Tag: Avoiding Corporate Responsibility

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Diocese of Winona’s Colletti resigns after details of 30-year-old sexual misconduct emerge

Monsignor Richard Colletti
Monsignor Richard Colletti

Monsignor Richard Colletti has resigned his positions with the Diocese of Winona as Vicar General and Chancellor.

The announcement of the resignation was contained in a Wednesday evening email from Bishop John Quinn to diocesan clergy.

“Monsignor Colletti’s resignation stems from recent media reports involving accusations of sexual misconduct with an adult female that dates back to 1986,” Quinn’s email said.

The bishop’s announcement coincided with a Rochester Post-Bulletin story published Thursday morning detailing a personal injury lawsuit filed in 1992 against Colletti, the Diocese, Saint Mary’s University and others.

Colletti admitted in court documents to having a sexual relationship with a female student he was counseling while on staff at Saint Mary’s. The lawsuit was closed in December 1993. Terms of the settlement are confidential.

Quinn’s email described Colletti’s service as Vicar General and Chancellor as “exemplary.”

“Monsignor Colletti tendered his resignation to me because of his concern that the situation would impede the effective administration and governance of the Diocese,” Quinn said in a statement Thursday.

Colletti was also assigned as rector of the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, pastor of St. Casimir’s Church and chaplain of the WSU Newman Center. Colletti has also resigned from his chaplain role, Quinn said Thursday; his other ministerial duties are under review.

“I am not able to address the specifics of the claim due to the Confidentiality Agreement signed between the parties to the lawsuit,” Quinn said in the statement. “The Diocese of Winona takes every allegation of clergy sexual misconduct very seriously and remains committed to upholding the inherent dignity of every person.”

Colletti, 63, had served in those roles since 2011. He had previously been assigned to a number of roles in the diocese in Rochester and Mankato dating back to the mid-1990s.

Colletti admitted in Winona County District Court documents filed in the early 1990s to an ongoing relationship with the woman he had been counseling. They met at Saint Mary’s, where she was a first-year student and Colletti was then the director of campus ministry.

Colletti soon started scheduling appointments almost daily, according to court records, with the two meeting for several months and the relationship eventually turning sexual in nature.

Colletti, having told diocese administration about the relationship, was eventually transferred to Rochester. It wasn’t clear whether Colletti and the woman had any contact after the suit was filed in 1992. She is in her 40s and now lives in a different state, the Post-Bulletin reported.

The revelation comes amid a time of growing uncertainty about the Diocese of Winona’s future and the close of the Minnesota Child Victims Act, which allowed a three-year window for victims of childhood sexual abuse to file civil claims against their abusers. The woman would not have qualified to file suit under the act because she was 18 at the time.

More than 100 cases seeking financial compensation for damages have been filed against the Winona diocese during that period, connected to incidents that date back in some cases to the 1940s, all against clergy members who either have died or are no longer active in the diocese.

The diocese has not clearly said yet whether it is considering bankruptcy protection, as the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis and others have done.

Complete Article HERE!

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Deacon: Other victims of priest abuse have reached out

By Haidee V Eugenio

Archbishop Anthony Apuron
Archbishop Anthony Apuron

Deacon Steve Martinez, the former coordinator of a group in the local Catholic Church charged with reviewing sexual abuse allegations involving the clergy, said Thursday he’s aware of “three other victims that have made contact but they are still not ready or willing to move forward with filing a formal complaint.”

The highest leader of the Catholic Church in Guam, Archbishop Anthony Apuron, has twice been accused publicly in recent weeks of sexual abuse.

Apuron and the Archdiocese of Agana have denied the two allegations and announced plans to file lawsuits against those whom it said have been perpetrating “malicious lies” about the archbishop and the Catholic Church.

There still is no investigation by the local church conducted in relation to the sexual abuse complaints, Martinez said.

The first public accusation against Apuron was by a former altar boy in Agat, Roy Quintanilla. He said he was molested by Apuron when the latter was parish priest at Mount Carmel Church in Agat in the 1970s.

