Month: February 2012

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Top priest banished

A disgraced Harlem priest who arranged Pope Benedict XVI’s 2008 Mass at Yankee Stadium has been sentenced to “a life of prayer and penance” by the Vatican for his alleged molestation of up to 10 kids decades ago.

Wallace Harris, the former popular pastor of the Church of St. Charles Borromeo, also now by order of New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan is living in a Catholic-run residence “under very, very close supervision,” said Dolan’s spokesman Joseph Zwilling last night.

Zwilling pointedly said that Harris — once the archdiocese’s top-ranking black priest and chairman of the senate representing all of the archdiocese’s priests — is not living in a location near families, and is barred from ever publicly acting as a priest.

In 2008, Harris, 64, both gave the invocation at former Gov. David Paterson’s and arranged for the Pope’s triumphant Mass in Yankee Stadium.
But months later, he was suspended from St. Charles Borromeo by the archdiocese after two men claimed he had molested them at the now-closed Cathedral Preparatory High School and College in the 1980s. Seven more men — including a retired NYPD cop — later made similar accusations against him to the Manhattan DAs office.

No charges were ever brought because the statute of limitations had expired.
But in 2010, Harris officially resigned and was barred by Dolan from presenting himself publicly as a priest.

Recently, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, approved the recommendation of the archdiocese’s review board and assigned Harris to “a life of prayer and penance.”
“He did not fight it,” Zwilling said.
That ruling was first reported by Catholic New York, the archdiocese’s official newspaper.

The Congregation’s action fell short of laicizing — commonly called defrocking — Harris, which would have totally stripped him of his priesthood and returned him to lay status.

By leaving him technically a priest — albeit one who can only say Mass for himself — the Congregation kept him under the direct authority of Dolan, whose orders he must obey or face further discipline.

Robert Hoatson, a former New Jersey Catholic priest who has been a harsh critic of the church’s handling of child sex-abuse cases, blasted the decision, saying, “Msgr. Wallace Harris should be defrocked by the Vatican and Cardinal-designate Dolan should petition the Holy Father to do so.”
“The many victims who have already come forward to report their abuse by Harris deserve better,” Hoatson said. “By relegating Harris to a life of prayer and penance, the Vatican is sending a message that he will never truly be held accountable for his extensive and despicable abuse of young men.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Judge leaves abuse claims against Milwaukee Church in limbo

A judge on Thursday denied a bid by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Milwaukee to dismiss two fraud claims by sexual abuse victims, ruling it remains to be determined whether the claims were filed too late and the statute of limitations has run out.

But U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan Kelley threw out a third case because the claimant had already entered into a settlement with the Church and promised to not seek further compensation, and failed to prove he was fraudulently induced into settling.

The archdiocese’s lawyers had asked Kelley to decide summarily to throw out three test claims, reasoning that her ruling would apply to hundreds of other claims.

“I deny summary judgment on the statute of limitations,” Kelley told a courtroom crowded with alleged victims, none of whom testified at the hearing.

Kelley said abuse victims would not be barred from bringing their claims, but they may have to show that they filed within the statute of limitations, which ranges up to six years in cases where fraud is alleged for concealing crimes by clergymen.

The judge’s ruling means the two fraud claims remain alive, and people who have settled previously may also be included if they can prove they were induced, said attorney Paul Scoptur, who represents the three victims whose cases were challenged, and more than 350 claimants altogether.

The Milwaukee archdiocese’s efforts to get the bulk of nearly 600 abuse claims against clergy and other church workers tossed out has offended critics who say the church is ducking responsibility and continuing a cover-up of its crimes.

The clergy abuse scandal has spread around the world and has cost the Catholic church in the United States more than $2 billion in settlements. Milwaukee is the eighth U.S. diocese to declare bankruptcy, citing the burden from settling abuse cases.

The archdiocese has said it is challenging claims in an effort to emerge intact from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which it filed in January 2011.

Scoptur said the statute of limitations theoretically started when a victim knew or should have known they have a claim, adding that the question is when the claimants were made aware.

“The archdiocese will probably want to depose the claimants to find out. It will be different in each case,” Scoptur said.

A lawyer for the archdiocese, Francis LoCoco, said the victims were obligated to begin investigating filing claims beginning in 2002, when the allegations of abuse became public and the church began posting the names of offending priests on its website.

But claimants’ attorney Jeff Anderson argued to the judge the clock did not start until 2008, when former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland admitted in a court deposition that church leaders kept the abuses secret, fearing people would stop coming to church.

Complete Article HERE!

