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United Methodist Church Reverses Ban on Practicing Gay Clergy

— In a meeting on Wednesday, church leaders also voted to allow L.G.B.T.Q. weddings.

Andy Oliver, a pastor in St. Petersburg, Fla., reacted to the vote by United Methodist Church delegates to repeal its ban on gay clergy.

By Ruth Graham

The United Methodist Church removed on Wednesday its longstanding ban on ordaining gay clergy, formalizing a shift in policy that had already begun in practice and that had prompted the departure of a quarter of its U.S. congregations in recent years.

The overturning of the 40-year-old ban on “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” passed overwhelmingly and without debate in a package of measures that had already received strong support at the committee level.

Delegates, meeting in Charlotte, N.C., also voted to bar local leaders from penalizing clergy or churches for holding, or declining to hold, same-sex weddings. The vote effectively allows same-sex marriage in the church for the first time, although the original penalty was already unevenly enforced. Some clergy may still decline to perform same-sex weddings.

Further votes affirming L.G.B.T.Q. inclusion in the church are expected before the meeting adjourns on Friday.

“We’ve always been a big-tent church where all of God’s beloved were fully welcome,” said Bishop Tracy Smith Malone, the new president of the denomination’s Council of Bishops and the first Black woman to serve in that role. She called the vote “a celebration of God breaking down walls.”

She described the atmosphere in the room as a “Pentecost moment,” in which the presence of the Holy Spirit was palpable.

Last week, the conference approved the first phrase of a “regionalization” plan that would restructure the global denomination to give different regions autonomy on adapting rules on issues including sexuality. The move is seen as a way to defuse tensions between the increasingly progressive American church and more conservative factions internationally.

Though the end of the ban on gay clergy applies to the global church, regionalization means that in practice it may primarily affect churches in the United States.

The United Methodist Church is the second-largest Protestant denomination in the nation; the Southern Baptist Convention is the biggest. There were 5.4 million Methodists in the United States in 2022, a steep decline from just a few years earlier, and a number that is expected to drop again once last year’s accelerated departures are counted.

Delegates also voted this week to end a ban on using United Methodist funds to “promote acceptance of homosexuality,” a change particularly welcomed by those in ministries working with L.G.B.T.Q. people.

“The energy that’s gone into preparing for and trying to get to this moment can now be refocused,” said Jan Lawrence, the executive director of Reconciling Ministries Network, a group that advocates for full inclusion in the church. “We have a huge opportunity in front of us.” Ms. Lawrence noted that not only were all the group’s goals for the meetings likely to be achieved, but they were doing so in at atmosphere that was notably agreeable, even joyful.

Wednesday’s vote follows years of turmoil in the denomination over sexuality, an issue that has prompted tumultuous debates and schisms in other Christian traditions and institutions.

Conservatives in the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, for example, have formed breakaway denominations in reaction to the acceptance of gay clergy. Catholic Church doctrine forbids same-sex relationships, but Pope Francis has alarmed some traditionalists by allowing priests to bless same-sex couples.

At their most recent meeting in 2019, Methodists voted to tighten an existing ban on same-sex marriages and gay and lesbian clergy.=

Since that contentious vote, however, the denomination’s makeup has changed, in large part because of conservative congregations departing in anticipation of the loosening of strictures around homosexuality that are becoming official this week.

Conservatives were given an exit ramp when Methodist leaders opened a window in 2019 for congregations to leave over “reasons of conscience,” in most cases allowing them to keep their property and assets if they received approval to depart by the end of last year. Many conservative congregations accepted the offer, prompting an extraordinary decline for the geographically and culturally diverse denomination.

In Texas, for example, a historic stronghold, more than 40 percent of United Methodist congregations left the denomination. Some joined the breakaway conservative Global Methodist Church, while others have remained independent.

Many conservatives had been disturbed by what they saw as the church’s failure to enforce its bans on gay clergy and same-sex weddings. Some leaders in more progressive regions had begun defying the restrictions, and the church now has a number of openly gay clergy and two gay bishops.

