Category: Priests In Trouble

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Former Pastor Of Simsbury Church Found Guilty Of Misdemeanor Sexual Assault

The former pastor of a Simsbury church has been found guilty of misdemeanor sexual assault for touching an 18-year-old man’s pubic area while administering confession.

The Rev. Edward Warnakulasuriya, 54, was pastor at St. Bernard’s Roman Catholic Church in the Tariffville section of Simsbury until his removal in July 2011, when the Archdiocese of Hartford learned that Warnakulasuriya was under investigation. The priest was arrested by Simsbury police on Aug. 11, 2011.

Warnakulasuriya was initially charged with three counts of fourth-degree sexual assault, but pleaded no contest Sept. 19 to a single count of fourth-degree sexual assault as part of a plea bargain.

Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Debra Collins sought a 120-day prison sentence and three years of probation, but Superior Court Judge Howard Scheinblum opted for no jail, according to a transcript of the sentencing hearing in Enfield. Warnakulasuriya will be on probation for three years.

“I want to put on the record that the reason I did not incarcerate the defendant is because I believe he will definitely be eligible for deportation, and I would be surprised if [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] did not deport him and also because of a very real potential for excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church,” the judge said, according to the transcript. Warnakulasuriya is a native of Sri Lanka.

The sexual assault to which Warnakulasuriya pleaded no contest occurred at the rectory sometime between December 2010 and January 2011, when the victim was 17 or 18. There were allegations of other sexual assaults, but those charges were dropped as part of the plea. The charge to which the priest pleaded no contest acknowledges that he was in a position of power or authority over the victim because he was his parish priest.

Collins told the judge that she was prepared to go to trial on all the allegations and that investigators had uncovered more potential victims.

The victim opted not to be in court for Warnakulasuriya’s plea and sentencing, Collins said. “They had spent, both his parents as well as him, numerous days with me interviewing, preparing for trial,” Collins said. “It was a very lengthy process. The state found him very credible, but it was long and detailed over the last two weeks. He has therefore chosen not to appear today.”

Warnakulasuriya pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor so was not eligible to be placed on the state’s sex offender registry, Collins added.

In church and public records, and in the criminal complaint against him, Warnakulasuriya is also known as Edward Tissera and W. Edward Julian Tissera. The archdiocese listed him as Edward J. Tissera. Before his appointment to St. Bernard’s, Warnakulasuriya served for several years as an assistant pastor at St. Martha Roman Catholic Church in Enfield.

Maria Zone, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said that Warnakulasuriya’s status had not changed. “He has been on administrative leave, which means he cannot perform duties as a priest, namely the administration of the Sacraments, since July 2011,” she said. “He will remain on administrative leave until further notice.”

The 18-year-old told police that he had visited Warnakulasuriya for confession at the rectory on several occasions between early 2010 and July 18 of this year, during which time the man told police that Warnakulasuriya had touched his pubic area.

Complete Article HERE!

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Accused priest is removed from ministry

The ex-Devon Prep teacher, suspected of sex assault in the 1990s, was working in the Philippines. He is now in supervised therapy. (The religious order is the Piarists, or the Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools. Can ya stand it?)

The religious order that let one of its priests relocate to the Philippines after he allegedly sexually assaulted a 13-year-old Devon Prep student in the 1990s says it has removed him from active ministry, almost two decades after the attack.

The Rev. Theodore Podson relocated last month to a residential therapy center and “is being submitted to a carefully controlled supervision,” a Rome-based spokesman for the Piarists order said Friday.

The move came after The Inquirer reported that Podson, 64, was working as a priest and promoting himself as a teen mentor 20 years after officials at the Main Line boys school and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia concluded he had sexually abused a minor.

The order’s spokesman, Giorgi Pezza, declined to identify where Podson was transferred but said the setting includes “integral supervision” by superiors in his order.

He also said Podson has no interaction with boys. “He was strictly forbidden to do so,” Pezza said in an e-mail.

Podson’s name and history as a suspected pedophile emerged in secret church files introduced during the child sex-abuse and endangerment trial of two archdiocesan priests this year.

He was one of seven religious-order clerics whom Msgr. William J. Lynn, a former ranking aide to Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, had included on a 1994 list of dozens of area priests who had admitted or were suspected of sexually abusing minors.

The list was among thousands of documents introduced at Lynn’s landmark child-endangerment trial.

The seven priests worked at Catholic high schools and celebrated Masses in the region, but some, including Podson, had never before been publicly identified as abusers because they were outside the authority of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Podson, a native of the area, was a Devon Prep alumnus who joined the staff in 1985 after teaching at Calasanctius Prep, a now-defunct Piarist school in Buffalo.

