This photo shows the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary in Duluth, Minn., Monday, Dec. 7, 2015. The Diocese of Duluth, a sprawling but sparsely populated Roman Catholic diocese in northeastern Minnesota, filed an emergency petition for federal bankruptcy protection Monday after a jury found it partially responsible for millions of dollars awarded in a clergy sex abuse case last month.
The Diocese of Duluth, a sprawling but sparsely populated Roman Catholic diocese in northeastern Minnesota, filed an emergency petition for federal bankruptcy protection Monday after a jury found it partially responsible for millions of dollars awarded in a clergy sex abuse case last month.
The diocese said the move for Chapter 11 reorganization was necessary after efforts to reach a resolution with all abuse victims were unsuccessful. The diocese is the 15th U.S. diocese or religious order to seek bankruptcy protection in the face of sex abuse claims.
“There is sadness in having to proceed in this fashion,” the diocese’s vicar general, the Rev. James Bissonette, said in a statement on the diocese’s website. He said given the “magnitude of the verdict, the Diocese was left with no choice but to file for reorganization.”
In November, a Ramsey County jury awarded $8.1 million to a man who says he was molested by a priest in northern Minnesota more than 35 years ago when he was a boy. The diocese was held responsible for $4.8 million.
Bissonette said the bankruptcy filing safeguards the diocese’s limited assets while allowing the church’s day-to-day operations to continue. The diocese has more than 56,000 Catholics in 10 counties of northeastern Minnesota, extending south to Pine City, north to the Canadian border and west to Cass Lake.
The diocese’s operating budget for the last fiscal year was nearly $3.3 million. Even with insurance coverage and some available savings, the diocese said it could not cover the verdict, and no money would be available for remaining abuse victims who have brought claims.
William Weis alleged he was sexually abused by the Rev. James Fitzgerald at St. Catherine’s parish in Squaw Lake in 1978. The lawsuit centered on whether the Diocese of Duluth was negligent in how it supervised Fitzgerald, who died in 2009.
Weis was identified as Doe 30 in his lawsuit. The Associated Press normally does not identify possible victims of sex crimes, but one of Weis’ attorneys, Mike Finnegan, said Weis agreed to the use of his name.
The jury found the diocese was 60 percent at fault. Fitzgerald’s order, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, based in St. Paul, was found to be 40 percent at fault.
Finnegan said Monday the bankruptcy filing delays attempts to force the release of church documents on clergy sex abuse that Weis has sought to make public. A hearing on the issue had been set for Dec. 17.
For Weis, releasing the documents “was the primary thing he wanted then and still wants now,” Finnegan said.
But Susan Gaertner, an attorney for the Duluth diocese, said the bankruptcy filing will not interfere with the diocese’s efforts “to be transparent and foster healing.”
She said the diocese faces six lawsuits, including Weis’, as well as 12 additional notices of claims. Attorneys said Weis’ lawsuit was the first lawsuit to go to trial under Minnesota’s Child Victims Act, passed in 2013, that opened a three-year window to file claims for older incidents of abuse. That window closes in May 2016.
Victim Troy Bramlage, with attorney Jeff Anderson, spoke to the media Tuesday. Their lawsuit forced St. John’s Abbey to release the files on priests credibly accused of child sex abuse. “So many offenders were allowed access to so many kids for so many years,” said Anderson.
One priest reported 200 sexual encounters, including some with students at St. John’s University and prep school.
Another recorded the names of dozens of boys he brought to a cabin, some of whom he sexually abused.
Another abuser was paid $30,000 by St. John’s Abbey to support him as he left the clergy.
These are among findings from the first batch of personnel files from St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville made public Tuesday. The abbey was required to release its internal files on priests credibly accused of child sex abuse as part of a lawsuit settled earlier this year. It marks the first time the abbey — implicated in clergy abuse cases for two decades — has opened its confidential files.
The files include the abuse accusations, abbey response, and psychological assessments of the men from roughly the 1960s to a few years ago. That includes a 2012 assessment of the Rev. Finian McDonald, who told a psychologist that he had about 200 sexual encounters as a priest.
