaulted him at Saint Gregory’s Academy and at a Shohola property that was supposed to be developed into a Catholic college and village for the Society of Saint John, founded by Urrutigoity. The society was focused on celebrating Mass in Latin.
Testimony in the 2002 case brought at least three similar claims of bed-sharing and sexual advances to light.
In 2002, Timlin suspended Urrutigoity and Ensey from their ministries and sent them to Southdown Institute in Canada for psychological evaluations.
Southdown specializes in treating clergy who have sexual boundary problems.
Minutes from a March 2002 Diocese of Scranton independent review board summarize evaluations by Southdown Institute:
The institute “strongly recommended that (Ensey) undergo residential treatment to address severe anxiety and depression” that was the result of repressed sexuality. The evaluation said Ensey’s sexual attraction toward adolescent boys is “a stage he appears to be locked into.”
And it recommended Ensey “be strictly prohibited from any public ministry of any kind; he should have no contact with any young person.”
The evaluation of Urrutigoity said: “In view of the credible allegation from the seminarian (John Doe), his admitted practice of sleeping with boys and young men and the troubling evaluation by the Southdown Institute, Father Carlos Urrutigoity should be removed from active ministry; his faculties should be revoked; he should be asked to live privately.”
Despite these recommendations, their priesthoods did not end.
The Scranton diocese settled the John Doe case in 2006, reportedly for more than $400,000.
Due to the sex scandal and funding issues, plans for the college and village on the Shohola property were abandoned by the diocese and the land was sold to a private party.
Timlin retired as bishop in 2003.
In 2004, Martino became bishop. He allowed Urrutigoity to transfer to Paraguay, where he was promoted to monsignor as of 2012.
As of February 2014, Urrutigoity was promoted to vicar general.
“This is a grand example of a worldwide policy that a priest can sexually abuse kids in another country and go somewhere else and become vicar general of the diocese,” Wall said, adding that Bishop Plano, Urrutigoity’s superior, should report him to the police and kick him out of the priesthood.
“This is not a God issue, this is a problem with people who pretend to believe in God who are involved in criminal conduct,” Wall said.
Complete Article HERE!
Case dropped in church prosecution of scholar; bishop vows “cessation of trials”
At a joint press conference today, United Methodist Bishop Martin McLee and Rev. Dr. Thomas W. Ogletree announced that the church was dropping the case against Dr. Ogletree for officiating at his son’s wedding. In a huge victory for the Methodist movement that is organizing ministry to all couples on an equal basis in open defiance of church law, the bishop dropped the case without any conditions. Furthermore, Bishop McLee said in his statement “I call for and commit to cessation of trials,” the first time ever a sitting United Methodist bishop has categorically declared he will not prosecute pastors for ministering to LGBTQ people.
“I am grateful that Bishop McLee has withdrawn this case and the church is no longer prosecuting me for an act of pastoral faithfulness and fatherly love,” said Dr. Ogletree. “But I am even more grateful that he is vowing not to prosecute others who have been likewise faithful in ministry to LGBTQ people. May our bishop’s commitment to cease such prosecutions be the beginning of the end of the United Methodist Church’s misguided era of discriminating against LGBTQ people.” Ogletree, a past dean of both Yale Divinity School and Drew Theological Seminary, a scholarly expert in Christian ethics, and an author of a section of the UMC’s Book of Discipline, began his service to the church in 1952, a time when Methodist rules barred women from serving as clergy and segregated African Americans into a separate central jurisdiction.
The decision to drop the case was satisfactory to Dr. Ogletree (who under UMC law had the right to insist on a trial to adjudicate his case) because it did not require him to say he would not conduct same-sex weddings in the future, nor did it in any way frame what he did as “wrong.” Rather, the bishop’s statement acknowledges that church trials “continue the harm brought upon our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters” and invites Dr. Ogletree to “a public forum on the true nature of the covenant that binds us together,” where he can tell his story about why he performed this wedding and how he understands that act to be consistent with the Wesleyan tradition and Christian ethical principles.
“This resolution completely vindicates Tom,” said Dr. Dorothee Benz, the spokesperson for Ogletree and chair of Methodists in New Directions, which provided Ogletree’s legal defense. “While it is good that Tom will not have to stand trial for saying ‘yes’ when his son asked ‘Dad, will you do my wedding?’ it is important to remember that trials are not the problem in the United Methodist Church, they are merely the symptom. The problem is the wholesale condemnation of gays and lesbians as ‘incompatible with Christian teaching’ and the systematic discrimination against us and those who would dare to minister to us.
“The declaration that he will no longer prosecute pastors like Tom who refuse to deny ministry to LGBTQ people is a bold act of leadership for our bishop, whose longstanding support herewith takes a new step that mirrors our own refusal to follow discriminatory laws,” Benz added.
With the agreement announced today, Bishop McLee joins a small but growing number of U.S. bishops who are openly breaking with their colleagues’ insistence on enforcing the UMC’s anti-gay discriminatory rules. In October 2013 retired Bishop Talbert became the first bishop to preside at a same-sex wedding. After the Council of Bishops voted to direct two of its members to file a formal complaint against Bishop Talbert, four bishops took the unprecedented step of issuing statements publicizing their dissent in that vote. In December, after the Eastern Pennsylvania Board of Ordained Ministry moved to strip Frank Schaefer of his ministerial credentials, Bishop Minerva Carcano publicly offered him a job as a pastor in the California-Pacific Annual Conference.
Bishop McLee’s actions today go farther than any other active bishop has gone thus far in that they publicly commit him to a policy of not punishing pastors for their ministry to LGBTQ people.