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Culture of silence keeps priest sex abuse under wraps in Asia, bishop says

A top Asian church official told a Vatican-backed conference on fighting priestly sex abuse Thursday that a culture of silence prevalent on the continent has kept many victims from coming forward, as concerns rise that Asia may be the next ground zero in the abuse scandal.

Monsignor Luis Antonio Tagle, archbishop of Manila, Philippines, said deference to church authorities in places like the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Philippines may also have contributed to keeping a lid on reports. He said more and more victims have come forward in the past five years in the Philippines, but that incidents of priests keeping mistresses still far outpace reports of priests preying on children.

Tagle addressed the conference, which is aimed at helping bishops and religious superiors around the world craft guidelines on how to care for victims and keep abusers out of the priesthood. The Vatican has set a May deadline for the policies to be submitted for review.

Tagle’s presentation made clear that the sex abuse scandal — which first erupted in Ireland in the 1990s, the United States in 2002, and Europe at large in 2010 — hadn’t yet reached Asia. But the concern is very real that it might: In November, the federation of Asian bishops’ conferences said the church has to take “drastic and immediate measures” to contain the problem before it gets out of hand.

“Though the issue of the child abuse crisis has yet to come into the open in the societies of Asian countries, as it has happened in the West or in other continents of the world … it appears it will not be too late before it might come to (a) similar situation in Asia,” the federation said in announcing a seminar in November to bring bishops up to speed about the problem.

Tagle said he didn’t know if the steady increase in victims coming forward over the last five years is “a prelude to an explosion,” but he acknowledged that the reported cases are probably a fraction of the total.

“How Asians normally respond to an embarrassing situation is to preserve one’s dignity, to preserve one’s honor. Usually that takes the form of silence,” he told reporters. “It’s not because the person doesn’t want to share it, but that by divulging everything, the little bit of honor that is left in me will be taken away from me.”

He said mandatory reporting laws, which would compel bishops or religious superiors to report accusations of abuse to police, would be “difficult culturally” to swallow in many Asian countries where victims may prefer to seek justice discreetly, within the church’s own legal system.

He also suggested that the mentality is still very much alive in Asia whereby a bishop, who has a paternal and fraternal relationship with his priests, would find it difficult to turn over an accused priest to police.

That mentality has been blamed for the scandal’s enormous proportions in the United States, Australia and Europe, since bishops and religious superiors for decades moved abusers from parish to parish rather than report them to police. Only in 2010, at the peak of the latest scandal, did the Vatican explicitly tell bishops to comply with civil reporting requirements where they exist.

Tagle said the mentality must change now in Asia.

“We’re in the process of checking our cultural expressions, and see how the culture needs to be purified in order to achieve this just situation in the church,” he said.

Tagle himself said he wasn’t clear on the civil reporting laws in the Philippines but that bishops know they must cooperate with civil authorities.

Later Thursday at the close of the symposium, Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx was launching an online resource center for bishops to learn the best practices to combat abuse.

In his speech to the conference, Marx said the scandal — which erupted in 2010 in Pope Benedict XVI’s native Germany — had cost the church credibility “from which it has yet to recover.”

“Stonewalling, trivialization and relativization will not foster a new credibility,” he said. “There can therefore be no substitute for openness, transparency and truthfulness.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Charges upheld against former Auburn priest

A review board within the Roman Catholic Church’s Diocese of Rochester has upheld child sexual abuse charges against Dennis Shaw, the former Holy Family priest who was removed from his position at the Auburn church in late 2010.
The review board, composed of laymen and clergy members was tasked with reviewing an earlier investigation into alleged abuse dating to the late 1970s and early 1980s when Shaw was pastor at the now-closed St. Francis of Assisi Church in Rochester.

It unanimously found the allegations to be “credible and true,” according to a release from the diocese that was read Sunday at Holy Family. The release also disclosed some new details about the alleged abuse. It specifies that Shaw allegedly abused two boys under 16 years old.

In one case, the victim said the alleged abuse “occurred multiple times over a period of several years,” according to the release.

Shaw responded to the news with a statement of his own, criticizing Rochester-area Bishop Matthew Clark for not communicating with him better.
According to Shaw, the two men met in late January, and Clark did not mention the review committee.

He said he had not seen the review board decision until given it by The Citizen.

“The people of Auburn and Rochester that I have served know who I am and what my life has been about,” Shaw wrote. “I am no saint & never pretended to be one. But I am more than willing to subject myself to the judgment of the laity instead of the politics of the diocese.”

Shaw was ordained in 1974 and served in three Rochester churches until 2005, when he was transferred to Holy Family. He battled alcoholism early in his career and has clashed with the Catholic church over its stance on homosexuality and other social issues.

In Auburn, he quickly became popular with his congregation and was involved in starting Chapel House, Auburn’s first homeless shelter.

