Month: October 2022

Posted on

John D’Emilio’s ‘Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood’

author John D’Emilio

By Brian Bromberger

For the past decade there’s been a plethora of LGBTQ memoirs published every year. As the Baby Boomer generation, who matured right before and after the Stonewall Riots, have entered their sixties and seventies, they want to bear testimony both on how they impacted gay liberation movements and how that drive towards equality affected their own lives. These voices are vital for preserving a historical record on this activism that literally reshaped American acceptance of, alternative sexualities.

Therefore, it is fitting that John D’Emilio, one of the preeminent queer historians instrumental in helping establish Gay and Lesbian Studies as an academic discipline, has written a memoir, “Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood,” detailing his coming of age in the sixties through the beginning of his graduate career at Columbia University, right after Stonewall.

D’Emilio is Professor Emeritus Gender and Women’s Studies at University of Illinois-Chicago. His 1984 book “Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970,” is considered foundational, while his research with co-author Estelle Freedman, “Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America,” was cited by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in the Lawrence vs. Texas decision that overturned sodomy state laws. Finally, he wrote “Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin,” an essential biography on the black gay civil rights icon.

In his preface, D’Emilio sets the goal of his book: “How did so many young people move from the quiet of their family backgrounds to the social and political upheavals of this seemingly un-orthodox era? What kinds of experiences provoked their shift in outlook? How did they become agents of change? And how did their lives change because of this?”

He largely succeeds in showing how Baby Boomers moved from the status quo life of the fifties into a new world of activism, dissent, and nonconformity, which in his case consisted primarily of political radicalism by protesting the Vietnam War and participating in the emerging gay sexual revolution.

D’Emilio constructs his memoir like a three-act play. Act One delves into his Italian family boyhood in the Bronx and early Catholic education at St. Raymond’s school. Act Two explores his formative high school education at the Jesuit St. Regis school. Act Three centers on his undergraduate life at Columbia University including campus protests as well as exploring gay life in Greenwich Village.

D’Emilio mentions the inspiration for his book came preparing for and recovering from triple-bypass heart surgery, recalling memories from his youth but also wanting to inspire young people in the age of Trump to become progressive activists, just as his generation had done. He kept letters written during his Columbia days to his high school friends describing his antiwar activities as well as his emerging gay identity.

Faith, family, forensics

Family stories told at the dinner table reinforced his Sicilian ancestry, while his mother’s photo albums helped him reconstruct childhood memories. There are no skeletons in the closet here, just an affectionate, close-knit, multigenerational, republican Catholic family. His parents were working-class Italian immigrants, living in a housing project called Parkchester that was private rent-controlled housing but also a model community. D’Emilio is adept at painting the classic post-war urban life where his father made enough money so they could live a solid middle-class existence. His mother decided early on that education was destiny for the smart D’Emilio.

His religious faith became central, leading to his acceptance at the prestigious elite all-male Jesuit St. Regis high school (after acing a competitive entrance exam) where he blossomed, developing friendships outside his neighborhood. He excelled in Latin and Greek. The school exposed him to more liberal thinking, but primarily taught him to think for himself.

Recruited for the Speech and Debate Society, he toured the country, entering and winning debate tournaments, brilliant at public speaking. He was obsessive in researching background material for these contests and studying 4 hours a night. So dedicated, he opted to attend a Georgetown tournament as opposed to going to his beloved grandmother’s funeral.

During this time he was becoming more aware of his attraction to men and would play footsies and body grinding on crowded subways with handsome older men. In his sophomore year, a teacher suggested he read James Baldwin’s “Another Country” and he realized there were other gay men like him. He began having sex with strangers in subway bathrooms and park bushes, the ways gay men often interacted with each other in the early 1960s.

However, D’Emilio’s Catholicism compelled him to confess his “sins” and resolve to abstain from any further sexual activity. He even contemplated in his senior year becoming a priest and applied to a Jesuit seminary, but later decided he had to deal first with accepting his gayness, otherwise he’d be fooling himself and his superiors.