Tom Ogletree’s case began in October 2012, when a complaint was filed against him after his son’s wedding was listed in the New York Times wedding announcements. A formal just resolution process followed, in which Ogletree made clear that a promise to never do another same-sex wedding was not a condition he could accept, and in March 2013, Bishop McLee referred the case to counsel for the church. Formal charges against Tom were filed in January 2014, and Tom was notified of the charges and the trial date (March 10) on January 16. He has been represented by Rev. Scott Campbell and Rev. Paul Fleck, who are members of MIND’s legal team.
While the resolution is a victory for the movement to end UMC discrimination and a vindication for Ogletree, it cannot undo the strain he and his family endured during the 16 months that the case was pending.
Complete Article HERE!
Trial set in Yakima alleged sex abuse case
A federal judge in Yakima is scheduled on Monday hear a case involving a man who sued the Catholic Diocese of Yakima over alleged clergy sexual abuse when he was a teenager.
The man, known in court documents as John Doe, has sued for more than $3 million, alleging that when he was 17 a deacon in the Yakima Diocese repeatedly raped him one night in 1999, the Yakima Herald-Republic reported.
Police later learned the deacon had left his Zillah church the day after the alleged incident and eventually fled to Mexico. Authorities believe Aaron Ramirez has never returned to the U.S.
Doe’s attorneys argue that the deacon was under the Yakima Diocese’s supervision and used his position and authority to molest the teenager. They say the deacon wasn’t properly supervised and that church leaders did nothing to bring Ramírez back to be questioned by authorities.
“There is a duty to protect,” Doe’s attorney, Bryan Smith, said. “Was it breached either in hiring or supervising?”
The diocese says the version of events given by Doe is not an accurate account of that evening.
“There is a significant amount of dispute over what really happened, and how it came about on the night of the incident,” Ted Buck, the Seattle attorney representing the diocese, told the newspaper. “Once evidence is heard, we think there will be a different understanding of what happened that night.”
The diocese also argues that the statute of limitations has expired for any lawsuit to be valid.
The non-jury trial before Judge Edward Shea is estimated to last five to eight days.
In court documents, Doe says Ramirez, 35, invited him over one evening for a guitar lesson and gave him beer and wine. He said he passed out on the trailer porch and that the deacon dragged him back inside the trailer and sexually abused him.
Although he reported the incident to police, he said he couldn’t remember what had happened, the Herald-Republic reported. According to the police report, he was unable to make an official statement because of his “significant emotional state.” The police never got a complete statement, so charges were never filed.
According to court documents, Carlos Sevilla, who was Yakima Bishop at the time, telephoned Ramirez when he was notified that police were looking for him, the Herald-Republic reported. In a deposition taken in October 2012, Sevilla said the deacon admitted he’d had “inappropriate sexual contact” with Doe.
Sevilla told the deacon to remain at the parish and a priest would return him to Zillah for police questioning. But Ramírez had vanished when the Yakima priest arrived.
Since the teenager wouldn’t press charges, there was no further police investigation, the newspaper reported.
Court records filed in the case show that Sevilla remained in contact with Ramirez by telephone and email over the next several years. Sevilla said in his deposition that he repeatedly told Ramírez it would be better if he did not return to the U.S.
Ramírez was removed from Catholic clergy by mutual agreement between him and the diocese two years after the Zillah incident.
Complete Article HERE!
Church brings 1st Amendment into Eastside Catholic lawsuit
By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP
A gay vice principal who was forced out of his job at Eastside Catholic School filed a discrimination and wrongful termination lawsuit against the school and church on Friday. Lawyers for the church and school planned to respond immediately with a motion arguing King County Superior Court does not have jurisdiction to hear the case without violating the First Amendment.
The case has stirred debate at the school and in front of the Seattle Archdiocese and has led to several online petitions arguing for reinstatement of the popular teacher, coach and administrator and calling for a change in church doctrine on gay marriage.
The school and the church decided Mark Zmuda couldn’t continue in his job after they learned he had married his same-sex partner. They cited an employment agreement Zmuda had signed that said his public behaviors would at all times be consistent with the values and teachings of the Catholic Church. An attorney for the school acknowledged that school leadership floated the idea that Zmuda could possibly get a divorce to keep his job.
“I was asked by the school to break my wedding vows to keep my job,” Zmuda said at a news conference Friday. “I was told I could either divorce or be fired. How could anyone ask anyone else to make that choice?”
In the response they plan to file to the lawsuit, lawyers for the church argue the case “would impermissibly entangle the Court in Catholic doctrine,” and would lead the court to examine the church’s definition of marriage.The lawsuit Zmuda filed in King County Superior Court accuses the school and the church of discrimination, wrongful termination and violation of the state consumer protection laws. Zmuda’s lawyers argue he was not a religious employee of the school.
“I am a lifelong Catholic,” Zmuda said. “I am a gay man. I did not choose to be gay. I do not see any inconsistency in the teachings of Jesus and being gay.”
Zmuda’s lawsuit notes that the school previously posted a statement on its website that it does not discriminate based on marital status or sexual orientation but that statement was removed after his dismissal. A similar statement was included in the employee handbook.
“I relied on those statements,” Zmuda said.
Zmuda has said the school’s administrators were aware that he is gay and that he was in a relationship. Administrators asked him not to bring his partner to school functions, according to the lawsuit.
The school sent a letter home to parents on Thursday, saying the school’s board of directors would handle legal issues and the administrators would continue to run the school.
Complete Article HERE!