“This is certainly the lightning rod issue, the presenting issue, but our division goes so much deeper,” said Rob Renfroe, the president of Good News, a traditionalist caucus within the United Methodist Church. He described sexuality as a proxy issue for larger debates in the church about the authority of the Bible, the reality of sin and beliefs about salvation.

Mr. Renfroe is attending the meeting in Charlotte but says that given the outcome, he will leave the denomination within the next month. He cautioned that many denominations that have moved in the direction that Methodists have taken this week have seen their numbers dramatically decline.

“As the church becomes more and more liberal, and if a social agenda becomes its driving force, that’s not going to grow the church,” he said.

For others, the vote was a moment of deep optimism. Chet Jechura, the pastor of Good Shepherd UMC in Baltimore, wept as he watched the vote at home via livestream. Almost exactly five years ago, when the denomination tightened enforcement of its ban against gay clergy, he had broken into sobs while he was serving communion. Now he will be ordained in just a few weeks.

“Today I am weeping tears of joy — and profound existential relief,” he said. “It’s a privilege to be ordained into this renewal movement at such an historic moment.”

On the floor of the meeting after the vote on Wednesday morning, the mood was equally jubilant.

Some delegates and observers gathered in a circle to sing a Methodist song that has become a refrain for many L.G.T.B.Q. Christians. “Draw the circle wide, draw it wider still,” they sang. “Let this be our song: No one stands alone.”

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State Police warrant

— Former New Orleans archbishops knew about clergy sex abuse

Louisiana State Police serve the Archdiocese of New Orleans with a search warrant Wednesday morning, April 25, 2024.

By STEPHANIE RIEGEL

For the first time, Louisiana law enforcement officials are digging deeply into allegations that former New Orleans archbishops, the highest-ranking officials in the state’s Catholic hierarchy, knew about child sex abuse by priests and deacons and tried to cover it up.

The claims are contained in an extraordinary 11-page affidavit supporting a search warrant that was served by State Police on the Archdiocese of New Orleans last week. In it, investigators say that, while looking into clergy sex abuse in a joint probe with the FBI, they uncovered documents that “back the claim that previous Archbishops, not only knew of the sexual abuse and failed to report all the claims to law enforcement but spent Archdiocese funding to support the accused.”

The affidavit, released Tuesday, details allegations of sex abuse dating back decades. Among the claims: That clergy transported victims across state lines to abuse them; hosted nude pool parties for potential victims at the Notre Dame Seminary; and created a system whereby potential victims would unwittingly transport “gifts” from one priest to another, signaling they had been marked for sexual abuse.

The affidavit says that State Police sought the warrant because they believe there is probable cause the archdiocese was engaging in “trafficking of children for sexual purposes.” It adds that sealed church records identify one former archbishop who “was aware of rampant sexual abuse throughout the Archdiocese.” That archbishop is not named.

Though survivors of clergy sex abuse have long accused church officials in civil lawsuits of improperly handling and covering up abuse allegations, the document backing up the search warrant is the first time a law enforcement agency has made such claims as part of a criminal probe.

It is unclear how far that investigation will go, or whether the FBI is still involved. A State Police spokesman said his agency is currently acting alone. The FBI declined to comment.

In a prepared statement Tuesday, the church said: “The Archdiocese has been openly discussing the topic of sex abuse for over 20 years. In keeping with this, we also are committed to working with law enforcement in these endeavors.”

State Police said the archdiocese has agreed to cooperate, though it has not turned over any records yet.

New Orleans author Jason Berry, who has written about clergy sex abuse for nearly three decades, said he believes the investigation is a serious development in the ongoing crisis.

“My sense is that law enforcement is looking at this as a systemic cover-up and wants to get to the bottom of it,” Berry said.

Roots in Hecker case

The search warrant stems from an investigation into disgraced former priest Lawrence Hecker, 92, who was arrested last fall on charges of kidnapping and rape and is currently awaiting trial. Investigators say that in the course of the Hecker investigation, they were made aware of additional allegations that led to them to seek the search warrant.