At Columbia he’s exposed to new people who don’t believe in God, which shook his faith in the institutional Church. He also had to confront his views on the Vietnam War especially since de- ferments to students were ending. Much to the consternation of his parents, he wanted to declare himself a conscientious objector, though his failure to pass the army physical finally saved him.

Still as he gets involved in Vietnam War protests, he admires the priests and nuns’ activism and decides he still believes in some Catholic teachings on social justice and pacifism.

During this stage he will read Oscar Wilde’s “De Profundis,” his paen to love and an apologia for his sexuality, written while imprisoned for gross indecency. “The real fool is he who does not know himself. To speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse. To aspire to a Christlike life, one must be entirely and absolutely oneself.”

The book enabled D’Emilio to embrace his sexual desires while still living out the ethics he had so deeply internalized in his Catholic upbringing. He’s able to come out for the first time to high school friends now attending seminary. The book chronicles gay life at the end of the 60s with signposts like Christopher Street, the Oscar Wilde Bookshop, and visiting the Stonewall Inn prior to the riots. He decides to study American history at Columbia, but from nontraditional vantage points such as race, gender, and sexuality, for his graduate program.

What is so refreshing about the book is D’Emilio’s non-judgmentalism. Even though he ultimately rejects institutional Catholicism, he understands how it has formed his values and made him a better person. He learns to trust his own instincts and not be dependent on others’ demands upon him. This account of his coming-of-age journey is warm, affectionate, insightful, and compulsively readable, as one feels transported into a more carefree, less ambiguous time.

Reportedly, D’Emilio is writing a second volume covering his LGBTQ activism from the 1970s through the 1990s, which readers will eagerly anticipate after finishing this first installment.

Although D’Emilio charts his particular transformation from conformity to radicalism through the prism of his sexuality, it is written so honestly and universally, anyone, whose personal discoveries collide with their cultural values, causing tension leading to growth, will glean wisdom, assisting them as they seek their own path in exciting unexpected new directions.

‘Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood: Coming of Age in the Sixties’ by John D’Emilio. Duke University Press, $29.95 https://www.dukeupress.edu/

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

Vatican’s mishandling of high-profile abuse cases extends its foremost crisis

Pope Francis leads the traditional Sunday Angelus prayer from his window overlooking Saint Peter’s Square on Sunday.

By Chico Harlan and Amanda Coletta

Three years ago, Pope Francis said the Catholic Church was committed to eradicating the “evil” of abuse. The pope and other church leaders drew up new guidelines to handle accusations. They pledged transparency. They said victims’ needs would come first.

“A change of mentality,” Francis called it.

But two recent major cases suggest that the church, for all its vows to improve, is still falling into familiar traps and extending its foremost crisis.

While the cases are markedly different — one involves a Canadian cardinal accused of inappropriately touching an intern; the other involves a Nobel-winning bishop from East Timor accused of abusing impoverished children — anti-abuse advocates say both instances reflect a pattern of secrecy and defensiveness. They say the church is still closing ranks to protect the reputations of powerful prelates.

In the case of the cardinal, Marc Ouellet, the Vatican did look into the accusations — but it delegated the investigation to a priest who knows him well, a fellow member of a small religious association. The priest determined there were no grounds to move forward — a conclusion the lawyer for the accuser says is dubious, given the possible conflict of interests.< Justin Wee, the lawyer, said Father Jacques Servais did interview his client in a 40-minute Zoom call, but rather than ascertaining the details of the allegations, appeared more interested in probing her motives and asking if she still believed in God.

“If the Vatican is handling cases like that, it means that if you’re powerful, nothing will happen,” Wee said. “No one should be above the rules.”

In the case of the bishop, Carlos Ximenes Belo, the Vatican disciplined him in 2020, one year after Holy See officials said they had became aware of accusations. But those restrictions — which included barring Belo from contact with minors — were kept secret by the church until a recently published Dutch news investigation that described abuse of multiple boys dating back to the 1980s.