The second one was by the mother of a former altar boy also in Agat. Doris Y. Concepcion, now living in Prescott, Arizona, told Pacific Daily News her son, Joseph “Sonny” A. Quinata, revealed his secret about Apuron molesting him in the 1970s, shortly before he died 11 years ago.

Martinez reiterated that assistance, including counseling, is available to victims.

‘Bullying tactics’

“One problem is the bullying tactics by the Archbishop and his cohorts. They are worried about being harassed by the Archbishop and they are worried about being sued. I am working to try and help them get past this fear. It took a fair amount of courage for them to make even a first contact,” Martinez told Pacific Daily News.

Martinez said he’s hoping his work on Wednesday when he called a press conference “will help them and others to come forward.”

“Some of them have had terrible lives because of (what) Father Tony (did) and each needs to come to the point of admitting this sad reality at their own pace. It is a tragic situation that must be fixed. The Church should be helping in every way possible. But since the accused is the leader of the Church, he is making every effort to block their stories from coming out. Intimidation is his biggest weapon at this time. Sad,” Martinez said.

The identities of the three others are not disclosed, and it is not known at this time whether these other three individuals’ allegations also point to Apuron or other priests serving or used to serve in Guam.

Martinez said victims or those who know of any victim of sexual abuse can contact the numbers advertised in the newspapers recently: 777-6836 and 997-6969.

Apuron removed Martinez from his post as sexual abuse response coordinator for the Archdiocese of Agana through a letter dated Oct. 24, 2014, the same date the archbishop appointed to the same position the current coordinator, Deacon Rizal “Larry” Claros.

Martinez received his replacement letter after he sent two letters to Apuron in July and then in August 2014.

In those letters, Martinez alleges the archbishop violated his own Church’s sexual abuse policy and about the need to make the policy stronger so it can better protect not only the Archdiocese but also the children and the community.

Martinez said the local church’s sexual abuse policy is “weak,” “flawed” and a “failed” one that needs to be changed. The current sexual abuse policy, according to Martinez, protects only Apuron and those around him but not the innocent children who are victims.

For example, even if the archbishop is the one accused of sexual abuse, the archbishop has the “sole authority” to determine which sexual abuse allegation gets investigated and has the final word on any probe findings. Martinez said the archbishop, as the accused, cannot be the judge himself.

The Archdiocese of Agana was sought for comment but none was received.

“Like I said (on Wednesday), our Church has a wound that needs to heal. But before it can heal, it needs to be fully cleaned so no infection comes back later,” Martinez said.

Complete Article HERE!

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Timothy Cardinal Dolan ripped for delaying talk on child sex abuse

File Under:  SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!

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Timothy Cardinal Dolan is in no rush to discuss efforts to change the child abuse law.
Timothy Cardinal Dolan is in no rush to discuss efforts to change the child abuse law.

The time may not be right for Timothy Cardinal Dolan to talk about child sex abuse, but advocates say it’s long overdue.

Victim-turned-advocate Kathryn Robb says Dolan is putting a new generation of kids in danger by opposing legislation that would allow adult victims of child sex abuse to seek justice in claims that would likely affect predator priests.

Robb ripped Dolan after the leader of New York’s 2.6 million Catholics told the Daily News on Saturday at rally for farm worker rights that he was ready to discuss efforts to reform the law — but not just yet.

Time, however, is running out to eliminate the statute of limitations on child sex abuse since the state Legislature’s session ends June 16.

“It may not be time for you Cardinal Dolan, but it is time for survivors of sexual abuse and the children of the state of New York,” said Robb, who said she was molested by her eldest brother George Robb while growing up on Long Island. “We as responsible citizens who care about the safety of children and justice are not waiting for his call.”

Kathryn Robb, who was abused as a child, wants Dolan to quit stalling and discuss reform to the law.
Kathryn Robb, who was abused as a child, wants Dolan to quit stalling and discuss reform to the law.

New York’s statute of limitations bars victims of childhood sexual abuse from filing criminal charges or civil claims after their 23rd birthday. Victim advocates say it is one of the most restrictive in the nation.

