William Lori, archbishop looks at Paul Jan Zdunek, chair of the Committee of Sex Abuse Survivors representing all victims in the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s bankruptcy case as they update the bankruptcy proceedings resulting from decades of child sex abuse within the Catholic church.
The Archdiocese of Baltimore’s bankruptcy case moved closer to the critical mediation phase Monday, as attorneys for the Catholic church, its insurance carriers and a committee of sex abuse survivors reached a tentative agreement on the terms for upcoming negotiations.
The agreement is tentative because the lawyers still need their clients’ approval for a last-minute detail hashed out in the hallways outside of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Baltimore: Whether the archdiocese will drop its breach-of-contract lawsuit against its insurers, and what the survivors’ role would be should they choose to refile it later.
Scheduled for a contested hearing Monday, attorneys in the case settled their differences in time to avoid debating legal issues in court. After being briefed on the tentative agreement, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michelle M. Harner credited the lawyers for “creating a mediation structure that’s acceptable to all.”
During mediation, attorneys and their clients get together with independent mediators to negotiate the amount of money the archdiocese and its insurers each have to contribute to settle survivor claims, as well as an eventual reorganization plan for the church featuring protocols designed to prevent the scourge of clergy sexual abuse from happening again.
The tentative agreement reached Monday would allow the archdiocese’s insurers to jointly nominate a third mediator, in addition to the two already proposed by the church and the survivors committee: Robert J. Faris, chief judge of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Hawaii, and attorney Brian J. Nash, an attorney who specializes in mediation.
Attorneys would be able to challenge the mediator proposed by the insurance companies.
Baltimore’s diocese, America’s oldest, declared bankruptcy Sept. 29, two days before Maryland’s Child Victims Act took effect. That law lifted previous time limits for people who were sexually abused as children to sue their abusers and the institutions that enabled their torment.
Legislators passed the child victims law following the release of a state attorney general report which found that 156 clergy and other officials in the Baltimore diocese tormented more than 600 children and young adults, dating to the 1940s. The abuse spanned the diocese’s jurisdiction, which covers Baltimore and nine counties in Central and Western Maryland.
When the archdiocese declared bankruptcy, survivors who planned to sue the church had to repurpose their stories into claims in the bankruptcy proceeding. Harner set a May 31 deadline for survivors to file. That deadline came and went with hundreds of claims being filing in the case, though the exact number has not been disclosed publicly.
Baltimore Archbishop William Lori recently struck a unified tone with leader of the survivors committee, Paul Jan Zdunek, but tensions remained with the church’s insurance companies.
The church sued its insurers alleging breach of contract for failing to cover, or indicating they would not provide coverage for, claims of sexual abuse of minors. The survivors’ committee, which was also at loggerheads with the insurance companies, sought standing in that lawsuit. The insurers pushed back on the committee’s request at the same time it sought to argue the lawsuit, asking for the complaint to be moved from bankruptcy court to the U.S. District Court in Baltimore.
That lawsuit still was pending as of Monday, but the archdiocese tentatively agreed with insurers to dismiss the complaint. They reserved the right to file suit again and, if they do, the attorneys tentatively agreed that the survivors’ committee would have standing in that case. The details over the lawsuit were the one item attorneys had to consult their respective clients with.
Which of the archdiocese’s insurance policies were applicable to the sexual abuse at the time it occurred — and how much money those companies are on the hook for — will be subject to mediation. The church and survivors’ committee each hired expert insurance lawyers to examine the policies, which are numerous.
Edwin Caldie, an attorney for the survivors’ committee, said in court Monday that the tentative mediation agreement the church and committee struck with insurers was the subject of great “cooperation” and “candor,” adding that the dialogue “created more trust and a bit of hope for the mediation process.”
After a Washington Attorney General’s Office investigation alleging that the Dioceses of Seattle, Spokane and Yakima used charitable funds to cover-up sex abuse was halted by a superior court judge on Friday, clergy abuse advocates are still demanding accountability.
Abuse survivors and reform advocates from the Catholic Accountability Project (CAP) traveled from Seattle to Spokane and Yakima on Tuesday promising that the AG investigation into alleged abuse cover-ups would be appealed to Washington’s Supreme Court.
“It was a very sad day last week for survivors in court to have that kind of a setback, but we’re very hopeful about what the attorney general has committed to do in appealing this case,” CAP advocate Sarah Pearson said.
