French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, Archbishop of Lyon, leads a mass for migrants in the Saint-Jean Cathedral, in Lyon, central France, Sunday, April 3, 2016.
Francis said in an interview with French Catholic daily La Croix coming out Tuesday that a resignation of Cardinal Philippe Barbarin “would be a mistake, an imprudence.”
“Based on the information I have, I think in Lyon, Cardinal Barbarin has taken the necessary measures and has taken things well in hand,” the pope said. “He is a brave and creative man, a missionary.”
Francis said “we must now wait for the result of the proceedings before the civil courts,” but resigning now “would amount to admitting guilt.”
Barbarin, one of the most high-ranking officials in the French Catholic Church, has been targeted by two investigations for not reporting cases of child abuses by priests to judicial authorities. The cardinal has denied any cover-ups, but acknowledged “some mistakes in handling and appointing some priests” last month. Other church officials have been also investigated.
In the interview, Francis said that regarding cases of pedophile priests in general, for the church, “there can be no prescription” and that “tolerance must be zero.”
“Through these abuses, a priest, who is designed to drive a child to God, is destroying him. He spreads evil, resentment, pain,” the pope said.
Francis gave the one-hour interview to two La Croix’s journalists at his residence in the Vatican on May 9. The pope was speaking in Italian. The daily said the Vatican read the piece before it was published.
In September, the pope made a unprecedented statement on the church sex abuse scandal, in a wide-ranging press conference en route to Rome from his first-ever visit to the United States.
In an exchange with reporters on his plane shortly after take-off from Philadelphia, Francis called sexual abuse by priests “a sacrilege,” CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey reported.
As for victims and relatives who cannot forgive abusive priests, Francis said he fully understood.
“I pray for them,” Francis said. “I do not judge someone who is not able to forgive.”
On his last day in the U.S., Francis met with five abuse survivors of sexual abuse and issued a warning to bishops that they would be held accountable if they failed to protect their flocks.
“Those who covered this up are guilty,” he said. “There are even some bishops who covered this up. It’s something horrible.”
HARRISBURG — State investigators are conducting “inquiries” into child-abuse allegations in Roman Catholic dioceses beyond Altoona-Johnstown, which was the subject of a hard-hitting grand jury report in March, Bruce Castor, solicitor general in the attorney general’s office, said Friday.
The grand jury report said nearly 50 priests molested hundreds of children over several decades in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese. Castor’s statement in an interview with the Tribune-Review is the first public acknowledgement by Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s office that other allegations are getting a serious review.
“Whether they lead to arrests is an open question,” said Castor, the former Montgomery County district attorney.
Besides Altoona-Johnstown, there are Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh, Greensburg, Allentown, Erie, Harrisburg, Philadelphia and Scranton.
As Kane’s top staffer, Castor said he is “getting updates every two weeks from (the prosecutor) in charge” of the inquiries, Deputy Attorney General Dan Dye.
“This is not surprising,” said David Clohessy, spokesman for SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.) “How can law enforcement not make inquiries about proven, admitted or credibly accused clerics, regardless of where they are in Pennsylvania?”
“Inquiries are good. Investigations are better,” said Clohessy of St. Louis, who has stated publicly he was a victim of abuse by a priest as a teenager.
Catholic priests are no more likely to abuse a child than people in any other group, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference said.
“Without specifics, I can’t directly respond to Mr. Castor’s statement,” conference spokeswoman Amy Hill said.
“The church has long encouraged all accusations to be reported immediately to law enforcement. We also have a policy that requires us to remove someone from ministry if there are credible allegations made,” Hill said.
But Terry McKiernan, president of Boston-based BishopAccountability.org, said, “The molestation and collusion revealed in the Altoona-Johnstown grand jury report are certainly problems in other dioceses, but secrecy has so far prevailed. The attorney general’s scrutiny is especially needed in the Harrisburg, Greensburg, and Erie dioceses, each of which have larger Catholic populations than Altoona-Johnstown.
“Clearly a broader investigation by the AG is needed,” McKiernan said.
Jerry Zufelt, spokesman for the Greensburg Diocese, said the size of Catholic populations does not determine the likelihood of priest abuse.
“I would say it’s based on how each diocese handles the cases,” Zufelt said. “We’re very comfortable with how we’ve handled them.”