The warrant seeks decades’ worth of documents, communications and information related to priest assignments. Specifically, it asks for files that identify every priest and deacon accused of abusing children while working in the archdiocese, not just those whom the church has deemed credibly accused.

In 2018, Archbishop Gregory Aymond released a list of 50 former clergy members that the church had determined were credibly accused. The list, which has since grown to include dozens more names, resulted in a surge of new claims, which prompted the archdiocese to file for federal bankruptcy protection on May 1, 2020.

The warrant also seeks correspondence between Aymond, his staff and the Vatican. It references the Hecker case, and details how the former priest was sent by the church to a psychiatric facility in Pennsylvania after an alleged rape of a child in 1975. There, he was diagnosed as a pedophile, but “was released and reassigned to another parish after his evaluation with the blessing of the Archbishop, who was aware of his medical diagnosis.”

The archbishop at the time of the alleged rape was the late Archbishop Philip Hannan, who served from 1965 to 1988.

The warrant adds that “Hecker was not the only member the archdiocese sent to receive psychiatric testing based on allegations of child sex abuse.”

Some of the most disturbing allegations in the warrant refer to “’gifts’ given to abuse victims by the accused with instructions to pass on or give the ‘gift’ to a certain priest at the next school or church. It was said that the ‘gift’ was a form of signaling to another priest that the person was a target for sexual abuse,” the warrant says.

Another example of “illegal activity” outlined in the warrant documents: pool parties at which victims were allegedly told to “skinny dip” in the pool at the seminary, where they were often sexually assaulted or abused. The warrant says such gatherings were “a common occurrence,” adding that, “many sexual abuse cases occurred on archdiocese property.”

Though the allegations contained in the search warrant do not contain specific dates, most of the abuse cases date back to the 1970s and 1980s, if not earlier. After Hannan retired in 1988, Francis Schulte served as archbishop until 2002. Retired Archbishop Alfred Hughes served from 2002 to 2009 and still lives at the Notre Dame Seminary.

Schulte is deceased. Hughes did not respond to a request seeking comment.

‘Two arms in conflict’

The blockbuster development in the clergy sex scandal comes on the fourth anniversary of the bankruptcy case. At the time, some 30 claims and a dozen or so lawsuits had been filed against the church. Since then, some 550 claims stretching back decades have been filed against priests, deacons and other clergy by 330 abuse survivors.

U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Meredith Grabill immediately froze all state court lawsuits and sealed documents related to church abuse after the bankruptcy was filed. Legal experts say it is unlikely that the protective order would cover a search warrant in a criminal investigation.

“It is quite striking when a bankruptcy judge puts a tight lid on potentially incriminating documents and the State Police turns around with subpoena power and says ‘We want those documents,'” Berry said. “We’re seeing two arms of the legal system in conflict.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Why faith-based groups are prone to sexual abuse and how they can get ahead of it

— As Sexual Assault Awareness Month comes to a close, there are a few steps experts say every faith group can take to improve safeguarding protocols.

A woman holds signs about abuse during a rally outside the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex on June 11, 2019, in Birmingham, Ala.

By

Hollywood, the USA Gymnastics team, Penn State, the Boy Scouts: Sexual abuse has proved pervasive across institutions. And when it comes to faith groups, no creed, structure, value system or size has seemed immune.

“We’ve got to stop saying that could never happen in my church, or my pastor would never do that,” said David Pooler, a professor of social work at Baylor University who researches clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse of adults.

With more victims coming forward and more research done on abuse within religious contexts, the evidence has shown that when sexual abuse happens in a place designated not only safe, but holy, it’s a unique form of betrayal — and when the perpetrator is a clergy member or spiritual leader, the abuse can be seen as God-endorsed.

As the scope of this crisis has been revealed, houses of worship and religious institutions — from Southern Baptists to Orthodox Jews to American atheists — have looked to shore up their safeguarding protocols and protect their constituents against abuse.

