Tag: Clergy Abuse Survivors

By Laura Crimaldi

Fifteen years after the clergy sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston broke into public view, hundreds of victims around the world continue to come forward, including some who say they were attacked as recently as 2001, advocates said Thursday.

Two victims’ support groups and a lawyer who has represented more than 2,000 survivors worldwide denounced church officials for doing too little to help those who were abused and to protect children from harm, despite ongoing revelations about the scope of the crisis.

“You have reportedly the most moral institution in the world acting the most immoral,” attorney Mitchell Garabedian said at a news conference Thursday in downtown Boston. “There is no excuse for it.”

The event coincided with the anniversary of The Boston Globe Spotlight Team’s 2002 reports about former priest John J. Geoghan, who was shuffled from parish to parish despite evidence of his predatory sexual habits.

Since the 2015 release of “Spotlight,” a movie about the Globe’s investigation into the abuse scandal, Garabedian said he has heard from hundreds of new victims, including “dozens upon dozens” who accuse priests or employees of the Boston Archdiocese of attacking them.

“No bishop has been punished for protecting pedophile priests,” said Ann Hagan Webb, the Rhode Island coordinator for Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, who says she was abused by a clergy member. “As far as I can tell, the pope’s commission about child abuse has done absolutely nothing over the last few years of its existence.”

A spokesman for the Boston Archdiocese, Terrence C. Donilon, said safeguarding children is paramount.

“The church continues to hold the protection of children as a priority while at the same time providing support to survivors and all people who have suffered as a result of clergy sexual abuse,” Donilon said in a statement. “We are grateful for the efforts of all of those who join us in this important ministry.”

The archdiocese reports that its Office of Pastoral Support and Outreach has met with more than 1,000 survivors since 2002.

At any given time, the office provides pastoral, therapeutic, and medical assistance to an average of 300 people, Donilon said. Some people came forward as recently as last year, but Donilon said he couldn’t say exactly how many.

Over the past 12 years, the archdiocese has spent nearly $35 million on counseling, psychiatric medications, and other services for survivors. Since 2003, it has paid about $215 million to settle legal claims, church officials say.

After the abuse scandal became public, the archdiocese began reporting all allegations of clergy sex abuse to law enforcement, notifying child welfare officials if the victim was younger than 18, and telling the public when a clergy member was removed from active ministry for investigatory reasons, officials said.

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, was appointed by Pope Francis to serve on an advisory panel on sexual abuse and has personally apologized to hundreds of survivors and their relatives, the archdiocese said.

In a letter made public Monday, Francis told bishops worldwide they must have zero tolerance for clergy who sexually abuse children.

But Bassam Haddad, 43, of North Andover, said he received no help from church or civil authorities after he came forward in 2012 to say he had been abused in Lawrence by the Rev. Ross S. Frey from when he was 13 until he was nearly 18.

“I can’t get over the pain,” said Haddad, who said he’s attempted suicide six times. “It’s not fair that people like me . . . have to live our lives knowing that these people got away with what they did.”

Frey was a priest with the Basilian Salvatorian Order and the Melkite Catholic Church. He died in 2014 after moving to Lebanon, where he couldn’t be returned to the United States for prosecution, Garabedian said.

Another man who spoke with reporters at the news conference said he was sexually abused by Ricardo Gonzalez, who held an administrative post at Our Lady of the Assumption Church in East Boston. He and two others sued the archdiocese in September.

“They’re saying he was a volunteer and they’re not taking responsibility,” said the man, who asked that his name be withheld. “My damages are like endless.”

Gonzalez pleaded guilty in 2015 to sexually assaulting three children during the 1980s and was sentenced to four years in jail, according to the Suffolk district attorney’s office.

Garabedian said some clergy sex abuse victims now coming forward are in their late 20s or early 30s, meaning they were abused in the 1980s or 1990s.

“The clergy sexual abuse crisis is endless,” he said. “They’ve enabled the sexual abuse to continue for decades, and it’s not going to end in my lifetime.”

Complete Article HERE!

Trials, Lawsuits, and Financial Strains

 

By Neil Pang

With Apuron’s canonical trial underway and a slew of civil lawsuits filed in Guam, the Catholic Church confronts new crises here and at the Vatican

 
With the Archdiocese of Agaña facing 13 lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse – and the real potential for additional suits to follow – the Catholic Church is preparing for what could be a drawn out and highly publicized exposure of alleged abuses and cover ups, as well as court ordered payouts possibly adding up to millions of dollars.

