Tag: Avoiding Corporate Responsibility

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3 men settle abuse suits against church

Three men who filed the first sexual abuse lawsuits in the Navajo Nation court system against the Catholic Church have recently settled their cases.

The Gallup Independent reports that the men will receive money as part of the settlement from the priest who is accused of sexually abusing them, the Diocese of Gallup, the Franciscan Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Albuquerque and another church entity.

Patrick Noaker, an attorney who represented the men, said his clients have asked that the settlement amounts not be publicly disclosed.

The lawsuits allege that Charles Cichanowicz, a former Franciscan priest who once worked on the Navajo Nation, sexually abused them when they were teenagers in the late 1970s and 1980s. Cichanowicz was assigned to parishes in Shiprock, N.M., and St. Michaels, Ariz.

Attorneys for the Diocese of Gallup and Cichanowicz didn’t respond to requests for comment, nor did Albuquerque’s Franciscan Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

At least one of the lawsuits alleged that the diocese and the Franciscan orders transferred Cichanowicz when he was caught and continued to assign him to parishes, giving him unsupervised access to children.

It alleged they did not report him to authorities, tell parishes about him or take safeguards to prevent him from unlawful sexual conduct. Cichanowicz later left the priesthood.

Noaker said lawyers for those who were sued in the case offered no apologies to his clients, and Cichanowicz made no admission of guilt.

By filing their lawsuits in the Navajo Nation’s courts, Noaker said his clients feel like they have protected other children by raising public awareness of the sexual abuse of children on the Navajo Nation. Noaker said none of the men ever considered pursuing out-of-court confidential settlements with the Catholic Church.

He said the men started the legal process ashamed and embarrassed by what had happened to them and grew into men willing to take on the man they say abused them.

Complete Article HERE!

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Psychologist: Bishops’ lashing out at sisters is a distraction

COMMENTARY — Kathy Galleher

Since the Vatican’s public release April 18 of the results of the doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, many American Catholics have been confused and angry. These women, who work tirelessly with the poor and marginalized, whom many of us see as embodying Christ’s love, are being accused of doing grave harm to the church. In conversation after conversation, I have heard, “Why so much anger directed at women religious?”, “What is this about?” and “It just seems … abusive.” As I pondered this last observation, I recognized a familiar dynamic.

For nearly eight years I worked as a psychologist at a treatment center for priests and religious. During that time I worked with a number of men who had committed sexual abuse. An essential part of the therapeutic work was for these men to understand the deep pain they had caused, to accept responsibility for it, and to move forward with a commitment not to let it happen again, which included accepting restrictions and consequences. Often the largest obstacle to healing was the first task: accepting and understanding the amount of pain they had caused.

When we harm someone, healing requires that we recognize the extent of the injury we caused. Only when we are able to see this clearly and take responsibility for it can we respond with appropriate guilt. Appropriate guilt focuses us on how to repair the injury (if that is possible) and what actions we must take to prevent it from occurring again. If we cannot recognize the pain and take responsibility for it, we get stuck and assume an aggressively defensive stance, lashing out and blaming others as a way to deflect attention from our actions, actions we find too painful to look at honestly.

In treatment, when a client was stuck in this way, we would see this blaming/lashing-out dynamic, and he would start a fight. The greater the unacknowledged pain, the more furious the fight. Often the fury was directed toward a bishop or superior who was removing him from ministry. “You’re ruining my life,” he would say. “I feel betrayed. You have no idea how much pain you are causing me and you don’t even care.” Although he was the abuser, in his mind in that moment, he was the victim of the bishop or superior. The real victim had vanished from his awareness.

Fights like these were so provocative that the instinctive reaction of those on the receiving end was to respond with their own aggression. So the fight would escalate, take on more heat, and distract from the work at hand. As therapists, we tried to contain these fights and give them as little energy as possible (like depriving a fire of oxygen). Our job was to say, “This is a distraction. Let’s get back to work.” Then we would support the client in leaving the fight behind and returning to his unfinished work: looking deeply at his own pain, taking responsibility for the pain he had caused, and taking action to prevent it from occurring again.