He was a “cool” and popular teacher at Devon Prep, according to several former students who asked not to be identified. Podson also regularly ran summer trips for the boys to destinations across the country and the world.

One was a June 1993 trip to Greece. After that trip, a student on it reported to school officials that Podson had sexually assaulted him.

The boy also told Ellen Murphy, a chaperone on the trip. In an interview last month, Murphy recalled that the boy told her Podson had abused him more than once.

Complete Article HERE!

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Nine people accuse Philadelphia church of sexual abuse

Eight men and a woman publicly accused Roman Catholic priests and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia on Tuesday of child sex abuse, saying they found courage to come forward after the conviction in June of a top church official in the wide-ranging pedophilia scandal.

Plaintiff Andrew Druding, right, listens as fellow plaintiff Michael McDonnell, address a news conference.

The nine filed civil lawsuits accusing the Archdiocese and church officials of conspiring to conceal incidents of sex abuse, failing to address the problem and ignoring complaints about abusive clergy, according to attorneys who announced the cases at a news conference in Philadelphia. 

Problems with abusive priests in the Philadelphia diocese had been flagged in a 2003 grand jury report that found church leaders failed to report abuse to authorities. These lawsuits cite alleged abuse dating back to 1970.

The alleged victims opted to come forward after the conviction of Monsignor William Lynn, a top official found guilty of covering up sex abuse allegations, often by transferring priests to unsuspecting parishes, said Marci Hamilton, an attorney in the case.

The alleged victims were children who attended Roman Catholic schools and churches in the Philadelphia area, where they say in the lawsuits they were molested and assaulted by priests and that their complaints went unheeded.

One of the plaintiffs, Andrew Druding of Philadelphia, spoke at the news conference about his abuse in the early 1970s, allegedly at the hands of a priest who directed a choir at a church where his parents were married and he had been baptized.

“You took advantage of a 9-year-old boy who loved to sing and was afraid to tell because you were a priest, God’s messenger on Earth, the most holy person in my life,” he said.

“This is my opportunity, to an extent, to fight back,” he said, as his wife of 28 years, Denise, wept.

In a statement, the Archdiocese said it had not seen copies of the lawsuits.

“We believe lawsuits are not the best mechanism to promote healing in the context of the very private and difficult circumstances of sexual abuse,” the statement said. “We will work to assure all victims of sexual abuse receive appropriate assistance.”

The lawsuits collectively seek nearly $2 million in damages and name Lynn, seven priests and former priests, the Archdiocese, Archbishop Charles Chaput and Cardinal Justin Rigali, who retired as archbishop in 2011.

The sweeping sex abuse scandal has cost billions in settlements and driven prominent U.S. dioceses into bankruptcy. The Philadelphia Archdiocese already faces several civil lawsuits claiming abuse and faces legal costs estimated at more than $11 million.

Lynn, the highest-ranking church official to be convicted in the scandal, was sentenced to three to six years in prison in July. He acted as secretary of the clergy, overseeing 800 priests in the Archdiocese of 1.5 million members, the nation’s sixth largest.

Complete Article HERE!

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Priest Accused of Abuse to Resume Limited Duties

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Joliet will allow a priest to resume limited duties after the Vatican determined his alleged sexual relationship with a teenager in the 1970s didn’t meet the criteria of a crime under church law at that time.

Bishop R. Daniel Conlon

The diocese said the Rev. F. Lee Ryan will minister to homebound parishioners of St. Edmund Catholic Church in Watseka, south of Kankakee, and St. Joseph Mission in Crescent City. Ryan was removed from the ministry in 2010 because of the allegations.

A 52-year-old Florida man had alleged that he was 14 when he and Ryan began the relationship.

Church officials said the man’s complaint was assessed by a local review board, then sent to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Catholic officials in Rome decided that because of church law in the 1970s, which stated that 14 was the age of consent, Ryan did not commit a serious crime by the church’s standards and could not be permanently removed from ministry, a spokesman for Bishop R. Daniel Conlon said.

The diocese did not immediately return a message from The Associated Press late Thursday seeking comment from Ryan.
The church didn’t identify the man, who told the Joliet Herald-Review and Chicago Tribune that he did not inform police or church officials at the time, but decided two years ago to tell his mother what had happened. A victims’ advocate who works for the diocese arranged for him to submit a complaint to the church.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests criticized the diocese for allowing Ryan to return to some of his duties as a priest.