Belo had attained stardom in the church by winning the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in seeking a peaceful resolution in East Timor’s long struggle for independence. But six years later, the Vatican announced he was stepping down — two decades before the usual retirement age — citing a canon law that refers to health or other “grave” reasons. The Vatican did not respond to a question about whether officials knew about abuse allegations at the time of Belo’s early retirement. He eventually wound up as an assistant parish priest in Mozambique. He said in a 2005 interview that his duties there included teaching children and leading youth retreats.

“Both cases are further indications that the whole accountability initiative is sputtering, is proving to be superficial and ineffective,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, the co-director of BishopAccountability.org, an abuse clearinghouse. “It makes you wonder: What has changed?”

The Vatican launched a drive to regain credibility against abuse after a wave of accusations not just against parish priests, but against bishops and cardinals — the power brokers of the church. Francis in 2018 called bishops to Rome for an unprecedented summit on abuse, which took place months later. And afterward, the church set out new rules and guidelines for how to handle cases, including instances when bishops are accused of coverup or abuse.

The church has shown progress on several counts. Dioceses around the world have set up reporting offices, giving alleged victims an easier way to alert the church of potential crimes. And in one instance, the church submitted itself to an act of unprecedented transparency, releasing a 449-page report into the abuse of defrocked American cardinal Theodore McCarrick, with revelations that bruised the reputation of Pope John Paul II.

But since then, the Vatican has not been transparent about any discipline against other prelates. And it has regularly ignored its own procedures, which provide specific instructions about who should be tasked to investigate bishops.

“It’s very frustrating, to be honest,” said one individual who has consulted with the Vatican on its handling of abuse, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly. “When big names come out — the Vatican and the curia — the shield comes down. It’s incredible.”

Belo could not be reached for comment. The investigation by Dutch publication De Groene Amsterdammer included interviews with two adults who described abuse by Belo when they were teenagers, after which, they said, the bishop had given them money. The publication said the allegations against Belo had been known to aid workers and officials in the church. The Salesians of Don Bosco, a religious order to which Belo belonged, said in a statement it had learned about the accusations with “deep sadness and perplexity.”

The statement did not offer any timeline and referred further questions to those with “competence and knowledge.”

Ouellet, 78, has denied the accusations of inappropriate touching. He is widely regarded as one of the most important figures within the Roman Curia, the Vatican’s bureaucracy, as head of the department that oversees and vets bishops. Francis has allowed him to stay in the role well beyond the normal five-year term. He has a reputation as a moderate — a rarity in the ideologically divided church — and has served under several popes, including Francis, with whom he has near-weekly meetings.

The accusations against him surfaced publicly as part of a recent class-action lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Quebec, in which more than 100 people allege sexual misconduct against dozens of members of the Catholic clergy, lay and religious pastoral staff or volunteers. Many victims say they were minors at the time of alleged assaults.

The accusations date back to Ouellet’s time as archbishop of Quebec. A woman identified in the legal documents only as “F.” says that in the fall of 2008, when she was a 23-year-old intern, working as a pastoral agent at a diocese in Quebec, he forcefully massaged her shoulders at a dinner. When she turned around, the lawsuit alleges, she saw that it was Ouellet, who smiled and caressed her back before leaving.

In 2010, at the ordination of a colleague, F. alleges that Ouellet told her that he might as well hug her because there’s no harm “in treating oneself a bit.” He hugged her and slid his hand down her back to above her buttocks, according to the lawsuit. She says that she felt “chased” and that when she spoke to other people about her experiences, she was told that she wasn’t the only one to have that “problem” with him.

F. ended up trying to bring the case to light through official church channels, first to an independent advisory committee designed to receive church cases, and then — at the committee’s advice — in a letter to Francis himself. A month after her January 2021 letter to the pope, she was informed that Father Jacques Servais would investigate. She alleges that he appeared to have “little information and training” about sexual assault.

The Vatican did not respond to a question about why a close associate of Ouellet, who had known the cardinal since at least 1991, would have been tasked to conduct a preliminary probe. The church guidelines warn against a conflict of interests.