I see strong parallels between this and the church’s dealings with LCWR. The level of anger and blame in the doctrinal assessment document feels like someone is picking a fight, and the intensity of it hints at the enormous amount of still unworked pain at the heart of the church’s sexual abuse crisis. To me, this fight looks like a distraction.

In the past 10 years, the church has taken steps toward responding to the tragedy of sexual abuse in the church at the individual level, including responding to allegations more quickly, involving law enforcement, and developing child protection policies. However, the church has not yet been willing or able to examine its own role as an institution in concealing and enabling decades of abuse. The bishops have not taken collective responsibility for their actions (and inactions) and for the enormous pain they have caused. As much as the abuse itself, it is this failure by the hierarchy to acknowledge and accept their responsibility that has angered and disillusioned so many current and now-former Catholics. Too much pain is still unacknowledged and unworked.

The church hierarchy seems to be stuck and they are blaming and lashing out. They have started a fight with LCWR and the women religious. In the doctrinal assessment, they have accused the women of the church of betraying the core values of the church, of causing scandal and leading the faithful astray, and of not being sufficiently trustworthy to reform themselves. They have ordered the women to be closely supervised. These accusations seem more rightly to belong to the sexual abuse scandal rather than to the actions of LCWR. It was the bishops who, by protecting sexual abusers, betrayed core values of the church and caused scandal to the faithful. It is the institutional church that appears not to be able to reform itself and to be in need of outside supervision.

This fight with LCWR is a distraction from the work the bishops still need to do in order to bring about genuine healing in the church.

In response to the misdirected accusations and the severe punishment directed at LCWR, many Catholics feel outraged and want to fight back. But as we saw above, to do so stokes the fire and continues the distraction. We can all be grateful to the women of LCWR for their powerful model of non-reactivity and reflection in their response to this situation. They have spoken their truth, but have not thrown wood on the fire. Similarly, public statements of support from men religious — notably the Franciscans — are courageous and direct but nonviolent. I hope that all of us will follow their lead — speaking our truth with courage and nonviolence, and, like the sisters, keeping our eyes on the real work we are called to do as a church.

It seems the moment to say clearly to the Vatican and to the bishops, “This fight with LCWR is a distraction. The women are not to blame. The church is not the victim. There is still a great deal of pain to address. Let’s get back to work.” Let us hope that with our prayers and support they will be able to look more deeply. Let us hope they can return to and complete the work that is still theirs to do, and in that way bring about healing and transformation for themselves and for our entire church.

Complete Article HERE!

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Diocese seeks relief from clergy sex abuse verdict

The Catholic Diocese of Green Bay says its First Amendment rights protect it from liability in a civil lawsuit filed by two childhood victims of clergy sex abuse.

Brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield were awarded $700,000 in May by an Outagamie County Court that found the diocese committed civil fraud. The brothers claimed the diocese knew of the Rev. John Feeney’s illicit sexual history when it installed him as a priest at Freedom’s St. Nicholas Church and misrepresented him as safe while knowing he was a danger to children.

The Merryfields, then 12 and 14, were molested by Feeney in 1978. Feeney was sentenced to prison in 2004 for the assaults.

Sarah Fry Bruch, an attorney for the diocese, said the jury verdict should be overturned, arguing the court is constitutionally barred from reading any meaning into Feeney’s assignment to a pastoral role. The Merryfields didn’t show evidence the diocese represented Feeney as safe.

“Nor could they, as the assignment of a priest is a canonical act which the civil courts may not evaluate or explain,” she wrote. The First Amendment gives broad latitude to religious organizations in the conduct of their internal affairs.

Judge Nancy Krueger will hold a hearing Tuesday on motions filed by the diocese that seek a new trial, dismissal of the case, or overturning the jury’s findings.

John Peterson, an attorney for the Merryfields, disagreed in a written response, arguing the Merryfields’ claims against the church were secular. The diocese’s representation of Feeney as safe, by virtue of his unsupervised access to children, “has nothing to do with the Catholic Church’s religious beliefs.”