But rather than scrambling to respond in the wake of a crisis, faith groups need to adopt policies tailored to their setting and connected to their mission, says Kathleen McChesney, who was the first executive director of the Office of Child Protection for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Kathleen McChesney. Photo courtesy of McChesney
Kathleen McChesney.

“When you do that, people will have a greater understanding of what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how you’re doing it,” said McChesney, one of a growing group of abuse experts and survivor advocates consulting with religious institutions.

As Sexual Assault Awareness Month comes to a close, there are a few steps these experts say every faith group can take to improve safeguarding protocols.

Accept it can happen anywhere

One of the most dangerous — and common — assumptions religious groups make is to think of sexual abuse as a “them” problem. As the founder of international nonprofit Freely in Hope, Nikole Lim has worked for years to combat sexual violence in Kenya and Zambia, and more recently has been helping U.S.-based groups prevent sexual abuse locally. For Lim, the reality that 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men worldwide are survivors of sexual abuse is evidence this is a problem that permeates every level of society. “That’s a global statistic that doesn’t only exist in poor communities,” said Lim. “That also exists within your family, within your congregations.”

Nikole Lim. (Courtesy photo)
Nikole Lim.

Experts agree that faith groups often embrace the myth that good intentions, theology and ethics can stop sexual abuse from landing on their doorstep. Amy Langenberg, a professor of religious studies at Eckerd College, along with her research partner Ann Gleig, a religious and cultural studies scholar at the University of Central Florida, have shown that Buddhist ethics about doing no harm and showing compassion are insufficient to prevent abuse in Buddhist contexts.

“You really do need these other ways of thinking about ethics, which are coming from outside of Buddhism, and which are coming usually from feminism, from advocacy, from the law,” said Langenberg.

Because faith communities often think of themselves as the “good guys,” they’re vulnerable to blind spots. That’s why conducting a risk assessment, much like you’d do for fire insurance, can help pinpoint what protocols are most needed, according to McChesney, who now leads a firm that consults on employee misconduct investigations and policy development. Once concrete anti-abuse measures are in place, ongoing education can remind people at all levels of the organization to remain vigilant.

Define abuse

Faith groups often struggle to respond effectively to sexual misconduct because they lack consensus on what “counts” as abusive. Gleig, who is teaming up with Langenberg on a book-length study called “Abuse, Sex, and the Sangha,” told Religion News Service that in Buddhist contexts, the category of abuse is often contested. In some cases, Gleig said, “abuse can be framed as a Buddhist teaching — for example, that this wasn’t abuse, it was actually some kind of skillful form of pedagogy.”

Amy Langenberg, left, and Ann Gleig. (Photos courtesy Rice University)
Amy Langenberg, left, and Ann Gleig.

In churches, Lim has found that loose definitions of abuse can lead to a form of “spiritual bypassing,” where abuse is framed as a mistake to be prayed about, rather than an act of harm that requires tangible accountability.

Conversations about sexual abuse in religious settings are often framed around clergy abuse of children. But faith groups must also account for peer-on-peer violence among children and teens, as well as abuse of adults. Key to preventing such abuse, Pooler said, is having a robust definition of sexual abuse that goes beyond mere legal metrics and includes things such as sexual conversations, nonconsensual touch and sexual jokes and language.

Recognize power dynamics

The unequal power dynamics inherent to religious settings are an enormous barrier to equitably addressing sexual abuse. But the law is beginning to account for this imbalance. In at least 13 states and the District of Columbia, it’s illegal for clergy to engage in sexual behavior with someone in their spiritual care — and many experts believe this standard, which is widely embraced when it comes to doctors and therapists, should be universal in religious settings, too.

According to Pooler, religious groups should work to share power among multiple leaders and ensure that the broader community has decision-making authority. And when sexual abuse allegations involve a religious leader, “the person should be placed on some type of leave where they are no longer influencing or speaking,” said Pooler, “because what I have seen is abusive people will try and grab ahold of the microphone and shape a narrative immediately.”