Wee, the alleged victim’s lawyer, said there was no follow-up from Servais or anyone else at the Vatican after the Zoom call in March 2021.

Servais did not respond to a request for comment.

Wee, who declined to make F. available for an interview, said she learned that the Vatican had determined there wasn’t enough evidence for a canonical investigation based on a Vatican news release after the allegations against Ouellet became public in August. He said she was not told privately beforehand.

Jean-Guy Nadeau, an emeritus professor of religious studies at the University of Montreal, lamented the lack of transparency in the case. He said Servais should have recused himself given the appearance of a conflict of interest.

“I don’t understand how that choice was made,” Nadeau said of Francis’s decision to appoint Servais to conduct the investigation. “I really don’t understand how such a choice could ever happen.”

Analysts said the case highlights the need for external investigators to probe misconduct allegations. David Deane, an associate professor of theology at the Atlantic School of Theology in Nova Scotia, said members of the clergy often close ranks and cannot be trusted to investigate one another.

“Having clergy handle the investigation is a real problem. It’s a real issue,” he said. “As long as that happens, it’s going to be very difficult to have both accountability and public confidence in the process.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

These Catholics are trying to work within the church to change how sexual abuse is addressed

Executive Director Sara Larson

By Sophie Carson

When a group of local Catholics decided to expand their advocacy work outside a Whitefish Bay living room, they had to come up with a name for their new organization.

They settled on “Awake Milwaukee.”

As Catholics who wanted to push for change on the issue of sexual abuse from within the church, the name represented their own views as well as what they hoped to do for others.

“We felt like we were finally awake. We were finally paying attention to something that had been there all along,” said executive director Sara Larson. “It’s also what we’re aiming to do for our broader community: to help people wake up to this reality.”

The group’s ethos is that while the Archdiocese of Milwaukee has come a long way in addressing clergy abuse, more can be done to support survivors and increase transparency. The group has also recently released a list of recommended changes.

Awake is unique among most anti-clergy sexual abuse groups because its leaders are practicing Catholics who want to remain in the church and see it improve.

“Real change and structural change can only come from within, when the laity really is speaking and saying we’re not comfortable with where this is at,” said Patty Ingrilli, a member of Awake’s board of directors.

An archdiocese spokeswoman said the church has put stringent policies in place to prevent abuse, worked with survivors and given anti-child abuse training to 100,000 people.

“No organization in the U.S. has done more than the Catholic Church when it comes to addressing sexual abuse, and incorporating prevention measures throughout the organization,” said communication director Sandra Peterson.

‘It’s about listening first’

A lifelong Catholic with a theology degree, Larson was working at a local parish in 2018 when two pieces of news hit her like a “punch in the gut” and caused her to pay attention to the abuse crisis. The cardinal Theodore McCarrick was removed from ministry over allegations of child sex abuse, and the sprawling Pennsylvania grand jury report was released, detailing widespread abuse and cover-ups.

Previously, Larson believed a narrative she thinks is common among Catholics: Sexual abuse in the church “happened a long time ago, and when we found out about it, we fixed it, and now it’s time for us to move on.”

Within a year, Larson had dived into research on the crisis, hosted other local Catholics in her home for discussions on the issue and launched Awake Milwaukee.

The group’s first action was an open letter to survivors, apologizing for the abuse they experienced and for the “many ways your abuse was ignored, minimized, and covered up.” Dozens of local Catholics, including priests and deacons, signed on.

Most of the group’s founders weren’t survivors of abuse or close family or friends of survivors. But they were people of faith who cared.

“We were people who maybe had been part of the problem by not caring enough about this, and not learning and not taking action earlier,” Larson said.

Ingrilli, a Brookfield Catholic who’d served as chair of her parish council, got involved because it was important to raise her three sons in the church, she said.

“I needed the Catholic Church to be a safer place than what I felt it was,” she said.

Awake has four areas of focus: education, prayer, advocacy and survivor support.

Educating “Catholics in the pews” about “the full reality of sexual abuse” in the church is key, Larson said. Awake runs a blog and hosts regular panel discussions with survivors and experts.