Granting the diocese immunity from Wisconsin law by finding in its favor “would raise grave Establishment Clause issues by actually advancing religion,” he wrote.

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from establishing a national religion or giving preference to one over another.

The First Amendment argument was one of several made by the diocese in a 40-page document asking for relief from the court.

One motion asks for a new trial, claiming bias on the part of a juror.

Another requests a dismissal, claiming the Merryfields unreasonably delayed filing the lawsuit and hamstrung the diocese’s ability to mount a defense. Several key witnesses died before the case reached trial.

The diocese also wants Krueger to rule the verdict excessive and change jury findings on the verdict form it returned.

Jurors awarded $475,000 to Troy Merryfield and $225,000 to Todd Merryfield. The brothers decided to not seek punitive damages after the diocese was found liable, saying the case was about revealing the truth, not money.

“A jury may have sympathy for the plaintiffs, but that alone cannot support a damage award,” Bruch wrote in arguing that evidence wasn’t sufficient.

Claims of juror bias arose after a member of the panel contacted the court about comments made by a fellow juror at the end of the case.

The juror mentioned to peers that a family member had attended St. Therese School in Appleton during the period Feeney was assigned to the church, and wondered aloud about the family member’s experiences with Feeney.

In addition, the juror was a friend of a cousin of the Merryfields’ mother, the diocese argues.

“One can only conclude that the juror purposefully kept back what she knew to get on the jury,” Bruch wrote.

Peterson said the juror’s recollections didn’t materialize until after the trial was under way, and she indicated so during an interview after concerns came forth.

The juror “did not exhibit any bias and stated that she could be fair and impartial,” he wrote.

Complete Article HERE!

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Man who attacked priest in revenge is not guilty of felonies

William Lynch, who beat the Catholic priest he said molested him as a child, is acquitted on elder abuse and felony assault charges. He may be retried on a misdemeanor assault charge.

SAN JOSE — A jury has found a San Francisco man not guilty of felony assault and felony elder abuse, despite his admission that he attacked the priest accused of molesting him nearly four decades ago.

The 10-man, two-woman panel also said Thursday that William Lynch was not guilty of misdemeanor elder abuse in the 2010 attack on Father Jerold Lindner. The 67-year-old Catholic priest has been linked to more than a dozen alleged victims — including his own nieces, nephew and sister — but never has been brought to trial because the statute of limitations in every case had run out.

The jury was split on a final charge against Lynch: misdemeanor assault. Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge David Cena declared a mistrial on that count. Dist. Atty. Jeffrey Rosen said his office would decide in the coming days whether to retry Lynch.

After the verdict was read, Lynch said he had felt certain that he would be going to jail — and was pleasantly surprised that he would not. But he also spoke haltingly, and with deep emotion, about justice and responsibility.

“I was wrong for what I did,” said Lynch, 45. “If I’m going to be taking responsibility, I have to take it fully. And in [beating Lindner] … I was perpetuating the cycle of violence.”

Surrounded by family, supporters and his attorneys in front of the courthouse, Lynch said: “I wanted to … be accountable, unlike the church and Father Jerry up to this point.”

Rosen said that his office too had had a responsibility: to charge Lynch for lying his way into the Sacred Heart Jesuit Center, where the retired Lindner lived, and attacking him.

Using “a fake name, gloves. Beating and bloodying someone. That’s not justice under the law,” Rosen said after the verdict, giving a shorthand account of Lynch’s actions. “That’s revenge.”

Rosen said that although his office understood what motivated Lynch’s behavior, “we do not condone it.… A just punishment is delivered through our justice system, not through the acts of one traumatized and troubled man.”

The two-week-long trial was filled with dramatic turns and punctuated with tearful, graphic testimony — not about the attack in question, but about what happened in 1974. That is when Lindner allegedly lured Lynch and his younger brother, then 7 and 4, into his tent during a Catholic family camping trip. The boys said that the priest raped them and forced them to perform oral copulation on each other while he watched.