The diocese has had a “zero-tolerance policy” and forwards every allegation to the district attorney, Zufelt said. It’s had that policy in place since the National Conference of Catholic Bishops’ so-called “Dallas Report” on priest abuse in 2002, he said.
No charges were filed based on the initial grand jury report, though one of the priests mentioned, the former Rev. Joseph Maurizio, 71, of Somerset County, was convicted by a federal jury last year of traveling to Honduras on mission trips to abuse boys. He was also convicted of possessing child pornography and international money laundering. He is serving a 16-year prison term.
Prosecutors said cases frequently extended beyond statute of limitations for prosecution.
Attorney general’s investigators two weeks after the report charged three former religious leaders for participating in a conspiracy that allowed Brother Stephen Baker, a Franciscan friar, to abuse more than 100 children. In 2013, Baker killed himself by stabbing himself in the heart. Many of his sex crimes took place at Bishop McCort Catholic High School in Johnstown. The three former “ministers provincial,” who oversaw personnel within the organization, have denied the allegations. They’ve been held for trial on charges of criminal conspiracy and endangering the welfare of children.
“One important thing that is often left out of these stories is that the Catholic Church does provide support and assistance for survivors and their families,” Hill said. “We have a sincere commitment to the emotional and spiritual well-being of individuals who have been impacted by the crime of childhood sexual abuse, no matter how long ago the crime was committed.”
Lobbying funds have gone towards opposing bills that would extend statutes of limitations for child sex abuse cases or grant temporary windows to take action
Since 2007, the New York bishops’ lobbying arms have poured more than $1.1m into ‘issues associated with timelines for commencing certain civil actions related to sex offenses’.
The US Catholic church has poured millions of dollars over the past decade into opposing accountability measures for victims of clergy sex abuse, according to state lobbying disclosures.
The lobbying funds have gone toward opposing bills in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland that would extend statutes of limitations for child sex abuse cases or grant temporary civil windows for victims whose opportunities for civil action have already passed.
In light of major child sex abuse scandals from Jerry Sandusky to Dennis Hastert, lawmakers nationwide are pushing to give victims other avenues to sue. In Pennsylvania, house representative Mark Rozzi, who was abused as a child by a Catholic priest, has led a campaign to extend the age before which child abuse victims can bring on cases. In New York, assemblywoman Margaret Markey is pushing to grant a temporary one-year window for those whose statute of limitations has already expired.
“Many child sex abuse cases are done gradually, under the guise of love or sex education, and so what happens is most victims don’t even realize until literally decades later,” said David Clohessy, a director with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “The overwhelming majority of us rationalize it. That’s how we as survivors cope with this stunning betrayal. We cope with it by denying and minimizing it.”
Since 2007, the New York bishops’ lobbying arms have poured more than $1.1m into “issues associated with timelines for commencing certain civil actions related to sex offenses”, nearly half of their total compensation for lobbyists in that period. Another nearly $700,000 also went towards lobbying for a package of church priorities, including but not limited to influencing the climate on “statute of limitations” legislation.
During this same time period, bishops’ conferences spent millions on lobbyists in states where the church is actively opposing similar legislative proposals. Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey spent more than $5.2m, $1.5m and $435,000 respectively on top lobbyists in the state capitols. Opposition effortsultimatelythwarted statute of limitations reform efforts in those states.
These states did not provide breakdowns of how much of that money was spent opposing these particular bills. The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference said in a statement: “The list of issues for which we advocate is long – services for the poor, education, access to healthcare especially for the poor, elderly and children, religious liberty, immigration, pro-life issues, death penalty, just to name a few.”
Under existing law, child victims sexually abused in New York have until the age of 23 to press civil charges, but those abused across the border in Connecticut have until the age of 48. In Maryland and Pennsylvania, victims cannot enter into civil suits after turning 25 or 30 respectively, but across the border in Delaware they can do so at any age.
Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests hold a press conference in Chicago.
“New York is trying to move into the 21st century,” explains Brad Hoylman, a New York state senator sponsoring reform legislation. “How do we expect a 23-year-old to have the wherewithal to take on their church or youth group?”
Reformers have faced staunch opposition from business advocacy groups, the insurance industry, and, most publicly, the Catholic church.
In states such as Pennsylvania and New York, bishops’ organizations make their influence felt particularly among state Republicans, wary of crossing an institution that mobilizes significant pro-life constituencies and channels diocesan revenues into robust lobbying efforts.