Rowena Chiu, from left, Jean Nangwala, Irene Cho, and facilitator Bigad Shaban participate in a panel during the Freely In Hope event titled "Redeeming Sanctuaries: Ending Sexual Abuse in the Church" in San Francisco in June 2023. (Photo courtesy Freely in Hope)
Rowena Chiu, from left, Jean Nangwala, Irene Cho, and facilitator Bigad Shaban participate in a panel during the Freely In Hope event titled “Redeeming Sanctuaries: Ending Sexual Abuse in the Church” in San Francisco in June 2023.

Center survivors

Experts commonly observe a default reaction in religious settings to to protect the reputation of the faith group or clergyperson over investigating an abuse allegation. But defensive postures often overlook the person who, at great risk, reported the abuse in the first place.

Navila Rashid. Photo courtesy Rashid
Navila Rashid.

When a survivor shares abuse allegations, faith groups often fear what will happen if they take the report seriously. For example, Navila Rashid, director of training and survivor advocacy for Heart, a group that equips Muslims to nurture sexual health and confront sexual violence, said Muslim communities can be hesitant to address sexual violence because they don’t want to add to existing Islamophobic narratives about the violence of Islam. But Rashid told RNS it’s vital to believe survivors. “If we can’t start off from that premise, then doing and creating preventative tools and methods is not going to actually work,” she said.

Pooler advises groups to make sure survivors “sit at the steering wheel” of how the response is handled — if and when personal details about the survivor are shared, for example, should be entirely up to them. Caring for abuse survivors requires taking their needs seriously at every juncture, even before abuse is reported, according to Pooler and other experts. That’s why background checks are vital.

“You don’t want to put somebody that has abused a minor ever in a role of supervising minors,” McChesney told RNS.

Get outside help

Faith communities are known for being close-knit, which makes avoiding conflicts of interest difficult, if not impossible, when it comes to holding offenders accountable. That’s why many experts recommend hiring outside groups to hold trainings, develop protocols and steer abuse investigations.

“They don’t have any investment in the church looking good or their leaders looking good,” Pooler said about hiring groups such as GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) or other third-party organizations that investigate abuse allegations. These organizations, he said, are committed to laying out the facts so faith groups can make informed decisions. Groups that are trauma-informed can also ensure that gathering testimony from survivors doesn’t cause additional harm.

David Pooler. (Courtesy photo)
David Pooler.

Rashid recommended that faith communities create a budget line for hiring outside groups who focus on addressing sexual abuse. Rather than offering quick fixes, she said, such groups are designed to help faith communities unlearn biases, recognize power dynamics and adopt long-term solutions at individual, communal and institutional levels that prioritize the safety of all community members.

“What we want to see with policies is pushing for a culture shift,” she said, “not a Band-Aid fix.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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After 20 years, North Jersey memorial to clergy abuse victims still stirs strong emotions

By William Westhoven

Twenty years ago this month, what’s thought to be the nation’s first memorial to victims of clergy sexual abuse was unveiled at a church in a quiet corner of Morris County.

Today, two of the men who achieved that milestone at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Mendham are still challenging church leaders to acknowledge that “a lot of work still needs to be done.”

“They still don’t get it,” said Monsignor Kenneth Lasch of his fellow clergy.

Lasch, now retired, was pastor at St. Joseph’s in 1994 when victims of long-rumored sexual abuse at the church finally went public.

A Millstone memorial to victims of church sex abuse outside St. Joseph Church in Mendham, the 400-pound memorial honors victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, including victims at the parish itself. July 26, 2018. Mendham, NJ
A Millstone memorial to victims of church sex abuse outside St. Joseph Church in Mendham, the 400-pound memorial honors victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, including victims at the parish itself. July 26, 2018. Mendham, NJ

After the first of those survivors, Mark Serrano, came forward, “my life changed forever at that point,” Lasch said in an interview, as the U.S. marked National Child Abuse Prevention Month.