At the center of the current tumult are two interrelated events: the allegations of child sexual abuse leveled against local archdiocesan clergymen and the passage of Bill 326-33 into Public Law 33-187 that eliminated the statute of limitations in cases involving child sexual abuse.

Years of controversy

Contention and controversy were not new to the Archdiocese of Agaña prior to the May 17 statement made by Roy Quintanilla that alleged child sexual abuse against Archbishop Anthony Apuron.

For at least six years prior to Quintanilla’s accusation, Apuron often found himself the subject of news stories that intimately connected him to instances of alleged cover-ups of priests accused of abuse.

In 2010, Apuron was criticized by leaders of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) when it came to light that local priest Rev. Raymond Cepeda had been defrocked over allegations of abuse made against him. That revelation was exacerbated when, shortly thereafter, two other priests who served under the Archdiocese were found to be no longer engaged in public ministry after their ministerial authority had been permanently revoked due to allegations of sexual abuse.

According to Post files, Rev. Randolph “Randy” Nowak and Rev. Andrew “Andy” Mannetta were stripped of their ministerial authorities, in 2004 and 2002 respectively, over allegations of abuse that occurred off-island against individuals who were minors at the time.

SNAP had requested that Apuron follow in the steps of other dioceses and post a list of all priests accused of sexual abuse that had or currently did serve under the Archdiocese of Agaña. Apuron never complied with SNAP’s request.

In 2014, Apuron was again targeted by SNAP. The group, asserted that Apuron engaged in “dangerous” behavior when he knowingly allowed a clergyman, Rev. John Wadeson, accused of sexual abuse in Los Angeles, to minister in the Archdiocese of Agaña. Apuron denied prior knowledge of the accusations against Wadeson. Following the publication of molestation allegations by SNAP, Post files state that Wadeson was removed from the Archdiocese of Agana.

Apuron was also accused of mismanagement of multi-million dollar church assets when, in 2011, he filed a deed restriction on the Redemptoris Mater Seminary that certain legal opinions asserted essentially transferred control of the Yona property from the Archdiocese of Agaña to a nonprofit organization outside the purview of the church.

Then, in a seeming crescendo, Apuron himself was named in a series of child sexual abuse accusations starting with Quintanilla in May of 2016. Quintanilla, a former altar boy from the Agat parish where Apuron ministered in the 1970s, was followed by Doris Concepcion – the mother of Joseph A. Quinata, who admitted to her shortly before his death in 2005 of being sexually abused by Apuron in the late 1970s.

The two were joined by Walter Denton and Roland Sondia in June when they made similar accusations of abuse against Apuron.

Subsequent accusations have been made against other priests who served on Guam at various times in the past decades, including Rev. Louis Brouillard, Rev. Antonio Cruz (deceased), and Rev. David Anderson.

Save for a few videos and selfies published online from Rome in early summer and a prepared statement welcoming the appointment of his successor last month, Apuron has been unusually silent. All that is known is that he remains at the Vatican in Rome, where, according to Guam’s new archbishop, Michael Jude Byrnes, a canonical trial is now underway

According to clergy child sex abuse advocate Patrick J. Wall, Apuron could be the first Archbishop to survive a canonical trial.

“The new Archbishop [Byrnes] reported that the canonical trial of [former] Archbishop Apuron is underway,” Wall said in an email. “This is new ground in the modern world as no Bishop I am aware of who sexually abused children has ever finished a canonical trial. Archbishop Wesolowski died prior to the completion of his trial in Rome.”

Wesolowski was the former Holy See envoy to the Dominican Republic who was accused in 2013 of sexually abusing teenage boys and defrocked in 2014, according to the International Business Times. At the time, Wesolowski was the highest-ranking Vatican official ever to be investigated for sex abuse, and was the first top papal representative to receive a defrocking sentence.

Though Wesolowski was successfully laicized, or had his clerical status revoked, he died before standing trial for accusations of possessing child pornography, for which he faced a possible prison term.

Canonical trial

While survivors of alleged abuse continue to come forward in suits filed against the Archdiocese of Agaña and its clergymen, questions abound as to the current status of Apuron’s canonical trial in Rome.

Wall, who has extensive experience in the field of Catholic clergy abuse and is currently an advocate at Jeff Anderson and Associates, explained that the trial itself will proceed as follows:

First, a complaint is filed by the Promoter of Justice, what the church calls the prosecutor, at the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office responsible for upholding the integrity of the Catholic Church.

The next step is where Wall says the trial likely is now. According to his explanation, the Vatican court will receive an answer to the complaint written by the Respondant’s canonical advocate.