It’s been painful that some Catholics don’t support Awake’s mission, she said.

“We really think that a lack of understanding is a huge part of the problem,” she said.

Awake also runs support groups for survivors of clergy abuse. The virtual groups have drawn survivors from across the U.S. and Canada, Larson said. Not all experienced abuse within the Milwaukee archdiocese.

Most of the survivors have remained in the church and were looking for a place to be honest about the crisis while remaining “rooted in faith and hope,” Larson said.

“People want to be heard, and they want to be believed. That is the foundation of everything we do,” Larson said. “It’s about listening first.”

Group compiled list of recommendations

Awake recently released a list of recommended policy changes for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

Among the recommendations: publish an online list of all priests credibly accused of abuse in the archdiocese, including visiting priests and those from religious orders – the current list only includes diocesan priests; publish twice-annual reports detailing the work of two oversight boards; and acknowledge the sexual abuse of adults, not only children, in Archdiocesan documents.

Each recommendation includes reasoning for why Awake leaders believe it should be implemented, as well as examples of dioceses that have implemented it.

“We really wanted to focus on things that, from what we understand, are very possible,” Larson said.

While some changes may seem minor, they can have a big impact on survivors, Larson said. Take the suggestion to list all credibly accused priests online.

She says that an average parishioner likely would make little distinction between a diocesan priest and, for example, a priest who was ordained in the Archdiocese of Chicago but was working at a church in Milwaukee.

A survivor “could go looking and say, ‘my abuser is not on this list,’” Larson said.

And while so-called extern and religious-order priests aren’t directly accountable to the Milwaukee archbishop, “it’s just a really good way to increase transparency about the full scope of abuse that happened in our archdiocese,” Larson said.

The archdiocese says it does not list extern and religious-order priests because it has no way of knowing key details about abuse allegations against such priests and how they were investigated. “There is also no certainty that the Archdiocese would be informed of allegations against every priest who worked at some point in the Archdiocese,” the statement said.

Another of Awake’s recommendations is to be more public about the work of two lay-led oversight boards, which provide advice to the archdiocese on its clergy abuse policies and whether people are fit to serve in ministry.

In response to a reporter’s question about the recommendation, the archdiocese spokeswoman said the Community Advisory Board includes survivors of abuse, victim advocates, professional psychologists and therapists, and members of law enforcement.

The board meets regularly and “serves as an instrument of education and vigilance and as a pathway of archdiocesan accountability to the larger community,” Peterson said.

Especially important to Larson is the recommendation to expand protections for child victims to adults. It’s not just children who are vulnerable to power differentials, she said: women in religious orders, adult seminarians and lay leaders also suffer sexual abuse.

“I’ve come to believe that the abuse of adults in the church is that it’s happening on a really broad scale today and still being tremendously mishandled by the church,” Larson said.

Awake Milwaukee has not received a response after sharing the recommendations with archdiocese officials.

“My hope is at least that they can see that the recommendations have merit and that even if they don’t directly respond to us, that it just makes them think,” Ingrilli said.

Ingrilli led a campaign last year to ask the archdiocese to ban liturgical music from David Haas, a widely known contemporary composer who was accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of women. Officials didn’t reply. The decision whether to play Haas’ songs falls to individual parishes.

In response to a reporter’s questions about the lack of response to Awake’s leaders, Jerry Topczewski, chief of staff for the archdiocese, issued a statement:

“We are always open to input from professionals regarding the Church’s considerable and ongoing efforts assisting those who were victims of clergy sexual abuse of minors, while also remaining vigilant in our abuse prevention and safe environment efforts.”

Catholicism ‘part of the fabric of my life’

Even as they find little traction with archdiocesan officials, Awake’s leaders remain committed to their cause as well as their faith.

It hasn’t been easy.

“I had no idea, when I said yes to this, how much it would break my heart,” Larson said. “The depth of the pain and the depth of the wounds that are still present in the church is just not something that I understood.”