Supporters of the Child Victims Act say the Catholic Conference, the lobbying arm of church’s bishops, has been the bill’s biggest obstacle. The CVA — one of a handful of bills under consideration — would eliminate the civil and criminal statutes of limitation for victims.

A spokesman for the archdiocese said he would discuss a Daily News request for a sit-down with the cardinal. The spokesman said Dolan declined to talk about sexual abuse Saturday because he did not want to overshadow the farm worker rights rally.

Complete Article HERE!

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Minnesota abuse victims claim Archdiocese hid financial assets

File Under:  It’s The Time Honored Way…

anderson

Attorneys representing hundreds of clergy sexual abuse victims are claiming the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis has a net worth of about $1.7 billion – far more than the $45 million divulged in court documents last year. The legal team of attorney Jeff Anderson says the archdiocese has taken “multiple, deceptive actions”  to “divert and shelter funds from sexual abuse survivors” since the Minnesota Child Victims Act was passed in May 2013.

“They are under-representing their ability to pay by about 99 percent,” Anderson said. “It has been a scheme and a scam that has served them in the past.”

A legal motion filed late Monday in the archdiocese’s federal bankruptcy case includes a number of allegations, including:

That Catholic Cemeteries have never been disclosed as an asset of the archdiocese in bankruptcy filings, and that cemetery signs were painted over to remove any references to the archdiocese.

That the archdiocese created “optical insulation” by creating the Catholic Community Foundation in 1992 as a way to avoid paying sexual abuse claims. Anderson said the foundation also changed its name after victims filed their lawsuits

More than 400 people have filed lawsuits against the archdiocese ahead of the May 25 deadline for claims covered by the Minnesota Child Victim’s Act, which lifts the statute of limitations for people who say they were sexually abused. A judge ordered the parties into mediation in February 2015, but no settlement has been reached.

Attorneys expect the archdiocese to propose a Chapter 11 repayment plan that would significantly short-change the victims. According to a court document:

“Within the next few days, the Debtor will file a plan of reorganization that (i) seeks to prohibit more than four hundred survivors of clergy sexual abuse from reaching any of the assets that the Debtor alienated as a matter of civil law, but (ii) simultaneously provides more than 200 entities holding such assets with a complete and final release of liability for sexual abuse claims.”

The victims’ attorneys claim the archdiocese has put a shield around its most valuable assets by putting them into trusts or separate corporations that the archdiocese claims no control of. They also say the church’s court documents “vastly  undervalue” some of the most valuable real estate, including the Cathedral of Saint Paul and three high schools – Benilde St. Margaret, DeLaSalle and Totino Grace.

Complete Article HERE!

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Prominent French priest and Vatican adviser accused in sex scandal

File Under: Killer Fruit!

Monsignor Tony Anatrella during a conference in Lille, France.
Monsignor Tony Anatrella during a conference in Lille, France.

For years, seminaries and monasteries around France sent students and novices to Monsignor Tony Anatrella, a prominent French priest and therapist who has written disparagingly of gays, if their superiors decided the young men were struggling with homosexuality.

Now Anatrella, who argues that gay men cannot be ordained as priests, is facing mounting allegations that he himself had sex with male clients under his care, a scandal that could have repercussions all the way to the Vatican, where the priest is still regularly consulted on matters of sexuality.

The reports about Anatrella that have emerged in recent weeks also landed just as the Catholic Church in France has been embroiled in a crisis over charges that senior churchmen shielded priests even after they received reports that the clerics had molested children.

Anatrella stoked that furor earlier this year when it was revealed that he told new bishops at a Vatican-sponsored course that they are not obligated to report a suspected abuser to authorities even in countries where the law requires such reporting.

The Vatican quickly said that Anatrella’s remarks did not change church policy on reporting, and Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, head of Pope Francis’ new Commission for the Protection of Minors, issued a statement saying that beyond the requirements of civil law, all members of the church “have a moral and ethical responsibility to report suspected abuse to the civil authorities who are charged with protecting our society.”

Yet the allegations that Anatrella himself has engaged in sexual misconduct – accusations that were first broached a decade ago – pose a much greater threat to the priest.