A local tragedy gained national attention

Serrano would later became a national advocate for clergy abuse victims through the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP). He took his story to the New York Times in 2002. The resulting front-page article brought national attention to a shocking local scandal.

More victims would soon come forward, including William Crane Jr., who with his twin brother was abused by clergy both at St. Joseph’s and the nearby Delbarton School, where he lived on campus while his father served as assistant headmaster.

A priest at St. Joseph’s, the Rev. James Hanley, was eventually defrocked after admitting he molested at least a dozen children and claiming Crane was the last.

Lasch, then St. Joseph’s pastor, was “floored” by the allegations but stood behind Serrano as he shared his story with the public.

“It wasn’t the first time that I had come across a priest predator, but this was the first time I came across something as terrible as Hanley,” Lasch said. “He was the worst, a serial predator.”

Father Kenneth Lasch was a priest in Mendham when he heard about one of the first cases of abuse.
Father Kenneth Lasch was a priest in Mendham when he heard about one of the first cases of abuse.

Crane, who now lives in the Seattle area, also spoke recently about the remembrance he helped establish at St. Joseph’s, known as the Millstone Memorial.

Mendham memorial’s Biblical inspiration

Crane began funding the initial design and creation of the Millstone Memorial, a project that also gained national attention. He credits Lasch for navigating the church’s opposition to the project and getting the 420-pound circular basalt stone placed outside of the church in 2004.

The millstone, Crane said, was chosen for its Biblical symbolism in the Book of Matthew: “Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

The verse is engraved on a plaque on the memorial, which once included two child-sized figurines of a boy and a girl. Those were vandalized several years ago and still have not been replaced, but the millstone itself remains intact.

“It’s a miracle in itself that the Millstone Memorial is still there,” Crane said. “I still see opposition from church leaders who are in denial to this day.”

“Somebody questioned me when it first went up,” Lasch said. “We owe these victims a tribute for what they have suffered. So don’t give me any crap about it being inappropriate. It’s part of our history and we don’t want it to happen again.”

Lasch said he is unaware of any recognition or related events conducted by the church for the memorial’s 20th anniversary. The Diocese of Paterson did not respond to multiple requests for comment this month.

A Millstone memorial to victims of church sex abuse outside St. Joseph Church in Mendham, the 400-pound memorial honors victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, including victims at the parish itself. July 26, 2018. Mendham, NJ
A Millstone memorial to victims of church sex abuse outside St. Joseph Church in Mendham, the 400-pound memorial honors victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, including victims at the parish itself. July 26, 2018. Mendham, NJ

Delbarton lawsuits settled

In 2004, the diocese settled lawsuits with 21 of Hanley’s accusers for nearly $5 million. Haney died in 2020, spending his final days in a nursing home. He was still receiving a stipend from the church when he died, his attorney said at the time.

In 2018, the Order of St. Benedict of New Jersey and St. Mary’s Abbey, which operates Delbarton, settled five more lawsuits with men who alleged they were sexually abused by five monks — including a former headmaster of the school.

Another priest and former Delbarton teacher at the center of additional lawsuits admitted to having sexual encounters with about 50 boys, according to court documents. That priest, Timothy Brennan, who was accused in three of the settled cases, was convicted in 1988 for aggravated sexual contact with a 15-year-old Delbarton student. Brennan died in 2019.

Suicide spurs Millstone Memorial

As the clergy-abuse scandal gained more attention in 2003, Crane, Lasch and others gathered at the funeral of another Hanley victim, James Thomas Kelly, after Kelly killed himself by stepping in front of a train. They discussed the need for a permanent memorial.

“Many folks told me it would never happen, the church would never allow it,” Crane said. “My response was that I would put the memorial on a trailer and have it paraded around every Sunday until they did allow it.”

William Crane Jr. became an advocate for child victims of clergy sexual abuse after being abused by priests as the Delbarton School in Morris Township and St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Mendham.
William Crane Jr. became an advocate for child victims of clergy sexual abuse after being abused by priests as the Delbarton School in Morris Township and St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Mendham.