McDonald reported that his youngest victims were 13- or 14-year-old prostitutes in Thailand, that he had 18 victims while serving as a prefect at St. John’s dormitories, and that he had acted out sexually and abused alcohol during most of his 29 years as a dormitory prefect. Sexual encounters also occurred with adults.
The abbey issued a written statement in response to the document release by victims’ attorney Jeff Anderson.
“There are documents in each file which may be quoted and framed in a lurid context,” wrote abbey spokesman Brother Aelred Senna. “But the huge majority of the documents in each of these files acknowledges the very real failures of some monks while showing each of the accused monks as a fallible, relatable person.”
The files “show that the Abbey did not try to cover up allegations and did a reasonable job of managing the monk and the problem,” he wrote.
However, Anderson, whose lawsuit forced the file release, said the magnitude of sexual encounters reported in just the five priest files indicates that many more students or other minors have not stepped forward to report abuse.
“So many offenders were allowed access to so many kids for so many years,” said Anderson at a news conference. “This reflects to us … that there are dozens and hundreds of survivors that are yet to be known.”
In addition to McDonald, files were also released on the Rev. Tom Gillespie, former priest Fran Hoefgen, the Rev. Bruce Wollmering and the Rev. Richard Eckroth. Eckroth and Wollmering are deceased.
Hoefgen was acquitted earlier this year of sexually abusing a boy while he was a priest in a Hastings parish. However, the files show that Hoefgen admitted to abusing a teen in the early 1980s. And in 1994, Hoefgen reported to then-Abbot Timothy Kelly that he had a sexual encounter with a St. John’s student in the student’s dorm room, the files show.
The abbey eventually gave Hoefgen a $30,000 “gift” to help him transition out of the priesthood.
St. John’s is one of the largest Benedictine monasteries in North America. It shares a campus with students at St. John’s prep school and those at St. John’s University. Many of its priests also have served Twin Cities parishes.
Both McDonald and Wollmering worked for decades as student counselors. The files show that Wollmering received a psychological diagnosis in 2004 of “sexual disorder with compulsive and exploitive behaviors.” A St. John’s student reported in 2006 that Wollmering bragged to him that he had 300 “sexual partners.”
Anderson said the abbey allowed known offenders to have access to minors, and he questioned the enforcement of the safety plans that are supposed to restrict the priests’ access to kids.
Gillespie, for example, abused a child in Stillwater in 1978 and had restricted access to minors, the documents show. But in 2013, a student complained that Gillespie was sending him e-mails and showing up unwanted at his school events.
Eckroth, meanwhile, brought boys to a St. John’s cabin for years, giving and getting massages to the boys while naked in the sauna.
Troy Bramlage is the St. Cloud man whose lawsuit against the abbey was settled with the provision that the personnel files be released. He said he hopes that more victims will step forward, as the scope and details of the abuse is revealed.
“People need to know they don’t have to suffer alone,” he said.
The abbey has identified 19 priests credibly accused of child sex abuse. Files on the others will be released in the months ahead, said Anderson.
U.S. Roman Catholic bishops, at their first assembly since gay marriage became legal nationwide, vowed Monday to uphold marriage as only the union of a man and a woman and to seek legal protections for those who share that view.
Some bishops said they were committed to reversing the U.S. Supreme Court same-sex marriage ruling last June. Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, said a concerted effort was needed to “build a consensus” to do so. As a model, he pointed to new state laws that have made it harder to obtain an abortion, even as the procedure remains legal nationwide.
“I don’t think because five Supreme Court justices changed the public policy on such a fundamental issue that we should just accept it. I think we have to be as strong as we have on the pro-life issue,” Naumann said at the gathering of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore.
Bishop Robert Baker
Bishop Robert Baker of Birmingham, Alabama, said the bishops should join other religious groups in working to protect government workers who refuse to participate in same-sex weddings. The bishops have not said specifically what kind of conscience protections they support for civil authorities.
