— An independent monitor will oversee the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn’s handling of sexual abuse allegations under a settlement between the diocese and New York Attorney General Letitia James
By Associated Press
An independent monitor will oversee the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn’s handling of sexual abuse allegations under a settlement between the diocese and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
The agreement announced Tuesday will address “years of mismanaging clergy sexual abuse cases,” James said.
Investigators with the attorney general’s office found that officials with the diocese failed to comply with their own sex abuse policies put in place after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in 2002.
In one case, the attorney general said, a priest who admitted that he had repeatedly sexually abused minors was defrocked in 2007 but requested confidentiality. The diocese kept the abuse secret until 2017 when it announced for the first time that this priest had been credibly accused of and admitted to abusing children. The priest worked as a professor at two universities in the intervening decade.
Another priest was transferred from parish to parish after diocesan officials learned of problems with his conduct in the 1990s, James said. A nun who was the principal of a school in the diocese quit her job in 2000 because she had witnessed the priest behaving inappropriately with young boys, but the diocese only issued a warning. The priest was not removed from duty or barred from interacting with minors until 2018, James said.
As part of the settlement, the diocese has agreed to strengthen its procedures for handling allegations of clergy sexual abuse and misconduct, including publicly posting an explanation of the complaint and investigation process.
An independent, secular monitor who will oversee the diocese’s compliance with the enhanced policies and procedures and will issue an annual report on the diocese’s handling of sexual abuse cases.
Officials with the diocese, which includes the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, said they have cooperated with investigators and have worked to prevent future instances of abuse by clergy.
Brooklyn Bishop Robert Brennan, who has led the diocese since 2021, said in a statement, “While the Church should have been a sanctuary, I am deeply sorry that it was a place of trauma for the victims of clergy sexual abuse. I pray God’s healing power will sustain them.”
The attorney general’s office began investigating eight of New York’s Catholic dioceses in September 2018. A settlement with the Diocese of Buffalo was announced in October 2022. Investigations into the other dioceses, including those in Rochester, Albany and Syracuse, are ongoing, James said.
A Catholic diocese in Long Island, New York has asked a judge to end its Chapter 11 bankruptcy, after failing to get support from about 530 sex abuse survivors on a proposed $200 million settlement of their claims against the diocese.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York, which serves about 1.2 million Catholics in Nassau and Suffolk counties, said on Friday that its bankruptcy had “run its course” after abuse survivors “overwhelmingly” voted against the diocese’s offer.
“The Diocese sincerely hoped that its offer of $200 million—in addition to very substantial insurance assets—would be accepted by the creditors,” the diocese wrote in a motion to dismiss filed in U.S. bankruptcy court in Manhattan.
James Stang, an attorney representing abuse survivors in the bankruptcy, said that the diocese’s failure to reach a deal was “unprecedented.”
In other Catholic bankruptcies, abuse survivors were allowed to propose their own bankruptcy settlement instead of being offered a binary choice between the diocese’s plan or nothing, Stang said.
The diocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New York in October 2020, citing the cost of lawsuits filed by childhood victims of clergy sexual abuse. New York’s Child Victims Act, which took effect in August 2020, temporarily enabled victims of child sexual abuse to file lawsuits over decades-old crimes.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn is scheduled to hear the diocese’s request to dismiss its case on May 9.
Glenn warned last year that he would dismiss the case if settlement talks continued to stagnate, but he said he was not eager to be the first judge to kick a Catholic diocese out of bankruptcy.
Talks broke down in part over the diocese’s plan to protect all of its parishes and local affiliates from lawsuits as part of the bankruptcy settlement. Abuse survivors said those local organizations had not contributed enough money to the settlement to warrant the legal protections they would have received.
Stang said on Monday that a bankruptcy settlement could still be reached if the diocese makes its proposal more attractive to abuse survivors. Survivors might be more inclined to vote for a deal with better economics or non-monetary concessions, like an apology and pledge to protect children from abuse in the future.