Twenty years later, the memorial still resonates with Crane. Living 3,000 miles away from his worst nightmares, he still struggles with his ordeal and had “kept my sword down” for about three years until a reporter contacted him recently about the anniversary.

“This battle has taken a toll on me and countless other victims,” said Crane, 58, who also became a SNAP advocate and remains critical of the Catholic Church.

“It’s like trying to boil the Atlantic Ocean with a BIC lighter,” he said. “It’s an exercise in futility to think that at any point they are going to change. It will wear you down.”

Catholic leaders ‘still don’t get it,’ he says

Lasch retired in 2004 and lives in the Cedar Crest Retirement Village in Pequannock. He said his relationship with the Church is “OK” and that he has a strong rapport with current Paterson Diocese Bishop Kevin Sweeney. But the former pastor did not hold back about Catholic leadership in general and what he sees as a failure to recognize and adequately address the legacy of clergy abuse in America.

He continues to conduct funerals and publicly advocate for abuse victims. He also suffers from PTSD, he said, “mostly from dealing with the church.”

“I love the church. I didn’t walk out,” Lasch said. “But it was amazing, the silence of the priests. Some of my best friends, one of them said to me. ‘You know if you didn’t get involved with all this stuff, you wouldn’t be dealing with PTSD.’ They walked away. They just became silent. And the bishops … they still don’t get it.”

After years of criminal indictments and civil-court settlements, Lasch said the church is “fulfilling the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law.”

“They are still not treating victims of abuse with the healing charity that they deserve,” he said. “I’m not happy with the overall response from the church. I feel they are still weaseling out of their responsibility.”

For Crane, it’s time to look forward.

“My days are numbered,” he said. “And it still goes on. Now it’s time for me to lay my sword down and let the mission of the Millstone Memorial speak for itself. That’s where I am at now, personally. Maybe my grandchildren will pick up the story 25 years from now if the memorial is still in place.”

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Florida priest continued in active ministry for three years after sex abuse lawsuit filed

Father Leo Riley, 68, continued to serve as a priest for years after a 2020 sexual abuse lawsuit was filed against him and the Diocese of Venice, Florida.

By Daniel Payne

A Florida priest who was recently arrested on sex abuse charges was permitted to continue in active ministry for nearly three years after a civil sex abuse lawsuit was filed against him and the diocese in which he serves.

Father Leo Riley, 68, continued to serve as a priest for years after a 2020 sexual abuse lawsuit was filed against him and the Diocese of Venice, Florida.

The matter came to the forefront this week after Riley was arrested on several sex abuse charges dating back to his time serving as a priest in Iowa decades ago.

The Charlotte County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office said in a press release that deputies arrested Riley in Port Charlotte on April 24 “on multiple counts of capital sexual battery stemming from his past work as a priest in Iowa.” He was ordained in Iowa in 1982 and served there until 2005.

The civil lawsuit in Florida was filed in July 2020 with the 12th Judicial Circuit Court. It named Riley, the Diocese of Venice, and St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Port Charlotte as defendants, along with Alan Klispie, a music teacher at the parish school. The suit alleges that both Klispie and Riley committed various forms of abuse against the plaintiff for years.

Venice Bishop Frank Dewane told members of the San Antonio Parish in Port Charlotte on Saturday — where Riley was previously pastor — that there is “a pending civil lawsuit of 2020 against Father Riley here in Florida which upon its receipt was reported to the state attorney of Charlotte County.”

“At the time the civil lawsuit was received, the factual allegations therein were inaccurate and contradictory,” Dewane wrote.

“The plaintiff has since changed his allegations and the litigation is still pending,” the bishop wrote in the letter.

The diocese said the letter was also being distributed “at all parishes where Father Riley has been previously assigned in the Diocese of Venice.”

The bishop in the letter urged “anyone who believes that he or she has been the victim of sexual misconduct by someone serving in ministry for the Diocese of Venice” to contact law enforcement as well as the diocese itself.