“I hope we will not back away from that advocacy,” Baker said.
Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, president of the bishops’ conference, highlighted the bishops push for religious exemptions for charities, schools and individual for-profit business owners who oppose gay marriage and other laws and regulations.
Dozens of U.S. dioceses and Catholic nonprofits are suing the Obama administration over the birth control coverage requirement in the Affordable Care Act. President Barack Obama created an accommodation that requires insurers to provide the coverage in place of objecting religious nonprofits. The bishops and other faith groups said the change did not go far enough. The Supreme Court recently announced it was taking up lawsuits challenging the accommodation, with arguments scheduled in March.
Archbishop Joseph Kurtz
“What a great tragedy it will be if our ministries are slowly secularized or driven out of the public square because of short-sighted laws or regulations that limit our ability to witness and serve consistent with our faith,” said Kurtz, of Louisville, Ky.
The bishops’ meeting came just days after the Islamic extremists attacked Paris. U.S. bishops said they were praying for victims of the violence and renewed their commitment to resettling Syrian refugees, as some U.S. governors threatened to stop accepting them. American dioceses have a vast network of charities that help resettle refugees.
Still, religious liberty and marriage were the focus of the gathering Monday, the first of two days of public sessions. Among the issues they discussed was how they should include children of gay parents in church life. Last week, the Mormon church sparked a backlash with new, strict limits on participation in church rites by children with same-sex married parents.
The bishops’ conference also heard an address from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the Vatican’s U.S. ambassador who was behind Francis’ controversial meeting with Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who briefly went to jail rather than comply with a court order to issue same-sex marriage licenses.
Vigano had invited Davis to be among those greeting the pope in the Vatican embassy in Washington last September during Francis’ visit to the country. Her lawyer caused an uproar when he announced the meeting soon after Francis returned to Rome, describing it as a papal affirmation of Davis’ approach to conscientious objection. The Vatican insisted the meeting was not an endorsement and said she was one of several dozen people who had greeted Francis. The U.S. bishops’ conference has never commented on the meeting.
In his speech Monday, Vigano urged the bishops to persevere in working to “preserve a moral order in society” and said they should not “fall prey” to “secularized and increasingly pagan” practices in broader society. He said Catholic colleges and universities, specifically those founded by Jesuits, should do more to shore up Catholic identity at the schools.
The ambassador received two standing ovations from the bishops. He turns 75 in January, the age when bishops are required to submit their resignations to the pope.
Italian officials say Rev. Pietro Vittorielli stashed church donations for the poor in an account that paid for ecstasy-fueled Rio trip, oysters in London, and a Ralph Lauren wardrobe.
At least it is safe to assume that is the case with Monsignor Pietro Vittorelli, the head of Roman Catholic Benedictine abbey of Montecassino, which was made famous when it was destroyed in Allied bombing in World War II when Britain and the U.S. destroyed it in search of Germans who were thought to be hiding there. The abbey was rebuilt, but the hillsides nearby are dotted with the graves of fallen soldiers.
Vittorelli, who gave up his post at the abbey in 2013, was arrested this week on suspicion of siphoning off nearly $540,000 that was donated under Italy’s “Eight per Thousand” tax break, whereby kind-hearted people donate 8 percent of their income to a religious institution. The funds are an oft-used tax break for Italians and almost always go to Catholic entities.
Instead of reaching the poor, the funds that Vittorelli was supposed to distribute to worthy church-sponsored causes ended up in his personal Italian bank accounts, transferred from the Institute for Religious Works, otherwise known as the Vatican Bank. From those personal accounts, Vittorelli paid a personal credit card on which he charged luxury hotels and expensive meals from Brazil to the U.K., according to Italian investigators.
One entry in his credit-card statement included in the criminal dossier against him was for a $7,000 hotel bill in London, which included room service and hotel meals consisting of oysters and Champagne. On that trip, he is alleged to have spent $740 on one meal alone and more than $1,800 on designer duds from Ralph Lauren.