Pearson helped to organize thousands of pages of abuse documentation ahead of the AG’s office filing investigating subpoenas against the three dioceses. She asserted that Bishop Thomas Daly’s office was actively avoiding addressing the issue.
“Those were 7,500 pages of evidence that contained some of the worst things I’ve ever read…and a large portion of that material is from the Diocese of Spokane,” Pearson said. “Bishop Daly of Spokane is actively obstructing that investigation by refusing to cooperate.”
Mary Dispenza, a co-founding member of CAP and a clergy abuse survivor, is looking forward to the AG’s office appealing the investigation subpoenas, which would allow investigators to review materials that could purportedly show the use of charitable funds to hide systemic child sex abuse across dioceses in Washington.
“For a while I thought ‘the Church is just too big, you cannot fight the Church,’ but I had to let go of that very quickly, because I want to win. I want to win for survivors, and for truth, healing and justice,” Dispenza said.
CAP cofounder Tim Law cited the 2023 Washington Supreme Court case Wolf v. State as a good sign that the Seattle Superior Court order turning down the investigative subpoenas could be overturned in favor of abuse survivors.
Wolf v. State ruled that the statute of limitations on filing sex abuse charges against an institution does not begin when the crime took place, but rather when the victim becomes aware of the negligence of the organization that allowed said abuse to happen. It opened the way for the prosecution of decades-old cases and was a major win for clergy abuse advocates.
CAP members say they met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Bowers and Assistant Attorney General Nathan Bays on Wednesday. As current AG Bob Ferguson (D) runs for governor, Pearson says that his office has assured them that the investigation into the Church will continue past Ferguson’s administration.
“It’s absolutely essential that survivors are central to the whole process. We are so pleased that we’ve been able to have this meeting–it was long overdue. We have made plans to meet again to continue discussing how survivors can be involved in this process–especially when it comes to outreach and support,” Pearson said.
The Diocese of Spokane referred back to a statement sent to media outlets on May 9 stating that it is unaware of any new abuse allegations and asserting that all information about sexual crimes committed by clergy has been shared with the public.
Peter Isely, an abuse survivor and CAP member, said that the dioceses are hiding behind lawyers and obfuscating their responsibility to be truthful about the use of charitable funds to protect the Church’s image.
“They have to be held accountable. There’s a principle of justice that a decent society uses when there’s an issue that involves children…What’s in the best interest of the child?…They refuse, categorically, to cooperate in a state-wide child abuse investigation,” Isely said.
CAP continues to call upon survivors to report clergy abuse to the attorney general by calling (833) 952-6277.
While the attorney general’s lawsuit is requesting permission to subpoena Catholic dioceses for alleged sex abuse documentation, several kinds of Roman Catholic priests do not fall under the direct authority of diocesan bishops. Members of religious orders, as well as Catholic sisters and nuns, are under the authority of their provincials.
A history of sexual abuse of Indigenous peoples and students at institutions run by religious orders such as the Franciscans, Dominicans and Jesuits has motivated CAP to call for additional subpoenas of Church institutions not under the direct authority of the Spokane, Seattle and Yakima dioceses.
In the long term, reform advocates hope that the Church will actively participate in healing from decades of silence in the face of abuse by religious leaders.
“It will never be the Church it can be until it deals with the past,” Dispenza said.
Ten years ago, Sharon Clements’ world turned upside down. The pastor she trusted abused that trust and lured her into a sexual relationship. But when everything became public, her abuse was labeled an affair. And instead of receiving help, she received shame and rejection.
In this edition of The Roys Report, Sharon speaks out—not just about the abuse, but about her road to recovery.
The church where her abuse occurred—LexCity Church (formerly Quest Community Church) in Lexington, Kentucky—recently made headlines for another sex abuse scandal. And in the wake of that scandal, LexCity has closed.
It’s not often we see such a dramatic consequence to news like this. But then again, this is the second time LexCity has been rocked by scandal.
The first time was in 2014 when then-Pastor Pete Hise admitted to an “affair” with Sharon Clements. This not only rocked the church but led to years of confusion and pain for Sharon.
It wasn’t until about a year later that Sharon discovered what adult clergy sex abuse (ACSA) is. And suddenly, things began to make sense—and Sharon began to heal.
If you’re a victim of ACSA or another type of abuse, you’re going to really be encouraged by Sharon’s story.
An foundation says a legendary French priest and a lifelong advocate of the homeless has been accused of committing acts that would amount to “sexual assault or sexual harassment.”