“The Republican-dominated Senate has always been the stumbling block for final passage,” said Mike Armstrong, communications director for Markey. “They have blocked even committee consideration of the bill over the past few years.”
Representatives of the church say that the proposals they are opposing go too far in both the time window and the number of institutions they allow individuals to sue.
Dennis Poust of the New York State Catholic Conference said: “While it is fair to argue that we should extend the statute of limitations going forward to give victims more time to sue, a wide-open ‘window’ allowing claims that are decades old is fundamentally unjust because the claims are impossible to defend.” Poust added that New York’s bishops support a law that would extend the statute of limitations cut-off date to the age of 28.
Amy Hill of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference worried about protecting other institutions from lawsuits. “We continue to have serious concerns about retroactively extending the civil statute of limitations against non-profit and private institutions, allowing lawsuits for cases involving matters that occurred decades ago,” she said. “In other states, such action has led to the closure of parishes, schools, and vital social service ministries.”
But Hoylman said that while these institutions “can take care of themselves”, victims don’t have the same resources. “Who is looking after these survivors who have had years of deeply seeded personal conflicts over a crime they’re not responsible for?”
Marci Hamilton, a professor at Cardozo Law School, says fears about unjust lawsuits are overblown. ‘“Reviving expired statute of limitations has identified hundreds of hidden predators across the United States, but the number of cases has been modest. Out of a population of 35 million in California, only 1,150 claims were filed and in Delaware 1,175 claims were filed but 1,000 of those claims were against a single pediatrician, Dr Earl Bradley … False claims are a fantasy issue made up by church and insurance lobbyists.” As many as 100,000 US children may have suffered clerical sex abuse, according to an estimate by insurance experts presented at a 2012 Vatican conference. Nonetheless, only several thousand members of the US Catholic clergy have ever been accused of sexual assault, and only about 300 have ever been convicted. In past few years, the church has helped shoot down similar reform attempts in New Jersey, Colorado and Maryland. And over the past decade, bishops have opposed similar reform efforts in places such as Iowa, Virginia and Washington DC.
Many legal advocates and survivor groups have been particularly disappointed with the bishops’ lobbying efforts given the new era of reform promised by Pope Francis. “The pope announced last June he would be setting up a tribunal to investigate bishops who protected predators, but the tribunal reportedly hasn’t even been created yet,” says Anne Barrett Doyle of the watchdog group BishopAccountability.org.
In March, new revelations of abuse delivered fresh momentum for reform in Pennsylvania.
A Pennsylvania grand jury report revealed that as many as 50 church officials in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown had for five decades helped cover up the abuse of hundreds of children in collusion with police and county officials. In April, following some of the grand jury’s recommendations, the Pennsylvania state house overwhelmingly passed an extensive reform bill, abolishing the criminal statute of limitations for child sex abuse cases and permitting child sexual abuse victims as old as 50 to file civil claims.
“If the bishops continue to win,” says Clohessy, the survivors network director, many victims will “behave in destructive ways because they were violated as kids … And we as society tell them ‘tough shit’.”
There is a bill before the state Senate that would do something real – something lasting – for survivors of sexual abuse. Something that would allow so many the opportunity for justice they have long been denied. Something that could help them heal – that could help them ease and carry their burdens.
Passed by the House on April 12, H.B. 1947 would eliminate the criminal statute of limitations for sexual abuse and extend the civil statutes by 20 years, until victims turn 50. It would allow victims to sue over abuse that occurred decades ago.
The bill does not go far enough. As written, it would offer no recourse to the many victims of the Catholic Church abuse scandal who are older than 50. But it would represent real and significant progress.
“It would be a big victory,” said John Salveson, an abuse survivor from Wayne and the founder of the Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse. “We have been trying to do this for years. The resistance has just been impossible to overcome.”
It has, of course, taken way too long for legislators to get to the point where the impossible now seems possible.
It took two scathing Philadelphia grand jury reports – one in 2005, another in 2011 – outlining decades of sexual abuse of children by priests and other clergy and decades of cover-up by the church hierarchy.
More recently, it took the equally indefensible revelations in a March grand jury report on the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, where church leaders, prosecutors, and police reportedly ignored decades of abuse allegations.