“This is a shocking and dangerous move by Bishop Conlon,” SNAP said, noting that the bishop leads the U.S. Catholic bishops’ committee on sexual abuse. “What part of ‘one strike and you’re out’ do Catholic officials not understand?”
Last month, Conlon told a national conference of church child welfare workers in Omaha, Neb., that the hierarchy’s credibility has been badly damaged by the clergy sex abuse scandal.

Complete Article HERE!

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Ex-Greenwich pastor reports to prison

The former pastor of a Greenwich church sentenced in July for federal obstruction of justice has reported to a Brooklyn, N.Y., prison, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Michael Moynihan, 59, who was sentenced to five months in jail followed by two years of supervised release, is now at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

Located near the Gowanus Bay, the prison is classified as an administrative facility, a type of institution intended for the detention of pretrial offenders, dangerous or escape-prone inmates, or for treatment of inmates with medical problems, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The Brooklyn facility is capable of holding male and female inmates in all security categories.

Moynihan was to report to prison Sept. 3; a prison employee on Thursday would not confirm when he reported.

Moynihan resigned from St. Michael the Archangel Roman Catholic Church in 2007 amid allegations he diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars in church funds to pay for personal expenses.

He pleaded guilty in December 2011 to the obstruction charge, which stemmed from lies he told federal officials investigating the possible misappropriation of funds.

He met with FBI agents to provide information about how the funds were spent and, in a December 2010 interview, told agents he had not forged a signature on a letter, although he knew he signed another person’s name without the authority to do so, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

An investigation by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport found in 2008 that Moynihan could not account for church money he kept in secret accounts and engaged in a pattern of deception when confronted.

Moynihan also provided false and misleading information to accountants retained by the diocese, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Though most of approximately $2 million in expenditures from two accounts went toward documented legitimate expenses or expenses that appeared to be appropriate, Moynihan used about $300,000 in church funds to pay his credit card bills, authorities said.

Attorney Audrey Felsen, who represents Moynihan with attorney Mark Sherman, said after Moynihan’s sentencing that about $300,000 has not been accounted for to the diocese’s satisfaction.

Moynihan must pay over $400,000 in restitution to the diocese and must complete 120 hours of community service as part of his sentence.

Complete Article HERE!

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U.S. Roman Catholics outraged over child sex abuse scandal; call for bishop’s resignation

Calls for Bishop Robert Finn’s resignation intensified the day after he became the highest-ranking U.S. church official to be convicted of a crime related to a child sexual abuse scandal.

Soon after a Missouri judge found Bishop Finn guilty Thursday of one misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child sexual abuse to the state, unhappy Roman Catholics began discussing ways to get the bishop out of office on a Facebook page titled “Bishop Finn Must Go.”

Among the posts was one that listed contact information for the Vatican and urged parishioners to voice their displeasure with Bishop Finn at the highest levels. Pope Benedict XVI alone has authority over bishops. Through the decades-long abuse scandal, only one U.S. bishop has stepped down over his failures to stop abusive clergy: Cardinal Bernard Law – who, in 2002, resigned as head of the Archdiocese of Boston.

Jackson County Judge John M. Torrence sentenced Bishop Finn to two years of supervised probation. If the bishop abides by a set of stipulations from the judge, the conviction will be wiped from his record in 2014.

“Now that our justice system says he’s guilty, he has lost his ability to lead our diocese,” Patricia Rotert, a Catholic church member in Kansas City, said Friday. “He’s lost his credibility. There is turmoil and angst around him and I don’t think he can bring people together.”

Bishop Finn’s attorneys would not comment on the bishop’s future in the church, saying it was a legal matter.

However, Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph spokesman Jack Smith indicated that Bishop Finn wasn’t going anywhere.

“The bishop looks forward to continuing to perform his duties, including carrying out the important obligations placed on him by the court,” Mr. Smith said in an emailed statement Friday.

Bishop Finn’s conviction comes four years after the church paid $10 million to settle 47 pending sexual abuse claims against the diocese and 12 of its priests. When announcing that deal in 2008, Bishop Finn apologized for the abuse that occurred at the hands of current and former clergy members, and promised that steps were being taken to make sure such abuse never happened again.

The diocese posted an update about the 2008 settlement on its website in June 2011 stating that Bishop Finn had written 118 letters of apology to plaintiffs or their families. That same month, Bishop Finn apologized for not responding to warnings the diocese received a year earlier from a parish principal detailing suspicious behavior by the Reverand Shawn Ratigan around children.