By BARBARA SURK
A legendary French priest and a lifelong advocate of the homeless has been accused of committing acts that would amount to “sexual assault or sexual harassment,” his foundation said Wednesday, in the latest instance of a Catholic spiritual leader facing allegations of abusing his power to harm women.
Abbé Pierre, who died in 2007, was one of France’s most beloved public figures. The founder of the international Emmaus Community for the poor, Abbé Pierre had served as part of France’s conscience since the 1950s, when he persuaded Parliament to pass a law — still on the books — forbidding landlords to evict tenants during winter.
Several women have accused the late priest of sexual assault or harassment between the end of the 1970s and 2005, his foundation said in a statement. It explained that it is making public the allegations of seven women, including one who was a minor at the time, after reviewing the report of an expert firm that specializes in violence prevention and was commissioned to listen to women’s testimonies and analyze them.
The women reported unsolicited kissing and touching, as well as inappropriate sexual comments and propositions, according to the report from the Groupe Egaé firm.
“The Emmaus Community is making public the acts that may amount to sexual assault or sexual harassment, committed by Abbé Pierre,” the statement said. It added that several other women had “suffered comparable acts” of sexual abuse but were unable to be heard. Some had died, some could not be contacted and others declined to be interviewed.
The alleged victims were employees, volunteers with the foundation or some of its member organizations, or young women in Abbé Pierre’s personal entourage, the statement said.
The foundation has set up a confidential system for other potential victims to come forward, for “collecting testimonies and providing support to people who were victims of or witnessed unacceptable behavior on the part of Abbé Pierre,” the statement said.
The Vatican doesn’t usually comment on individual cases of alleged abuse and didn’t immediately respond when asked about Abbé Pierre.
In 2021, an independent commission on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church estimated that some 330,000 children were sexually abused over 70 years by priests or other church-related figures in France.
The allegations against Abbé Pierre are the latest in a series of cases of Catholic spiritual giants accused of abusing their power and authority to take sexual advantage of the women under their spiritual sway.
France has recently had to contend with revelations about another beloved 20th century Catholic figure, Jean Vanier, who founded the L’Arche federation in the 1960s to care for people with intellectual disabilities. Recently, L’Arche commissioned investigations that found the late Vanier perverted Catholic doctrine about Jesus and Mary to justify his sexual compulsions to abuse women.
Prior to that were revelations of serial sexual abuse of adults in religious communities founded by two French brothers, the Rev. Thomas Philippe and Rev. Marie-Dominique Philippe, called L’Eau Vive and Community of Saint Jean, respectively. Thomas Philippe was a spiritual father to Vanier and allegedly initiated Vanier into his mystical-sexual practices at L’Eau Vive.
More recently, the Vatican and the Jesuit religious order have been contending with the scandal over the famous ex-Jesuit artist, Rev. Marko Rupnik, who has been accused by more than 20 women of spiritual, psychological and sexual abuse going back decades.
The Vatican reopened the Rupnik case after an international outcry that the priest, whose mosaics decorate basilicas and shrines around the world, received favorable treatment from the Jesuits including Pope Francis. Rupnik hasn’t responded to the allegations, but the Jesuits kicked him out of the order last year after finding the women’s claims were “very highly credible.”
“Allegation after allegation, secular investigation after another clearly shows that no institution knew more and no institution has done less to help victims,” said Mike McDonnell, communications director of the U.S.-based clergy abuse survivor group SNAP. “We can’t help but think about the victims who have yet to come forward.”
The Vatican has long refused to take action against charismatic spiritual leaders abusing their power to sexually harm women, making a clear distinction between abuse of minors and adults. The church has long insisted that any sexual activity between a priest and an adult woman is sinful but consensual, and has tended to blame the woman for seducing an otherwise holy priest.
The church has had to rethink that dynamic in the #MeToo era and acknowledge that free consent may not be possible given the imbalanced power differentials between priest and parishioner or nun.
— Anthony Odiong, prohibited from ministering in Texas and Louisiana amid criminal investigation, arrested in Florida
Anthony Odiong delivering a homily in which he refers to members of the LGBTQ+ community as ‘monkeys and animals and chimpanzees’, in November 2023. Photograph: St Anthony of Padua church of Luling
A Catholic priest under criminal investigation for sexual misconduct with multiple women – and consequently prohibited from ministering in two states – has been charged with illegally possessing child abuse imagery depicting girls.