For Ingrilli, the group’s work has been personal. She found her great-uncle’s name on the Green Bay Diocese’s list of credibly accused priests. Her priest working at her hometown parish in Kiel, a Salvatorian from the Buffalo diocese, was also accused of abuse but wasn’t removed from ministry until decades later.

The discoveries galvanized her to make a difference within the church. She didn’t consider leaving it.

“That is part of the fabric of my life. That is very much who I am. I can’t imagine not having it,” Ingrilli said.

Ultimately, Ingrilli hopes Awake’s work prompts enough change that people who have left the church feel comfortable enough to return.

It’s her way of evangelizing, she said.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

SBC President Bart Barber Tells Anderson Cooper Gays ‘Can’t Be Good Christians,’

— Reiterates Church’s Same-Sex Marriage Stance

By Berlin Flores

Bart Barber, the President of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), said in a recent interview with Anderson Cooper that gay people could not be good Christians.

Based on a report by PinkNews, Barber made the statement during a CBS 60 Minutes interview hosted by veteran journalist Cooper on Oct. 9, Sunday.

‘Good Christians Cannot Identify as Gay”

During the one-on-one interview, Cooper asked Barber if an individual could be an SBC member, a good Christian, and identify as LGBTQ+ at the same time. Barber emphatically answered, “No.”

I believe that sinners should be converted out of being sinners. And that applies to all of us. We’re committed to the idea of gender as a gift from God. We’re committed to the idea that men and women ought to be united with one another in marriage,” PinkNews quoted Barber saying.

The SBC president made the comment also as a way of explaining why the Baptist congregation is firmly against marriage between individuals of the same sex.

SBC’s Stand on Abortion

Aside from stressing the church’s view on same-sex marriage and Christians identifying as LGBTQ+, Barber explained SBC’s stand on abortion.

He said that the Baptist church takes an interest in the topic “not to police everybody’s sex life,” but because it thinks “that’s a human person who deserves to live.”

>Barber also addressed the statement made by Lauren Baubert that the church should guide the government in stopping legal abortions. The SBC president told Cooper that ‘the Baptist’s 400-year history runs contrary to Christian Nationalism.’

About Barber and the SBC

According to the website, Barber became the head of the SBC on June 14, 2022, following his victory over Tom Ascol for the SBC presidency. Barber reportedly gained at least 61% of the votes cast during the elections.

The article noted that Barber’s comments on various socio-political matters (including abortion and same-sex marriage) run consistently with the predominant beliefs of the Southern Baptist Convention. PinkNews said SBC maintains the LGBTQ+ community is “inherently sinful.”

Barber told Cooper he ran for SBC presidency because ‘God called him up to lead at this moment so Southern Baptists could move forward.’

According to the website, the anti-LGBTQ+, ultra-conservative SBC is not without its share of controversies, particularly allegations of sexual abuse by its church leaders.

PinkNews noted that in February 2019, a joint organization investigation uncovered more than 700 alleged victims of sex abuse by 400 Southern Baptist Church leaders. The San Antonio Express and the Houston Chronicle were among the investigation committee members.

The website disclosed that the church leadership waited for at least four months before forming an investigation committee and condemning the sexual abuse allegations against some of their leaders.

Consequently, the church leadership admitted in August this year that they are facing a federal investigation into the abuse allegations. The announcement came following several accusations and leaks that painted a mishandling of the church’s probe into the sexual abuse reports.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

New Orleans lawyer fined for alerting school to priest’s past sexual misconduct

Richard Trahant was fined $400,000 for violating confidentiality rules around a bankruptcy filing by the local archdiocese

Richard Trahant told the principal a priest formerly employed there had admitted to fondling and kissing a teen girl.

By

A New Orleans attorney who represents victims of clerical sexual abuse faces a $400,000 fine after alerting a local Catholic high school that a priest who worked there once admitted to fondling and kissing a teen girl he met at another church institution.

The lawyer, Richard Trahant, said he would appeal against the hefty sanction handed to him on Tuesday, which stemmed from a federal judge’s ruling that his alert violated confidentiality rules governing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by the local archdiocese.