It took the indictments, a few weeks later, of three Franciscan leaders in Johnstown who prosecutors say covered up for a friar who abused at least 100 children over two decades.
It took too much.
And the bill would not be even a possibility if it were not for the committed leadership of State Rep. Mark Rozzi (D., Berks), the bill’s driving force and an abuse victim himself, who told the Inquirer that he is pushing for its passage with “full guns blazing.”
That is welcome news.
I have covered this story since the first whispers of scandal seeped from the Philly Archdiocese in 2002, first for Philly’s alternative weekly newspapers and then as a correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter. Over the years, I have spoken with dozens of survivors.
People like Brian McDonnell, 70, who was abused by a priest at the now-closed St. Gregory’s in West Philadelphia. Brian suffered years of mental illness, the manifestations of which, his doctors said, were inextricably intertwined with his abuse. His family had to fight the archdiocese to help navigate the maze of mental health treatment.
Brian died in April, apologizing to his relatives for being a “burden.” He was the furthest thing from that to the people who loved him. But how could you blame him for thinking it? It’s exactly how the church he loved so much treated him.
I have spoken, too, with relatives of victims who did not survive, but were lost to drugs or suicide, to the toxic shame and anger that swallow so many victims.
People a bill like this could have helped.
Like James Spoerl, who was 44 and lived in Northeast Philadelphia. He suffered through years of depression and addiction stemming from abuse he suffered at the hands of a priest as a 9-year-old altar boy at St. Cecilia Parish.
The statute of limitations had expired when James stepped forward in 2002. It was too late for a civil suit. His mother, Catherine, became her son’s advocate, struggling with the archdiocese, she says, to get him the proper therapy and addiction treatment he needed.
“Their response has always been cold and formal,” she said of the archdiocese, a sentiment echoed by many Philadelphia survivors. “They have lacked compassion, attentiveness, empathy, and a repenting spirit.”
Meanwhile, James documented his anguish in his journals.
“I forgive you [expletive] for the cover-up of abuse and all the children you sent to hell here on earth,” he wrote of the church on one page.
James Spoerl died March 30, after battling diabetes and other illnesses.
His mother is now fighting for other mothers’ sons.
“My son did not live long enough to see a change,” she said of the bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations. “But I hope that others who are waiting to be heard are soon granted this right. No human being should be denied this right.”
Matthew Barrett (right) says his job offer at Fontbonne Academy in Milton, Massachusetts, was rescinded when he listed his husband as an emergency contact.
BOSTON — A Boston man who had a job offer from an all-girls Catholic high school rescinded after administrators learned that he was in a same-sex marriage has settled a lawsuit with the school.
The Boston Globe reports 45-year-old Matthew Barrett’s confidential settlement with Fontbonne Academy comes nearly five months after a Massachusetts judge found the Milton school had discriminated against Barrett.
Fontbonne Academy officials pulled their offer of a food service position to Barrett in 2013 after he listed his husband as an emergency contact.
Ben Klein, Barrett’s attorney, says the settlement means that the December Superior Court ruling against the school will stand, establishing a legal precedent that employers have no religious justification for discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.
In December 2015, a superior court judge rejected Fontbonne’s claim that hiring Barrett would infringe on its constitutional rights because it views his marriage to a man as incompatible with its religious mission.
The judge said Barrett’s duties as a food services director did not include presenting the teachings of the Catholic Church.
“As an educational institution, Fontbonne retains control over its mission and message. It is not forced to allow Barrett to dilute that message, where he will not be a teacher, minister or spokesman for Fontbonne and has not engaged in public advocacy of same-sex marriage,” Norfolk Superior Court Judge Douglas Wilkins wrote.
The judge also found that a religious exemption to the state anti-discrimination law applies only if a religious organization limits admission to people of a certain religion. Fontbonne is open to students and employees of all faiths, with the exception of its administration and theology faculty.
At the time, Barrett’s attorney, Ben Klein of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, said Fontbonne was liable to pay damages for lost wages and compensatory damages for discrimination.
“Marriage equality has been the law of Massachusetts for over a decade, and it is now the law of the land. But you can’t have equality if you can get married on Saturday and fired on Monday,” Klein said.
Fontbonne released a statement Wednesday saying it “expresses deep gratitude to Mr. Barrett for his willingness to come together with us in a spirit of conciliation.”