Anthony Odiong was arrested Tuesday as he was leaving his home in Ave Maria, Florida, on a warrant obtained by police in Waco, Texas, charging him with possessing child abuse images showing disrobed children. According to sworn statements in support of the arrest warrant that were obtained by the Guardian, police said they discovered the illicit pictures while investigating complaints from at least four women that made officers aware Odiong, 55, could be “a potential serial sexual assault suspect”.
The Waco police statements say that at least some of the women’s complaints are too old to prosecute due to statutes of limitation. But the police said statutes of limitation in Texas are irrelevant if “probable cause exists to believe that the defendant has committed the same or similar sex offense against five or more victims”. And they have asked anyone with information about Odiong to contact them as they weigh the possibility of charging him with the women’s complaints.
Odiong drew media scrutiny that eventually landed him on the police’s radar in February, when the Roman Catholic diocese of Austin – which administers Waco’s church institutions – revealed he was removed of his ability to minister there in 2019.
That revelation came nearly two months after Louisiana’s most important diocese had similarly suspended him. The suspensions stemmed from complaints by women – including two he encountered while they were at the Baylor University campus in Waco – who publicly accused Odiong of trying to use his influence as a priest to pursue sexual contact they either did not welcome or could not consent to participating in.
Anthony Odiong after his arrest in Florida on Tuesday.
Texas is one of about a dozen states with a law that says it is impossible for there to be a consensual relationship between clergymen and adults who emotionally depend on their spiritual advice.
And in March, less than a month after the Guardian published a report detailing how the prior allegations against him ranged from sexual coercion and groping to fiscal abuse, an unidentified person walked into the Waco police department and accused Odiong of sexually assaulting her in 2012.
Police subsequently secured judicial permission to access an email account belonging to Odiong and found messages from another woman who had never come forward explicitly detailing sexual encounters with the priest, including one where her colon was injured.
Investigators later spoke with the woman, who “came forward to admit that” she had met Odiong under “the same circumstances” and been subjected to some of the behavior his prior accusers had, according to the police’s sworn statements.
From there, a judge permitted police to search Odiong’s iCloud online data storage account. Waco police detective Bradley DeLange later wrote under oath that he “discovered images depicting a clearly prepubescent child”, which had been saved to the account in September 2020.
DeLange said there were also “two images of what is believed to be [another] child” with what appears to be an adult touching an unclothed body part.
While none of the images show the face of a child, DeLange said it was evident that at least some of the images displayed someone “under 10 years of age which … may enhance the eligible punishment that may be assessed”.
McClennan county, Texas, judge Thomas C West on 5 July signed off on DeLange’s request for a warrant to arrest Odiong in connection with the child abuse imagery, records show. The judge’s suggested bail was $1m.
Attempts to contact an attorney who has previously represented Odiong was not immediately successful.
Kristi Schubert, an attorney for most of the women who have spoken out against Odiong, said she hopes the cleric’s arrest convinces “Catholic leaders that priests who sexually abuse adults can no longer be given a free pass”.
“A predator is a predator,” Schubert said. “And if they will sexually exploit an adult, they aren’t safe around children either.”
It was not immediately clear when Odiong – who was clad in clerical garb at the time of his arrest – may be transferred to the custody of Waco police from Immokalee. He would be sentenced to at least 15 years in prison if eventually convicted of possessing child abuse imagery depicting a minor younger than 10.
Revival of questions
The charges against Odiong are almost certain to revive questions about the way Catholic church bureaucrats have managed his career, which began with his ordination in the diocese of Uyo, Nigeria, in 1993.
When it suspended him from ministry in 2019, the Austin diocese did not disclose that move to the public – but later the organization assured congregants that it had provided notification to Catholic church leaders in south-east Louisiana, where Odiong was allowed to work until this past December.
That’s when the New Orleans archdiocese declared that it had banned Odiong from ministering in its community, too. The archdiocese emphasized at the time that the allegations against Odiong exclusively involved adults – since May 2020, the institution has been in federal bankruptcy court trying to dispense of a mound of litigation associated with a decades-old clergy child molestation scandal.
The decision to remove Odiong from New Orleans’s archdiocese was the responsibility of the city’s archbishop, Gregory Aymond. As bishop of Austin in an earlier assignment, Aymond had invited Odiong to minister there beginning in 2006.
Aymond later became archbishop of New Orleans, and he invited Odiong to work there as well.