As the trial opened, Deputy Dist. Atty. Vicki Gemetti told the jury that Lindner, who was a spiritual advisor for the outing in the Santa Cruz Mountains, had indeed molested the Lynch brothers.

She played a gut-wrenching video of a San Jose Mercury News interview in which Lynch recently talked in graphic detail about that camping trip years ago. Gemetti told the jury that Lindner would “probably lie” when he took the stand.

When Gemetti asked whether he had molested Lynch and his brother, Lindner said: “No.”

Defense attorneys called for a mistrial, insisting Gemetti had committed prosecutorial misconduct by inducing perjury. Cena disagreed, and the trial continued.

But when Lindner returned to the stand, he refused to testify further on the grounds that he might incriminate himself. The judge then struck Lindner’s testimony entirely and told the jury to ignore the priest’s description of Lynch’s “vicious” attack.

And that, Juror No. 12 said, was key for him in deciding the case.

“The victim in this case disappeared,” said the retired accountant, who declined to give his name. “His testimony disappeared. To me, if you have no victim, do you have a crime?”

The juror, who walked with a cane and sported a silver brush cut, described the nine hours of jury deliberations over three days as cordial and professional.

“There were 12 people who simply agreed to disagree,” the juror said. “There was some disagreement with the law. There was disagreement with some of the testimony. There was disagreement with each other.”

The juror said that everyone on the panel believed that Lindner had committed “absolutely heinous” crimes against Lynch and his brother. But, he said, he was one of the eight who voted “guilty” on the lesser charge of simple misdemeanor assault because Lynch “got up and said he did it.”

To defense attorneys Pat Harris and Paul Mones, Lynch’s testimony was an act of courage fueled by his desire to protect other children from Lindner — and to fight the Roman Catholic Church and other institutions that cover up child sexual abuse and protect perpetrators.

“Will had the strength to speak for many people who can’t speak,” said Mones, who called the jury’s verdict “an example of what’s been happening around the country today.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Monk suspected in killings at Dutch psychiatric hospital in 1950s

Thirty-seven boys who died in the early 1950s in a Dutch psychiatric hospital run by the Catholic Church were probably killed by a monk in charge of their care, prosecutors said on Thursday.

It was the latest in a string of scandals to hit the church in the Netherlands, where an independent commission found last year up to 20,000 minors were sexually abused in Catholic orphanages, boarding schools and seminaries between 1945 and 1981.

In a report released on Thursday, prosecutors said the boys who died between 1952 and 1954 in St. Joseph’s psychiatric hospital in the southeastern town of Heel had likely been given morphine overdoses by Brother Andreas.

Prosecutors said Brother Andreas had died and there were no known living suspects. If he had been alive there was enough proof to launch a criminal investigation.

The deaths happened so long ago that prosecutors said exhuming bodies of the victims for toxicology tests would likely not have helped pin down a cause of death.

The Catholic Church has been under fire for years in Europe and North America for sexual offenses committed against children over the past century and attempts to cover up the crimes.

The Dutch inquiry was launched after the commission found an unusually high number of deaths at the hospital during the period. It said Guus Vestraelen, the institution’s doctor, had almost certainly covered up for Brother Andreas by misreporting the causes of death. He too has since died.

“On the basis of the facts established … Brother Andreas would be a suspect if he were still alive,” prosecutors wrote, noting that any offences committed in the 1950s might have lapsed under Dutch law.

They said the Diocese of Roermond, in which the hospital was located, had learned of the deaths by 1958, but had not informed authorities.

“The bishopric finds it inexplicable that it didn’t report these events at the time,” the Diocese said on Thursday in a statement on what it called the “disturbing” findings. It expressed regret that an internal investigation carried out in the 1950s had failed to establish the facts.

Prosecutors said their investigation found that Brother Andreas was not qualified to care for disabled boys and that the large number of deaths sharply declined after he was transferred to another institution.

Complete Article HERE!