Referring to statements made by Byrnes on Nov. 28 that the “initial phase” of Apuron’s trial had started, Wall said Byrnes had indicated that Apuron had received the written charge from the Promoter of Justice and that the next stage was discovery.

During the discovery phase, Wall explained that documents, depositions, and all relevant evidence would be exchanged.

Trial and determination by a panel of three Clerical Judges would follow with penalties up to and including dismissal from the clerical state. Additional “lower penalties” are also imposed at this time and, if applicable, the Pope would then need to assign Apuron to a monastery or some other appropriate location, according to Wall.

While it is unclear exactly what charges Apuron received from the Promoter of Justice, it is pertinent to note that, according to “The Norms of the motu proprio ‘Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela’,” the 2001 letter by Pope John Paul II that amended the Code of Canon Law to include sexual abuse of a minor under 18 by a cleric among the new list of canonical crimes or “delicts” reserved to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, canon law stipulates a 10 year statute of limitations on cases involving child sexual abuse that begins from the year the victim turns 18.

Regardless of what charges Apuron is presented with, the Code of Canon Law contains additional provisions under which Apuron could potentially be charged with other “grave delicts” and removed.

However, as indicated by Wall, the procedures outlined for canonical trials move slowly, and that any determination made following the discovery phase could take months to articulate. During that time, the secular courts will also have to move forward with their own proceedings, with or without Apuron’s presence.

Back on Guam

Of the 13 child sex abuse suits currently sitting in Guam’s courts, four name Apuron, six name Brouillard, one names Anderson, and another names Cruz.

While Apuron has maintained his innocence of the accusations made against him, Brouillard has openly admitted in written and video documentation that he abused at least 20 boys during his tenure on Guam in the 1960s and 70s. Anderson, who court documents state resides in the mainland U.S., has not been located, and Cruz is deceased.

Connecting Brouillard to the accusations of abuse is a foregone conclusion, but making the connection to Apuron, Anderson, the Archdiocese, any of the five unnamed insurance companies, or 45 unnamed individuals will be an uphill battle for attorney David Lujan, who must establish a preponderance of evidence in multiple cases for events that allegedly transpired decades prior.

As the plaintiff in the cases, Lujan will be tasked with the burden of proof. As legal sources explain, that burden tends to become increasingly difficult with the passage of time.

Further, there is an additional hurdle that could potentially obstruct proceedings.

Given the contentiousness with which these cases have been publicized and the reach that such publicity has had within Guam’s relatively small community, there is a reasonable chance that establishing an unbiased jury will prove difficult. In fact, a number of Superior Court of Guam judges have already recused themselves from some of the 13 cases filed for reasons of familiar relationship with individuals somehow tied to the cases.

According to Post files, Judge Anita Sukola went so far as to cite exposure to the case via the church she attends, as well as her personal relationship with Apuron, as grounds for her recusal.

A number of judges have already filed disqualification memoranda in the cases, according to Gloria Lujan Rudolph of the firm Lujan & Wolff, LLP.

Rudolph, an attorney with the firm that represents the 13 existing claimants, told the Sunday Post that, so far, “Judge Pro Tempore Ingles, Judges Perez, Cenzon, Iriarte, Lamorena, and Sukola have recused themselves from at least one of the child sex abuse cases against the Church.”

Rudolph added that her firm had agreed to give the Archdiocese extra time to respond to the complaints that have already been served.

Once the complaints have been answered and the jury trials commence, counsel will have to determine, as stipulated in each of the 13 suits, the sum of the general, special, and other damages, including attorney’s fees, that will comprise the plaintiffs’ request for relief.

While such a sum cannot be easily ascertained, Post files concerning the fate of former Guam priest Rev. Andrew Mannetta state that in January 2007, the Catholic Diocese of Honolulu reached an out-of-court settlement with Elton Killion, who accused Mannetta of sexually abusing him from 1997 to 2001 during a time that Killion was a minor. The church paid out $375,000.

While none of the current 13 suits are related or equivalent to Killion’s 2007 suit, if the $375,000 figure is used as a benchmark, then the Archdiocese of Agaña, as of now, could stand to lose upwards of $4.5 million and be forced to sell some of its more valuable, and contentious, properties to make those payments.

Complete Article HERE!

By Mark Mueller

Thirteen years ago, amid allegations he molested a 16-year-old boy, the Rev. Kevin Gugliotta was suspended from ministry in New Jersey, his case referred to the Vatican for guidance because of an unusual circumstance.

When the alleged sex assaults occurred in the mid-1980s, Gugliotta wasn’t yet an ordained Catholic priest. He was a private-sector engineer and Boy Scout leader.