Instead of reading the memo and looking into the claims, Bishop Finn left it up to subordinates to handle the matter. He later admitted it was a year before he finally read a five-page document that a parish elementary school principal wrote detailing suspicious activities by Rev. Ratigan around children.

Bishop Finn also was informed of nude photos of children found on Rev. Ratigan’s laptop computer in December 2010, but instead of turning them over to police, Bishop Finn sent Rev. Ratigan to live at a convent in Independence, Mo.

Monsignor Robert Murphy turned the photos over to police in May 2011 — against Bishop Finn’s wishes, according to court documents — after Rev. Ratigan continued to violate Bishop Finn’s orders to stay away from children and not take any pictures of them.

Rev. Ratigan pleaded guilty last month to five child pornography counts, but hasn’t been sentenced. Prosecutors have requested he spend the rest of his life in prison.

Bishop Finn apologized again Thursday in court for the pain caused by his failure to report Rev. Ratigan.

The bishop has avoided facing charges in Missouri’s Clay County, where Rev. Ratigan was charged, after reaching a settlement in November 2011. For five years, Bishop Finn must report to the Clay County prosecutor directly each month about any suspected child abuse in the diocese’s facilities in the county.

“I said for years that we wouldn’t be in the mess we were in today if about 30 bishops had said `I made a mistake, I’m sorry, I take full responsibility and I resign,“’ said the Reverand Thomas J. Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. “I think we’re at a state in the life of the church when a bishop is convicted of a misdemeanor, found guilty of not doing what he was supposed to do, I think he should resign for the good of the diocese and the good of the church.”

Support for Bishop Finn’s resignation is far from unanimous. Some say they agree he made a mistake, but it’s not one that should force him out, especially with even more stringent safeguards in place to protect children.

“There’s always been fights in the church, and there will continue to be fights in the church,” said Kansas City parishioner Bruce Burkhart, a member of the Serra Club, which supports and promotes priests.

“I think people may walk away, but that’s their business,” he said. “If they think their children are any more safe in public schools, or in another church setting where people are working with youth, the data indicate they’re not. The Catholic Church in America is probably now today the safest place for children.”

While Bishop Finn is the highest-ranking Catholic official to be charged in the U.S. with shielding an abusive priest, Albany Law School professor Timothy Lytton said the June conviction of Monsignor William Lynn in Philadelphia broke the ice on criminal convictions against members of the Catholic hierarchy.

Monsignor Lynn, who supervised other clergy as an aide to the cardinal, was convicted of felony child endangerment and became the first U.S. church official sent to prison for his handling of abuse complaints. He is appealing his three- to six-year sentence.

Still, Bishop Finn’s conviction is significant because it proves Monsignor Lynn’s criminal prosecution was not an isolated event, but instead something that is likely to embolden prosecutors to go after church leaders who fail to protect children.

“Kansas City might mark a trend,” Mr. Lytton said. “It’s no longer good enough to just file civil suits; criminal justice may be much quicker to get involved. Kansas City normalizes this kind of reaction to the scandal.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Bishop Finn found guilty of one of two counts of failure to report suspected child abuse

BREAKING NEWS!

A Jackson County judge found Bishop Robert Finn guilty on Thursday on one count of failing to report suspected child abuse. He was found not guilty on the other count. The state asked the judge to put Finn on probation, according to court reports.

A judge granted the state’s request for court-supervised probation. The conditions include mandated reporter training, institute training for clergy and a $10,000 fund for victims of abuse.

After the verdict was read, Finn spoke to the court, saying he regretted what happened and was sorry for the hurt the events caused, according to court reports.

After the ruling, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker dropped all charges against the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

Finn was charged with the misdemeanors for not reporting suspected child abuse from Dec. 2012 to May 2011 in connection with allegations against Rev. Shawn Ratigan.

Ratigan pleaded guilty to four counts of producing child pornography and one count of attempting to produce child pornography in August.

According to court documents, after being informed of pornographic photographs of young girls found on Ratigan’s computer, Finn sent the priest to a hospital for psychiatric care instead of reporting him to authorities.

The diocese didn’t turn over evidence to law enforcement until May 2011, after Finn found out Ratigan had violated orders to stay away from children.

Complete Article HERE!

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Rev. James Nowak, Montini Catholic High School board member, former west suburban pastor, on leave after sex abuse allegation

A member of Montini Catholic High School’s board of directors is on leave from the Diocese of Joliet amid allegations that he sexually abused a minor more than 25 years ago.

The Rev. James Nowak, a retired Roman Catholic priest who served in parishes in Lombard, Romeoville, Westmont and most recently Naperville over a 40-year career, is no longer allowed to celebrate a public Mass or to administer other sacraments, diocese officials said, as he is on temporary administrative leave.