Another charge shows an extravagant holiday in Rio in 2010 on church funds, where, according to testimony by Italy’s Guardia di Finanza to Judge Virna Passamonti, he paid cash for ecstasy tablets he shared with a variety of suspicious friends.
In one month alone, the partying priest spent $34,800. The other months he averaged expenses around $5,000.
He also owned four apartments in Rome and two storage facilities, which police claim he rented out as part of an intricate money-laundering scheme to keep the embezzlement hidden. Police say he enlisted his brother Massimo, a financial consultant who allegedly shared the wealth and the keys to safe deposit box No. 236 at Deutsche Bank in Rome. His brother would apparently stash cash that was withdrawn from the abbey’s Vatican Bank account in the secret deposit box until it was safe to deposit it in personal accounts without raising suspicion over having both transactions in the same bank statement period. “The sequence of operations unequivocally proves the intent to hide the path of the sums withdrawn from the accounts of the abbey,” Judge Passamonti wrote in her arrest warrant. “The examination of the financial flows directly documents the accurate operating systems meant to defraud.”
Italian police confiscated property, computers, and belongings found in all of the residences tied to the Vittorelli brothers.
Vittorelli left his post at Montecassino in 2013, citing health problems, and retired in Rome on his substantial, albeit ill-begotten, savings. In 2014, an organization hired by the Vatican Bank to audit its books discovered the money trail and started unraveling the fraudulent behavior that apparently began in 2008.
The latest scandal comes on the heels of two recent books published by Italian journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, who were fed by Italian laywoman Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui and Spanish Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda, who were on a panel meant to clean up the Vatican Bank’s messy accounting system that has been long embroiled in scandals ranging from money laundering to ties to organized crime. Both journalists are under investigation by Vatican authorities, but the Vatican has no jurisdiction to make arrests outside its fortified walls. Vittorelli, however, will join Vallejo Balda in the Vatican jail while both await trial.
Pope Francis has not commented specifically on the latest scandal, but this week he alluded to the problems in Rome. “God save the Italian Church from any form of power, image, and money,” he said on a visit to Florence. “I prefer a church that is bruised, hurting, and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.“
Francis will embark on a five-day apostolic voyage to Africa on Nov. 25 before returning to Rome to open the doors of St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 8 to kick off the Jubilee year of mercy.
The Church wants clergy to be ready to help those for whom the film triggers painful memories
Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, left, with New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan in Rome in 2012. The US bishops have issued guidelines to help dioceses respond to questions about the “Spotlight” movie on clergy sexual abuse.
By Lisa Wangsness
Roman Catholic Church leaders in the United States have sent talking points to dioceses around the country to help them prepare for the release of the movie “Spotlight,” highlighting the progress the Church says it has made in preventing and responding to the sexual abuse of children by clergy.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops drew up the guidance and statistics in September in anticipation of the movie’s release, said Don Clemmer, a spokesman for the bishops. He said Church leaders wanted dioceses to be ready to speak to victims who experienced pain with the release of the movie, and to show them — and the wider public — that the Church has changed.
Letters from bishops and stories in diocesan newspapers issued in recent days endeavor to portray a Church dramatically — and permanently — transformed by the abuse crisis since The Boston Globe’s 2002 investigation of clergy abuse and the coverup by Church hierarchy. The film chronicles that Globe investigation.
In their public responses so far, the bishops reiterate apologies to victims and in some cases offer phone numbers they can call to seek counseling or report abuse. They also detail abuse prevention efforts, renew vows to immediately report abuse complaints to civil authorities, and highlight the American Church’s zero-tolerance policy that mandates the removal of predators from the Church.
“I can tell you unequivocally that anything that raises awareness of the crime of sexual abuse of minors and encourages transparency is a good thing,” Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger of Albany, N.Y., said in a statement. “I certainly hope ‘Spotlight’ will be a vehicle to communicate the truth and advance the dialogue regarding the protection of children.”