“We think the parishes can afford to pay much more and still maintain their religious mission,” Stang said.
The diocese said that it had spent over $106 million on attorneys and other bankruptcy professionals since filing for Chapter 11, including $33 million to the attorneys representing abuse survivors.
If the bankruptcy is dismissed, abuse survivors would be free to continue their lawsuits against the diocese in New York state courts.
Richard Tollner, who chaired the official committee representing abuse survivors in the bankruptcy, said that the dismissal would send a strong message to other debtors who are “using bankruptcy to avoid accountability before state court juries.”
“If your plan does not have the support of the survivors’ creditors’ committee, your reorganization plan will fail,” Tollner said in a statement.
In re The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 20-12345.
For Rockville Centre: Corinne Ball and Todd Geremia of Jones Day
For the creditors committee: James Stang of Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones
Victim-survivor Teresa Lancaster, center, leaves the United States District Court for the District of Maryland in Baltimore City following her April 8, 2024, testimony in the Archdiocese of Baltimore bankruptcy case.
Six victim-survivors of sexual abuse by clergy in the Archdiocese of Baltimore gave statements in court April 8 about the long-term impact of the abuse on their lives as part of the federal bankruptcy reorganization.
The testimonies were off the record and not transcribed. Judge Michelle M. Harner, who is overseeing the Chapter 11 case, noted that the statements are not evidentiary in the case.
Their primary purpose, she said, was to “increase engagement and understanding” and to provide a forum for those affected by the pre-bankruptcy conduct of the archdiocese and its representatives.
“Today is a listening session and an opportunity for individuals to be heard,” Harner said.
Archbishop William E. Lori and Auxiliary Bishop Adam J. Parker attended the hearing, sitting in the front of the courtroom. They both hugged the first survivor who spoke.
Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori speaks to media outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Baltimore following the April 8, 2024, testimony by victim-survivors in the archdiocesan bankruptcy case.
Harner thanked each person who made a statement — three women and three men — for their participation in the process. About 50 people attended the hearing at the federal courthouse in Baltimore.
Some of those who spoke to the court specifically addressed the archbishop. In one poignant moment, one of the victim-survivors also turned to address other victim-survivors in court, reminding them that as adults, they can take control of their healing.
Some common themes emerged in the victim-survivors’ statements — further abuse, troubled marriages and divorces, issues of trusting anyone, and other problems that have plagued their lives. Some noted that the chance to bring their experience to the court would be an important part of their healing.
In one touching moment, during one victim-survivor’s statement, the woman who was first to speak reached over the handrail to hold the hand of her husband, sitting just behind her.
The session, scheduled for two hours, ended after just an hour. Another such session is scheduled for May 20, which Archbishop Lori also will attend.
Paul Jan Zdunek, who chairs the Unsecured Creditors Committee, a group of seven people who represent all the victim-survivors in the case, said after the session that he was surprised at how quickly the session went, “despite it didn’t feel that way. I thought everyone was really great with their words and their preparation and the courage that it took to do that in front of everybody.”
He said he appreciated that the judge supported the process and allowed each participant to have the time they needed to tell their story.
“We even heard from them that this was a healing moment and a moment they’ve been waiting for in some cases 50 years, which is extraordinary. I think what struck me today was beyond the moments that happened when they were children, how much it has affected them since, you know, 50 years ago, 60 years of a life gone,” Zdunek told the Catholic Review, Baltimore’s archdiocesan news outlet.
He said he was not surprised to hear that many of those who spoke have issues trusting others, especially because the abuse happened in a church or school by someone who was supposed to minister to them. “Here it is the one place that you’re supposed to be safe and have been told, you know, as a Catholic raised myself, that this is the truth, the light, the way, the place for salvation — and to have that be the place that trust leaves you is devastating,” Zdunek said.
In advance of the hearing, he said the members of the survivors committee — five of whom attended the hearing — purposely wanted to allow others not on the committee to have the first opportunity to speak in court. He said that in this process, the committee already has the ear of the archbishop. “We thought it was important for others to really have the chance to speak.”