Over the years in Texas and Louisiana, Odiong was tasked with working at a church in Luling, Louisiana, south-west of New Orleans, as well as the St Peter Catholic Student Center – which is on Baylor’s outskirts and ministers to students of that university as well as McLennan community college.
Odiong was able to build a loyal following in the US in large part by claiming he had a special understanding with the Virgin Mary through prayer. The charismatic clergyman would hold so-called healing masses after which some parishioners reported recovering from major medical ailments, improving church attendance as well as boosting his popularity with both congregants and diocesan officials.
But cracks in the public image Odiong fostered began to form when one woman whom he encountered at Baylor reported him for making an unwanted sexual advance toward her shortly after she emerged from the sacrament of confession.
A second woman whom Odiong met at Baylor then recounted how he pressured her to leave her troubled marriage and enter into a “spiritual marriage” with him, at one point forcefully kissing her on the mouth and groping her.
A third woman from Pennsylvania who met Odiong while he studied for a master’s degree in theology from Franciscan University in Ohio alleged that he coerced her into an abusive, cross-state relationship from 2007 through 2018.
She said Odiong forced her to perform oral sex on him as well as give him significant sums of money. She said she could not consent to sexual activity with Odiong – or willingly give him money – because he was her spiritual adviser.
Those three women eventually told their stories to the Guardian as well as various church and law enforcement officials. In particular, the third of those women sought damages from New Orleans’s archdiocese through its bankruptcy proceedings in 2021 while also reporting him to the sheriff’s office which patrols Luling.
A sheriff’s office report obtained by the Guardian explains that the New Orleans archdiocese’s general counsel, Susan Zeringue, claimed she was not even given the complaint in question to investigate until this past December. The sheriff’s office ultimately concluded that there was not enough evidence to establish that a crime had occurred.
Notably, unlike Texas, Louisiana does not automatically criminalize sexual contact between a clergyman and an adult parishioner – in the way it does, respectively, between teachers and students of age as well as corrections officers and incarcerated grown-ups, given the inherently imbalanced power dynamics at play.
Nonetheless, at that point, the New Orleans archdiocese revoked permission to minister in its region from Odiong – who, like all Catholic priests, had promised to remain celibate. And that expulsion garnered enough media attention to trigger the Waco police investigation which led to his arrest.
Waco police have since sworn that Odiong would inflict sexually abusive acts against his accusers during private masses he celebrated with them or in sessions dedicated to spiritual counseling – all while “wearing priest wardrobe items”. He would then communicate constantly with his accusers over email, Facebook and text messages, Waco police said in documents.
‘All things shall be revealed’
The case against Odiong is among multiple pending criminal matters with links to New Orleans’ archdiocese.
A prominent one centers on a search warrant that Louisiana state police served on the archdiocese in April as part of an investigation into whether the institution and its leaders had operated as a child-sex trafficking ring responsible for “widespread sexual abuse of minors dating back decades” that was “covered up and not reported to law enforcement”.
Whether Odiong’s arrest attracts much interest from the Louisiana state troopers investigating the archdiocese with which he most recently worked remains to be seen.
But what Odiong has already made known is his defiance to the allegations against him.
Odiong told his followers that Austin and New Orleans church officials had run him out over his opposition to Pope Francis’s attempts to be more welcoming to LGBTQ+ people, who are not allowed to marry within the Catholic church.
He also apparently ignored orders to return to his home diocese of Uyo and openly boasted about having plans to work at a Catholic university whose campus is about one mile away from the $400,000 home outside of which Odiong was arrested.
His most recent Facebook post was an open letter in which he accused the Guardian of carrying out “a false, salacious, one-sided smear campaign” against him. He also said he looked forward to pursuing “any and all legal remedies” to clear his name as well as to “continue to faithfully serve God’s people”.
Odiong’s post generated about 180 generally supportive comments, including one which implored Odiong to “believe, in time, all things shall be revealed, all things shall be exposed”.
After Odiong’s arrest Tuesday, Waco attorneys Christopher King and Robert Callahan reportedly announced that they would sue both the priest and the Austin diocese for damages on behalf of one of the clergyman’s accusers.
The Waco police detective investigating Odiong, DeLange, said anyone with information that may be helpful to him can reach him by telephone at (254) 750-7609.
“If you have been victimized by Anthony Odiong anywhere in the United States, we need to hear from you,” said DeLange, who assured that the privacy of any new cooperating witnesses would be protected. “You are not alone, and you do not have to continue to live with the trauma of this experience alone.”