So far, European media have relayed accusations from as many as four men – only one of whom agreed to be identified by his real name – who say that Anatrella engaged in various sex acts with them during counseling sessions in his Paris office, with the activity allegedly occurring up until a few years ago.

“You’re not gay, you just think that you are,” Anatrella reportedly told Daniel Lamarca, who was a 23-year-old seminarian when he first went to Anatrella in 1987.

According to Dutch Catholic journalist Hendro Munsterman, who first reported Lamarca’s story in Nederlands Dagblad, Anatrella told Lamarca he could rid him of his “pseudo-homosexuality” and sought to do so by performing sex acts on Lamarca.

“I know details about Anatrella’s body that could only be known to someone who has seen him naked,” Lamarca told Nederlands Dagblad.

Lamarca said that in 2001 he reported these episodes to the archbishop of Paris at the time, the late Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger. But Lamarca said nothing was done.

Then, in 2006, he told a liberal lay-run Catholic periodical, Golias, about Anatrella’s behavior; Lamarca’s was one of three accusations to surface that year, but because they involved adults and wound up being their word against Anatrella’s, civil authorities did not pursue the allegations.

The Church also apparently took no action. Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois had succeeded Lustiger by that point, and he reportedly sent an email to all his priests expressing his support for Anatrella. Accusations from other ex-patients did not change the cardinal’s opinion and he spoke of a “gay lobby” working against Anatrella.

In recent weeks, another ex-seminarian, who goes by a pseudonym in the articles, told French outlets that he was counseled by Anatrella for 14 years, from 1997 to 2011, and that after the first few years Anatrella began “special sessions” that included episodes of mutual masturbation.

It is unclear how many of these accounts may also be the same ones that surfaced in 2006.

Anatrella has so far not responded to the latest allegations.

On May 13, the Archdiocese of Paris released a statementacknowledging that in 2014, the current archbishop, Vingt-Trois, received a written complaint, via a priest, from a patient of Anatrella’s who also made allegations of sexual exploitation. But the archdiocese said that because the complainant would not reveal his identity, the church could not pursue the matter.

In addition, the Paris archdiocese said that it received reports of other allegations regarding Anatrella late last month, also by way of a priest. “Because he could not act on the basis of anonymous third-party statements, the cardinal asked the priest to encourage the accusers to make personal contact (with the archdiocese) and lodge a formal complaint,” said the church statement.

The statement went on to say that “any person who has been a victim of sexual aggression (or their parents in the case of minors)” should personally contact the archdiocese to report it. “They will be received and listened to, counseled on what to do next, and urged to file a complaint with the judicial authorities,” it said.

Any person knowing “facts that justify a complaint or denunciation” should also report them to civil authorities, it added.

While Anatrella has been a familiar figure for decades in France, his controversial views gained wider attention in 2005 when he reportedly helped the Vatican, then headed by Pope Benedict XVI, a theological conservative, craft guidelines aimed at keeping gay men out of the priesthood.

Anatrella at the time also wrote a lengthy article in the Vatican daily, L’Osservatore Romano, stating that homosexuality was “like an incompleteness and a profound immaturity of human sexuality.”

According to a report from Catholic News Service, Anatrella wrote that gays are “narcissists” and said homosexuality is “a problem in the psychic organization” of a person’s sexuality. He said that for theological reasons the Catholic Church can only ordain “men mature in their masculine identity.”

On a practical level as well, he wrote, many of the sex scandals in the church happened because gay men, even if they vowed to remain sexually chaste, were ordained as priests and could not remain chaste.

Anatrella also provided a long list of warning signs that should alert seminary staff to the possibility that a seminarian is gay.

Among the signs he listed were students who had trouble relating to their fathers or who tended to isolate themselves, and those found viewing pornography on the Internet and who often saw themselves as victims.

Anatrella remains a consultant to the pontifical councils for the family and for health care ministry; in February, he was the main organizer of a major conference on priestly celibacy at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

French Church leaders who have been on the defensive over reports that many of them failed to report priests who abused minors are set to announce new policies to protect children early in June.

Complete Article HERE!