He expects the May 20 hearing to be similar. “He wanted to see how this went first, but I’d imagine it’s not going to be too much different than this.”
The deadline to file a claim in the case is May 31.
Baltimore Auxiliary Bishop Adam J. Parker and Archbishop William E. Lori leave the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Baltimore April 8, 2024, following testimony by victim-survivors in the archdiocese bankruptcy case.
Teresa F. Lancaster, one of those who spoke in court, addressed reporters after the hearing and noted that she had testified in support of the Child Victims Act passed by the Maryland General Assembly in 2023, which removed the statute of limitations for civil suits for child sexual abuse.
She acknowledged that abuse has happened not just in the church, but also in other schools and organizations.
Asked whether her day in court was a day that she has long been waiting for, Lancaster, who eventually became an attorney so she could help other victims, said, “We wanted our day in court and we were deprived of it. So, I felt somewhat, and I want all the survivors to feel that, hey, your voice has been heard, you’re just as important, and people know what happened now.”
Outside the courthouse after the hearing, Archbishop Lori said he came as a pastor and priest and was moved by the testimony that he heard.
“My meetings with victim-survivors over the years have taught me the importance of their being able to tell their story, the importance of being heard and listened to, and being believed, and so I came to listen,” he said, adding that he “hopes that by doing this I can contribute in some small way to the healing of the of these individuals and what they’ve been through.”
He said that after the passage of the Child Victims Act, the archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 reorganization “so that we could, in fact, help as many victim survivors as equitably as we can while at the same time carrying forward the mission of the church, of our parishes, our charities and our schools.”
Asked if he has said he is sorry for the pain experienced by those abused, the archbishop said, “I’ve said it many times. and will say it to the end of my life. But I recognize that no apology of mine undoes what was done. Listening, believing, does a lot more.
“I’ve listened and met with victim survivors for a long, long time and every time I listen, it shakes me — every time.”
In a statement released later in the day, Archbishop Lori said, “I am deeply grateful to the victim-survivors for their courage today and I am moved by their heart-rending experience.
“To the victim-survivors who long to hear that someone is sorry for the trauma they endured and for its life-altering consequences: I am profoundly sorry. I offer my sincerest apology on behalf of the archdiocese for the terrible harm caused to them by representatives of the church,” he said. “What happened to them never should have occurred. No child should ever, ever suffer such harm.”
He added his thanks to those of Harner, saying, “I ask that the focus today be on the courage and bravery of the women and men who offered their statements and those they represent.
“Their stories and those of the victim-survivors I’ve met with privately for decades, emboldens our response and determination to ensure no child in our care is ever again harmed. I am grateful to the Survivors Committee for initiating the request to offer victim-survivors this opportunity today, which I sincerely pray will further assist them in their journey toward healing.”
The hearing comes a year and three days after the Maryland Office of the Attorney General released an extensive report on clergy sexual abuse of minors in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, signed the Child Victims Act into law April 11, 2023. It went into effect Oct. 1, 2023.
Lawyer Paul Sterbcow, left, with his client, attorney Richard Trahant, talks to reporters outside the federal appeals court building in New Orleans, Wednesday, April 3, 2024. Trahant is appealing a $400,000 court sanction for allegedly violating a bankruptcy court secrecy order by alerting a school principal and a reporter that a suspected child predator was working as a chaplain at a high school.
By KEVIN McGILL
A New Orleans attorney facing a $400,000 court penalty for warning a school principal and a reporter about a high school chaplain who was suspected of being a sexual predator took his case to a federal appeals court Wednesday.
Richard Trahant, who represents victims of clergy abuse, acknowledges having told a reporter to keep the chaplain “on your radar,” and that he asked the principal whether the person was still at the school. But, he said in a Tuesday interview, he gave no specific information about accusations against the man, and did not violate a federal bankruptcy court’s protective order requiring confidentiality.