In a statement the diocese has dated Aug. 28, Bishop Daniel Conlon, head of the Diocese of Joliet, said he has “determined that abuse likely occurred,” and that the case has been forwarded to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome for further review.

The statement also says parishioners where Nowak was assigned are being notified of the allegations against him through their local parish.

James Segredo, president of Montini Catholic High School in Lombard, confirmed he was aware of the allegations against Nowak, but directed all other questions to the diocese.

Doug Delaney, a spokesman for the Diocese of Joliet, said the diocese does not know when the alleged sexual abuse occurred or what church Nowak was serving at the time of the alleged incident. The Diocese declined to say on what basis it made its decision to place Nowak on leave.

Nowak, 75, retired in 2007 after serving five years as pastor at Saints Peter and Paul in Naperville, Delaney said.

Prior to that tenure, he was assistant pastor at Sacred Heart Church in Lombard, St. Mary Nativity in Joliet and St. Andrew in Romeoville from 1971 to 1974, according to information from the Diocese of Joliet.

After studying church law in Rome and an eight-year tenure in the Diocese of Joliet’s offices — where he worked with marriage annulments, according to the diocese — Nowak was named pastor of St. Anthony in Joliet in 1988.

He went on to serve as pastor at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Westmont from 1993 to 2002 and Saints Peter and Paul in Naperville from 2002 to 2007, when he retired.

The diocese statement asks that individuals with relevant information to the allegations should contact Judith Speckman, Dioecesan Victim Assistance Coordinator, at (815) 263-6467, as well as law enforcement authorities.

Complete Article HERE!

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‘Boys will be boys,’ Bishop Finn purportedly said after being told of priest’s lewd photos

When confronted by the diocese’s computer director about her concerns over lewd images found on a priest’s laptop, Bishop Robert Finn replied that, “Sometimes priests do things they shouldn’t,” court papers filed Thursday alleged.

“Sometimes, boys will be boys,” the bishop is purported to have said, court records show.

Julie Creech, the director of management and information systems for the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, described her meeting with the bishop during an Aug. 17 deposition in a Jackson County civil case. According to that lawsuit, the Rev. Shawn Ratigan abused a 9-year-old girl months after the diocese learned of the photos on his computer.

Finn and the diocese are scheduled for a criminal trial starting Sept. 24 on misdemeanor counts of failing to report Ratigan’s suspected abuse of children. Ratigan is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in federal court earlier this month to producing and attempting to produce child pornography.

State prosecutors have identified Creech as a witness in their case against Finn and the diocese. A prosecutor’s spokesman declined comment on the Creech deposition Thursday.

The diocese and lawyers representing Finn declined comment Thursday.

Rebecca Randles, the lawyer representing the girl and her parents who filed the lawsuit, also declined to comment.

Though Creech’s concerns in December 2010 about the contents of Ratigan’s laptop previously had been reported in a fact-finding study commissioned by the diocese, her meeting with Finn had not been disclosed publicly until today.

According to the study, prepared by former U.S. Attorney Todd Graves, Creech examined Ratigan’s laptop on Dec. 16, 2010, and discovered hundreds of disturbing photographs of young children, primarily girls. That evening, Creech called vicar general Robert Murphy and advised him to call police, the study said. The diocese did not report the suspected abuse until May 2011.

In the Graves report, Finn said he didn’t see what was on the computer.

The civil motion filed Thursday quotes Creech as having been concerned when she heard that some at the diocese were saying that she had not found “lewd” photographs on the computer. In a partial deposition transcript included with the civil filings, Creech said she approached Finn about the diocese’s response to the Ratigan discoveries.

Finn, she noted, was not specific as to what actions the diocese would take.

“He did indicate that, you know, sometimes priests do things that they shouldn’t, and he said, you know, he said, ‘Sometimes boys will be boys,’ ” Creech said in the deposition.

Creech said she had no indication that Finn had ever seen any of the images from Ratigan’s computer and that the bishop never told her that he had.

Creech said in the deposition that she was “upset” during her meeting with Finn.

“I think I was upset in a different way than he was because of what I had seen,” Creech said.

Creech did not immediately return a call Thursday seeking comment.

Finn always has maintained that he never saw the images and that he had delegated the diocese’s initial response and management to his subordinates.

The civil lawsuit in which the deposition pages were filed Thursday alleges that Ratigan engaged a 9-year-old girl in sexually explicit conduct as late as May 2011 — about five months after the diocese learned of the pictures.

Complete Article HERE!