Since his dismissal, Shaw has received support from many of his former parishioners and he continues to lead an informal Bible study at Auburn United Methodist Church.

Now that the local review committee has upheld the allegations, Shaw’s case will go to the Vatican for an ultimate resolution, including possible laicization, or dismissal from the clergy.

Diocese of Rochester spokesman Doug Mandelaro said he doesn’t know the timetable for that decision, after which Shaw would likely have the right to appeal.

Mandelaro said the diocese informed Rochester-area authorities of the alleged abuse in 2010, before suspending Shaw. The Rochester Police Department could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

Shaw, who receives a pension and health-care benefits from the church, has not actively defended himself, saying he doesn’t trust the church process.

Complete Article HERE!

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Sex abuse suit filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings

A third lawsuit alleging abuse by Catholic clergy in Montana was filed Wednesday morning in Great Falls — this time from 10 plaintiffs alleging sexual assault by priests from within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings.

The only named plaintiff in the case, Timothy Becker, alleged that the Rev. Ted Szudera, who until last month was in active ministry in Stanford, abused him in 1978 and 1979 while Szudera was a priest in Livingston. Becker said in an interview Wednesday that he attended St. Mary’s Catholic School and the St. Mary parish in Livingston growing up, and that the alleged abuse occurred both in the church and in the school.

The Great Falls-Billings Diocese denied the allegations against Szudera, saying that an earlier accusation against Szudera brought to the church by Becker in 2006 was deemed unfounded after the diocese hired a private investigator to look into the allegation.

The Rev. Jay Peterson, vicar general for the Great Falls-Billings Diocese, said the other allegations set forth in the lawsuit were never brought to the church’s attention.

In a press conference Wednesday announcing the suit’s filing, attorney Tim Kosnoff of the Seattle-based law firm of Kosnoff Fasy said Becker and nine other plaintiffs told them about “appalling instances of sexual abuse going on for years” at the hands of priests and nuns in various places across Montana.

“The abuse is of the most hideous nature I’ve ever seen,” Kosnoff said, later adding a call to the Attorney General’s Office to investigate all claims of clerical abuse coming out of Montana.

Attorney General Steve Bullock responded with a statement that read in part:

“My top priority is keeping kids safe. Allegations of sexual abuse are always distressing, especially when the alleged perpetrator is in a position of trust.”

Bullock’s statement further reads that as of 4:30 Wednesday afternoon, his office asked for a copy of the complaint but didn’t get one.

“However, if it alleges that crimes have been committed, we encourage the victims to immediately contact their local law enforcement agency so those allegations can be investigated.”

The lawsuit is the third filed against the Catholic Church in Montana since last year and the first against the diocese that covers the central and eastern parts of the state. Montana plaintiffs were among a large group who received a $166 million settlement last year in a suit against the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus. Some 160 plaintiffs also filed a sex abuse suit against the Diocese of Helena last year.

Kosnoff, whose firm represented a portion of the plaintiffs in both of those cases, said more Montana victims began coming forward after the other two suits began garnering publicity. In the firm’s experience in bringing suits against branches of the Catholic Church in the Rocky Mountain and Pacific regions, the attorneys said the number of claims coming out of Montana was alarming, saying that there have been more claims coming out of Montana than in the state of Washington.

“We’re really just seeing the tip of the iceberg here,” said Dan Fasy, a partner in the Seattle firm.

Kosnoff said he was especially troubled at the nature of the abuse described by plaintiffs in the most recent case, saying that “nothing is left to the imagination.” He said he was especially troubled that Szudera, one of the alleged abusers, was at one point a part of the Great Falls-Billings Diocese’s independent review board that takes up claims of abuse brought before the local church leadership. Kosnoff also accused the diocese of brushing away Becker’s allegations of abuse in 2006, when Becker brought the issue before the review board.

“They took no action against Father Szudera,” Kosnoff said. “It was a white-wash.”

Peterson, the vicar general of the diocese, was on the review board that heard Becker’s 2006 complaint. He said the board made a unanimous decision not to take any further action after a private investigator determined Becker’s allegations were unfounded. Peterson said that Szudera was not a member of the review board at the time.

“We followed our policy,” Peterson said. “We got the best input and advice we could.”

Peterson said that Bryan Lockerby, a captain at the Great Falls Police Department who also works as a private investigator, was the one who investigated Becker’s allegation and found that it was unfounded.

“It was very thorough and independent,” Peterson said of the investigation.

Lockerby said he could not confirm whether he did any work for the diocese, citing a confidentiality agreement he has with his clients, but he did confirm that he is called upon by various people to work as a private investigator.