It’s a position echoed by Trahant’s lawyer, Paul Sterbcow, under questioning from members of a three-judge panel at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“Here’s my problem. I think I have a moral obligation to disclose something I find out about someone to protect them,” said Judge Priscilla Richman. “But the court has said unequivocally, ‘You are under a protective order. You cannot violate that protective order.’ I do it knowingly. I may have good intentions, but I do it knowingly. To me, that’s an intentional, knowing violation of the order.”
“Our position is that there was no protective order violation,” Sterbcow told Richman, emphasizing that Trahant was cautious, limiting what he said. “He’s very careful when he communicates to say, I’m constrained by a protective order. I can’t do this. I can’t do that, I can’t reveal this, I can’t reveal that.”
Outside court, Sterbcow stressed that it has been established that Trahant was not the source for a Jan. 18, 2022, news story about the chaplain, who had by then resigned. Sterbcow also said there were “multiple potential violators” of the protective order.
The sanctions against Trahant stem from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans’ filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2020 amid growing legal costs related to sexual abuse by priests. The bankruptcy court issued a protective order keeping vast amounts of information under wraps.
In June 2022, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Meredith Grabill ruled that Trahant had violated the order. In October of that year she assessed the $400,000 penalty — estimated to be about half the cost of investigating the allegations of the alleged protective order violation.
The appeal of the bankruptcy court order first went to U.S. District Judge Greg Guidry, who upheld the sanctions. But Guidry later recused himself from handling matters involving the bankruptcy case after an Associated Press report showed he donated tens of thousands of dollars to the archdiocese and consistently ruled in favor of the church in the case involving nearly 500 clergy sex abuse victims.
The bankruptcy case eventually was assigned to U.S. District Judge Barry Ashe, who last year denied Trahan’s motion to vacate the sanctions.
Richman at one point in Wednesday’s arguments, suggested that Trahant should have asked Grabill for an exemption from the protective order rather if he thought information needed to get out. It was a point Attorney Mark Mintz, representing the archdiocese, echoed in his argument.
“If we really thought there was a problem and that the debtor and the court needed to act, all you have to do is pick up the phone and call,” Mintz said.
Sterbcow said Trahant was concerned at the time that the court would not act quickly enough. “Mr. Trahant did not believe and still doesn’t believe — and now, having reviewed all of this and how this process worked, I don’t believe — that going to the judge was going to provide the children with the protection that they needed, the immediate protection that they needed,” Sterbcow said told Richman.
The panel did not indicate when it would rule. And the decision may not hinge so much on whether Trahant violated the protective order as on legal technicalities — such as whether Grabill’s initial finding in June 2023 constituted an “appealable order” and whether Trahant was given proper opportunities to make his case before the sanction was issued.
Richman, nominated to the 5th Circuit by former President George W. Bush, was on the panel with judges Andrew Oldham, nominated by former President Donald Trump, and Irma Ramirez, nominated by President Joe Biden.
— Court rules 4-3 to overturn law that had allowed victims to file civil suits over sexual abuse that took place decades ago
By David Hammer
In a split ruling that has major implications for hundreds of child sexual abuse victims, the Louisiana state supreme court has struck down a law that had allowed victims to file civil lawsuits over molestation that happened decades ago.
Child molestation victims and their advocates were devastated by the 4-3 ruling from a court whose members are elected.
Lawyers Richard Trahant, Soren Giselson and John Denenea, who represented the plaintiffs in the case at the center of Friday’s ruling, said: “Today, four of the seven … justices overruled a law passed by a unanimous Louisiana legislature, signed by then governor [John Bel] Edwards, supported by then attorney general and current governor Jeff Landry and current attorney general Liz Murrill. That’s nearly 200 elected officials who viewed this law as being constitutional.
“Four elected officials just obliterated that. They cannot fathom the excruciating pain this decision has heaped upon adults who were raped as children and already suffer a life sentence.”