The diocesan newspaper in Orange County, Calif., hinted at the daunting scale of the task for the Church: In that diocese in 2014, it reported, 244 priests, 108 deacons, 1,741 teachers, and more than 27,550 school employees and volunteers underwent training to help prevent abuse, and nearly 55,000 children participated in “safe environment” education.
Because the movie will not open nationwide until Nov. 20, most bishops in the United States have not seen it. The film began showing in Boston and a few other cities last Friday.
“Spotlight” ends with a long list of dioceses in the United States and around the world where similar coverups of clergy sexual abuse of children came to light after the Globe’s revelations about the Archdiocese of Boston. A recent report by the National Catholic Reporter found that clergy abuse — which the Church once silenced by settling with victims and swearing them to secrecy — has cost the Catholic Church in America $4 billion since 1950 in settlements, therapy for victims, and other costs.
“In our experience, Catholics and others will take the movie as proof of what is happening today, not what happened in the past,” the “Spotlight Resources” memo from the bishops group said. “Do not let past events discourage you. This is an opportunity to raise the awareness of all that has been done to prevent child sexual abuse in the church.”
Clemmer said the memo was sent to “safe environment” coordinators in each diocese, who oversee diocesan programs and policies to prevent abuse. The aim was to prepare prelates and Church workers to help those for whom the film triggers painful memories, particularly victims who have never come forward before, he said.
“Anybody who comes forward should know that the Church is ready to accompany them,” Clemmer said. “It’s a spirit of gratitude for people who have the courage to come forward, and who make the Church and children safer.”
In late October, Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston and a top adviser to Pope Francis on clergy sexual abuse policy, was among the first to issue a statement on the movie. He said the Church must continue to seek forgiveness from victims and to make amends. Terrence C. Donilon, a spokesman for O’Malley, said the cardinal wrote the statement himself and it was not issued as part of a coordinated campaign.
The advisory memo from the Conference of Catholic Bishops counsels dioceses to acknowledge the Church’s wrongdoing, as well as the role of journalists and victims in helping to uncover its harboring of pedophile priests. Bishops, it said, should “be open and transparent” about any abuse in their dioceses.
And it urges them to describe the policy changes that the American Church implemented after the scandal, including requirements that clergy, staff, seminarians, and volunteers working with children undergo background checks and safe environment training, and that children be educated on the issue.
“Remain vigilant,” the memo adds. “This is a reminder we cannot afford to become complacent.”
But Terence McKiernan of BishopAccountability.org, an organization that tracks the abuse crisis, said the bishops have failed to fully address issues related to the abuse crisis that remain unresolved.
For example, he said, the bishops could have agreed to make lists of abusive priests available nationwide. Only about 30 of the 178 dioceses have done so, he said. Boston is one that has provided a list, although advocates complain it is incomplete. More than 2,400 abusive priests nationwide have never been named, he said, and it is impossible to know how many are still living.
“In a way, the movie is all about that issue: Who are these men who have done these things, how many are there, what are their names? Where have they worked? What have they done? It’s all about making a list,” he said. “I think it’s such an obvious thing to address for the bishops, especially those who haven’t made a list yet.”
He said the bishops should have acknowledged some of the more notable failures to enforce the Church’s new zero-tolerance protocols — in Kansas City, Mo., and Minneapolis, for example — and suggest ways the Church could do better.
One bishop who explicitly spoke of the Church’s efforts as a work-in-progress, rather than a closed chapter in history, was Archbishop Michael Jackels of Dubuque, Iowa. He posted a statement on the diocesan website that was remarkable for its bluntness.
“Would I prefer that this not be played out on the silver screen? Sure. The trailer alone is painful to watch,” he wrote. “But that pain I am sure doesn’t even come close to what victims, their families, or the Catholic faithful have to suffer from the scandal of clergy sexual abuse.”
He continued, saying that even though failing to report or remove an offender is rare compared with past practice, “it too still happens, and when it does, a shadow is cast on the church’s efforts to restore trust and to provide a safe environment.
“And so I suppose the story told by the movie bears repeating until all of us get all of it right.”