Peterson said that Szudera is no longer active in ministry and that he took a leave of absence that was effective as of Jan. 1. Peterson said the leave of absence had nothing to do with the allegation against him and was not a disciplinary measure.

“Father Ted had been requesting a sabbatical for quite some time — a well-deserved sabbatical,” Peterson said.

Peterson denied the allegations set forth in the lawsuit and said that the diocese would fight it in court.

Peterson said Szudera was appointed to the review board after the 2006 hearing and added that he didn’t remember there being any kind of hesitation from the board because of the previous allegation.

“He was exonerated,” Peterson said.

Attempts to reach Szudera at his most recent listed number were not returned Wednesday.

Peterson also put out a news release Wednesday that accused the attorneys behind the lawsuit of making “sweeping allegations” and attempting to “try these claims in a court of public opinion in hopes of generating new potential claimants.”

“Diocese of Great Falls-Billings has not been served with any complaint, and when it is, these claims and any valid defenses afforded the diocese will be properly handled in the courts,” the statement reads in part. “In the meantime, it seems inappropriate for any involved attorney to comment on the litigation.”

The release states that the diocese has had a policy for reporting abuse from clergy members in place since the early 1990s and that information on how to report abuse is posted in churches and published in the diocese newspaper, The Harvest.

With the exception of Becker’s 2006 complaint, the other allegations in the lawsuit were never brought to the diocese’s attention, Peterson wrote in the release.

“Rather than bring these claims to the attention of the diocese through its publicized reporting procedure so the diocese could respond and assist any victims, it appears the claimants have instead chosen to file a lawsuit while their attorneys engage in inflammatory rhetoric,” the release reads.

Becker, who now lives in Salt Lake City, said that he was not satisfied with the diocese’s reaction when he brought his abuse allegation to its review board in 2006.

“It was like a cold room of people just staring at you,” Becker said of the hearing, adding that it was like “I was speaking to the wall.”

Becker said he met with three people initially in May 2006: Peterson, the diocese’s attorney Maxon Davis and diocese business manager Joseph Luncki. In August of that year, another member of the review board whom Becker didn’t name visited him in Salt Lake City. Becker said that in the end, the board agreed to pay for his therapy sessions.

“He said ‘I hope you get well,’ and that was it,” Becker said.

Peterson confirmed that the diocese did agree to pay for Becker’s counseling.

“We did offer some counseling out of a pastoral concern,” he said.

Becker said that he is still a “strict Catholic,” but finds himself having trouble trusting any priest he meets now.

“Priests are just like everybody else — human beings — and they have to be accountable for what they do wrong,” Becker said. “I’m hoping to make it clear that anybody who is abused needs to come forward and make it known that they can’t do these things to any of God’s children.”

Leander James, an attorney out of Coeur d’Alene who is also representing the plaintiffs, said Wednesday that the diocese’s reporting process is biased and doesn’t seem to be offering real solutions to the problem of clerical abuse.

“This is not a process that should be internal,” said James, who is also Catholic. “Doesn’t that smack of aiding and abetting a cover up? … It’s the fox guarding the hen house.”

The nine other plaintiffs, seven men and two women, are identified only by initials and allege abuse by priests in the St. Xavier mission on the Crow Indian Reservation, the St. Xavier Church in Hardin, St. Michael’s Church in Absarokee, the St. Paul’s Mission in Hays, the now-shuttered St. Thomas Orphanage in Great Falls and an un-named church in Wolf Point. All the plaintiffs allege the abuse occurred when they were children.

The 22-page complaint also names, fully or partially, other priests besides Szudera as alleged abusers: Edmund Robinson of the St. Paul Mission in Hays, James Reynolds of the Wolf Point church, a “Father Heretick” of Absarokee and a “Father O’Reilly” at the St. Xavier Mission.

The diocese is the only defendant named in the case, although the filing also leaves open 10 spaces each for additional corporate entities or individuals.

The suit asks for monetary damages for pain and suffering as well as punitive damages “in an amount sufficient to serve as a warning and example to others.” The amounts of those damages will be determined later by a jury if the case makes it to court.

Kosnoff said that most cases similar to this one end with a settlement before reaching court.

The complaint also calls for a number of “equitable relief” measures, including:

  • that the Diocese post the names of all known abusers on its website;
  • that all clergy and staff within the diocese annually sign a document stating that they have never abused a minor at any time nor do they have knowledge of anyone else who has abused a minor;
  • that the diocese bishop, Michael Warfel, issue a letter of apology to all the plaintiffs; and
  • that a “statement of gratitude” to the alleged victims be published on the diocese website and as full page ads in the Billings Gazette and Great Falls Tribune.

Complete Article HERE!