Asked if Riley was placed on leave following the 2020 suit, diocesan spokeswoman Karen Schwarz told CNA on Saturday: “Regarding the civil lawsuit of 2020, it is my understanding that Father Riley was not placed on administrative leave at that time, due to the facts of the allegations being inaccurate and contradictory.”

The diocese’s website shows Riley still in active ministry, working as pastor at San Antonio Catholic Church, at least as late as 2022, two years after the suit was filed. The parish is home to St. Charles Borromeo School, a pre-K through eighth grade Catholic school.

Damian Mallard, a Florida attorney who is representing the plaintiff in the 2020 lawsuit, told CNA on Friday that the diocese was aware of the suit when it was filed. “We served them with the lawsuit back then,” he said.

Asked if there had been any communication from the diocese at the time of the filing, Mallard said: “Diocesan lawyers responded to my lawsuit. But there was nothing concerning taking Riley out of his job.”

Mallard confirmed that the suit is still pending. “Riley won’t sit for a deposition because his lawyers demand that I tell them every victim that I’ve found,” he said, “and I said no.”

Several courts have ruled in Mallard’s favor on the matter of detailing the identities of the alleged victims, he told CNA.

The lawsuit is seeking “damages for my client for what he’s been through,” Mallard told CNA.

“His life has been destroyed,” the lawyer said. The amount of the damages is “up to a jury to decide,” he added.

Priest arrested this week on sex abuse charges

Dewane wrote the letter this week partly in response to Riley’s arrest by Florida law enforcement earlier in the week.

In their press release, the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office said Florida law enforcement officers had worked with the Dubuque, Iowa, Police Department in making the arrest. The Dubuque police “had developed probable cause for five counts of capital sexual battery within their jurisdiction,” the sheriff’s office said.

Riley, who previously served in the Archdiocese of Dubuque, has been on administrative leave in the Venice Diocese since May 2023 when several abuse allegations from his time in the Iowa archdiocese were made against him.

Riley’s arrest this week comes after at least a decade of abuse allegations made against the priest.

In a letter released on Friday, Dubuque Archbishop Thomas Zinkula said the “first notice of any allegation of abuse by Father Riley was made in December of 2014.”

“The claim related to the time period of 1985, when Father Riley would have been in Dubuque,” the archbishop wrote. “Particulars of the allegation were received in February of 2015.”

The archbishop noted that Riley was incardinated into the Diocese of Venice by this time, having been granted that request in 2005 to be near his parents.

The Dubuque Archdiocese “notified the Diocese of Venice, Florida, and Father Riley was placed on administrative leave pending the results of the investigation,” the archbishop said.

“The investigation concluded that the best information available at the time did not support a reasonable belief that the allegation was true,” Zinkula wrote. Law enforcement, meanwhile, “chose not to conduct an investigation into the allegation because the applicable statute of limitations at that time had expired.”

Two new allegations were subsequently made against Riley in May of last year, both of them once again stemming from alleged misconduct in Dubuque in the mid-1980s. Upon receiving the allegations, the archdiocese “began an internal investigation into the new allegations, which remains open pending the outcome of the criminal charges.”

It is unclear whether these two allegations against Riley formed the basis of this week’s arrest. The Dubuque police department was unable to provide a copy of the warrant on Friday as it was still listed as active in that jurisdiction.

On Thursday, meanwhile, the Venice Diocese said in a statement that when the latest allegations were made public last year, DeWane “immediately placed Father Riley on administrative leave, pending the investigation that was to be conducted by the Archdiocese of Dubuque.”

Diocesan spokeswoman Karen Schwarz confirmed to CNA on Friday that Riley “was put on administrative leave in May of 2023 and has not been involved in ministry since then.”

Charlotte County Sheriff Bill Prummell said in announcing Riley’s arrest that “if the accusations are true, then we have had a sexual predator living among us in Charlotte County that was trusted by far too many people simply because of his position.”

“It is likely that there are more victims, and I encourage them to come forward so that we can make sure this type of heinous thing does not happen to anyone else here,” the sheriff said.

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