Richard Windmann, president of Survivors of Childhood Sex Abuse, said: “Once more the victims and survivors of childhood sex abuse have been denied justice. The institutionalized, systematic and wholesale rape of our children by these organizations is self-evident.”
Windmann pledged to take the case to the US supreme court if necessary, calling it “the final stop to see if we, as human beings, are going to let these atrocities stand and continue to happen”.
Kathryn Robb of ChildUSA, an advocacy group that helped pass lookback or revival windows across the country, said Friday’s ruling meant “predators and institutions that protect predators are going to continue with their bad practices”.
“They’re going to continue with their coverup,” Robb said. “They’re going to continue with putting children in harm’s way. And so I’m saddened. I’m saddened by this decision.”
Such laws were upheld as constitutional in 24 states and the District of Columbia. Louisiana now joins Utah as the only states to find them unconstitutional, Robb said.
Louisiana’s supreme court heard arguments in January involving cases filed against the Roman Catholic diocese of Lafayette over allegations that a priest in that region – about 135 miles (217km) west of New Orleans – molested several children between 1971 and 1979.
The lawsuits were filed under a “lookback window” law the Louisiana legislature passed unanimously in 2021, which eliminated deadlines for old claims in recognition of scientific research that found the average victim doesn’t come forward until that person is 52 years old.
Four Louisiana supreme court justices – James Genovese, Scott Crichton, Jeff Hughes and Piper Griffin – concurred that the “lookback window” law is unconstitutional. The majority opinion written by Genovese said reviving old sexual abuse claims violated the due-process rights of alleged abusers and their enablers to no longer be sued for damages once the original deadline to do so had passed.
The deadlines for filing such lawsuits have changed over the years. In the 1960s and 70s, victims – even children – had a single year to come forward. Those deadlines were extended in the 1980s and 90s to allow child victims to file suit well beyond their 18th birthdays. In 2021, such deadlines were eliminated entirely.
Several justices said from the bench that, regardless of how horrendous the harm caused by child molestation, applying the law retroactively raised constitutional concerns. But in his dissent Friday, Justice William Crain said Louisiana lawmakers should retain the power to give that right to victims.
“Absent a constitutional violation, which defendants have not established, the forum for this debate is the legislature, not this court,” Crain wrote. “The legislature had that debate and – without a single dissenting vote – abolished the procedural bar and restored plaintiffs’ right to sue.”
Crain was joined in dissent by colleagues Jay McCallum and John Weimer, the court’s chief justice.
Friday’s ruling does not affect measures eliminating deadlines to demand civil damages in cases of child sexual abuse that occurred after the law was enacted in 2021.
The lookback window struck from the books Friday was not exclusively for clergy abuse claimants. But it prompted many new cases of that nature against Louisiana’s Catholic institutions and clerics who worked for them.
Among the organizations standing to gain most from Friday’s ruling is the archdiocese of New Orleans, which declared bankruptcy in 2020 in an attempt to dispense with a mound of litigation related to a decades-old clerical molestation scandal there. The lookback window was the strongest legal weapon that clergy abuse accusers seeking damages from the archdiocese had in their efforts to drive the value of their claims up.
With the lookback window no longer a factor, the archdiocese’s efforts to settle those claims for as cheaply as possible received a significant boost.
“The organizations that enable and protect child molesters are rejoicing over this ruling,” said attorney Kristi Schubert, who represents a number of clerical abuse claimants caught up in the New Orleans archdiocese’s bankruptcy. “The ruling shields wrongdoers from the consequences of their evil actions.”
Some supporters of Catholic clergy abuse victims expressed concern that the Louisiana supreme court would ultimately rule against them after its justices prayed with New Orleans archbishop Gregory Aymond at a service in October at St Louis Cathedral. Organizers said the service’s purpose was for members of Louisiana’s legal profession to join Aymond – the leader of the state’s conference of Catholic bishops – in praying for the healing of clerical molestation victims.
Neither the archdiocese of New Orleans nor the diocese of Lafayette immediately commented on Friday’s court decision when asked.