A spokesman for the archdiocese – the second-oldest in the US, serving about 400,000 parishioners – declined comment other than to say: “The wisdom of the judge’s ruling speaks for itself.”

At the center of the dispute is a priest named Paul Hart, who officials found kissed, groped and at least once engaged in what the church described as “dry sex” – simulated intercourse while clothed – with a girl who was a senior in high school and participated in a youth group at a church where he was assigned in the early 1990s.

Hart was then in his late 30s. The girl was 17. By 2012, she had learned that after other assignments, Hart was returning to the church where they met and which ran a school her children then attended.

The woman filed a complaint with the archdiocese, accusing Hart of grooming her before pursuing sexual contact she now realized was inappropriate. In a church investigation, Hart denied initiating what happened but admitted contact, which he could not say did not cause him to ejaculate.

Worldwide, the Catholic church has since 2002 instructed leaders to consider anyone younger than 18 underage. However, though the investigation found Hart broke longstanding church laws mandating that priests practice celibacy, it did not find he sexually abused a minor. Under church law in effect at the time, the age of majority was 16.

Church officials have never publicly discussed Hart’s case. In 2017, he became chaplain of Brother Martin high school, in New Orleans. Details of the investigation into Hart were contained in files the archdiocese turned over after it filed for bankruptcy protection in May 2020, faced with dozens of unresolved lawsuits related to the worldwide church’s decades-old clerical abuse crisis.

Trahant, the lawyer, represents plaintiffs in some such lawsuits. As the bankruptcy case positioned the local archdiocese to reorganize its books, Trahant and some colleagues and clients were put on a committee representing the interests of clergy abuse claimants. In that role, Trahant learned about the 2012 complaint against Hart.

Though Brother Martin only admits boys, girls participate in activities including cheerleading and competitive dancing. In January this year, Trahant, a cousin of the principal, notified Brother Martin about the Hart investigation. Within days, Hart retired. He and the archdiocese – which has spent nearly $19m in legal and professional fees since filing for bankruptcy – said it was because of a battle with brain cancer.

Trahant also sent an email to this reporter, then working for the local newspaper, the Times-Picayune, advising him to “keep” Hart on his “radar”, without saying why.

The Times-Picayune reported that Hart’s departure came as the misconduct investigation resurfaced. The judge overseeing the archdiocese’s bankruptcy petition, Meredith Grabill, ordered a leak investigation because Hart’s file was among documents the church had classified as confidential.

When answering questions during that leak investigation, this reporter declined to discuss any sources cited in the Times-Picayune article but did say Trahant did not provide any information in the piece. Nothing indicates that investigators concluded Trahant had provided any of the information in the Times-Picayune report or was one of the unnamed sources cited.

Judge Grabill nonetheless ruled in June that Trahant’s alert to Brother Martin and his email telling this reporter to keep the priest on his radar – which the judge said “planted the seed” leading to the article – violated the confidentiality rules of the bankruptcy case.

Grabill immediately removed from the clergy abuse claimants committee Trahant, two attorneys with whom he frequently collaborates and a number of clients. On Tuesday, she added the $400,000 fine against Trahant, saying the amount was derived from the cost of the leak investigation.

The judge also wrote that the leak investigation was only necessary because Trahant didn’t immediately come clean. But at one point Trahant said in court that he had written to the judge asking to meet with her in February, and he hoped to discuss the chain of events involving Hart; yet he had no success, according to a publicly available transcript.

Grabill on Tuesday wrote that the fine would “serve the desired purpose of deterring Trahant and others from engaging in similar misconduct”. Trahant was given 30 days to pay an amount that is far higher than any sanction typically given to lawyers.

Trahant would not comment on Grabill’s reasoning. But in a deposition during the leak investigation, a transcript of which is in the public record, Trahant said he believed he acted as any officer of a court of law should.

“I don’t believe I violated the [confidentiality] order” by alerting a school about a cleric who had previously engaged in misconduct with a teen, the attorney said.

“I’m going to do something about it 10 out of 10 times.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!