In the eyes of the Vatican, the distinction appeared to be a critical one, regardless of the case’s merit.

A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Newark told NJ Advance Media last week the Vatican ruled that church law, known as canon law, prevented Gugliotta from being punished for something he might have done as a layman. In December 2004, he was quietly reinstated, free of restrictions on his ministry, and served for years in various parishes, including a long stint as chaplain to a youth group.

That decision, which was not widely disclosed, is now being questioned by his accuser and others in the wake of Gugliotta’s arrest in October on 40 counts of possessing and disseminating child pornography.

Gugliotta, 54, remains jailed in Pennsylvania in lieu of $1 million bail, a spokeswoman for the Wayne County District Attorney’s Office said. He is accused of using a computer at his vacation home in Lehigh Township, Pa., to download and share images and videos of children involved in sex acts.

The man who accused him of sexual abuse in 2003 said he was unaware of the Vatican’s ruling on Gugliotta, calling it “mind-blowing” that the decision appeared to be based on a technicality.

The accuser, who did not file a lawsuit or seek money from the archdiocese, questioned how the church could allow a potential threat into its parishes, particularly so soon after the clergy sexual abuse crisis exploded into national view two years earlier, in 2002.

Greg Gianforcaro, a lawyer who facilitated the accuser’s testimony before a board of church investigators in 2003, put the onus on the archdiocese. Even if Archbishop John J. Myers could not bar Gugliotta from serving as a priest under canon law, Gianforcaro argued, Myers could have at least placed him in a position away from children.

“When does common sense take over, and what about the concern for children?” Gianforcaro asked. “That’s crazy.”

Myers’ spokesman, Jim Goodness, said the archdiocese forwarded the case to Rome after it had “looked into the matter seriously.”

“Since the allegations dealt with a time frame before he was a priest, there was nothing canonically the church could do,” Goodness said, adding that he was unaware of any additional abuse claims against Gugliotta. “All I can say is the direction that was given to us by Rome is that no penal action could be taken.”

Such decisions are made by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would become Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.

The Rev. James Connell, a canon lawyer in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and a prominent advocate for victims of clergy sexual abuse, said the Vatican appeared to act appropriately under canon law in determining Gugliotta could not be punished for alleged wrongdoing that occurred before he was an ordained priest.

At the same time, Connell said, Vatican officials should consider amending church laws to eliminate what he characterized as a loophole that could allow potential abusers to remain in the priesthood.

“That’s worth looking at,” he said.

Connell was more forceful in suggesting Myers could have taken action to restrict Gugliotta’s ministry. Under canon law, he said, bishops have a free hand to assign priests where they see fit.

“The bishop of the diocese has a responsibility to be watching out for the care of all the people,” Connell said. “If he knows technically nothing can be done, morally something should be done, so he is not in a spot where someone could be hurt.”

One of Gugliotta’s former pastors — the Rev. John Paladino of St. Bartholomew the Apostle Parish in Scotch Plains, where Gugliotta worked with the youth group for eight years — stopped short of criticizing the archdiocese, but he said he believed he should have been told about the man’s past.

“I had no idea,” Paladino said. “As a pastor, I would want to know something like that.”

Critics of the archbishop say his handling of Gugliotta represents another misstep for Myers, who has previously been criticized for the manner in which he has managed priests accused of sexual abuse. Myers, whose retirement has been accepted by Pope Francis, is due to be replaced by Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Indianapolis in January.

“To me, it’s unconscionable that they allowed him to remain a priest without restrictions,” said Mark Crawford, the New Jersey director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, an advocacy and support group. “And then to allow him to be a youth minister? How reckless was that?”

Gugliotta, a nationally ranked poker player who has regularly competed in tournaments around the country, was arrested at a Toms River home Oct. 21. He was extradited to Pennsylvania last month.

The priest’s criminal defense lawyer, James Swetz, did not return a call seeking comment.

Ordained in 1996, Gugliotta has worked at St. Rose of Lima parish in Short Hills, St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church in Wyckoff, St. Joseph’s Church in West Orange, St. Bartholomew in Scotch Plains and Immaculate Conception Church in Mahwah, where he served as pastor for little more than a year before requesting a transfer in the summer of 2016.

Goodness said the request was not in response to controversy of any kind.

“He expressed that he no longer felt he wanted to be a pastor, but he still wanted to remain in ministry,” the spokesman said.

The priest had been at his latest assignment, Holy Spirit Church in Union Township, for about a week when he was charged in the child pornography case.

Gugliotta was never charged in connection with the abuse allegations that date to the mid-1980s. The accuser, whose name is being withheld by NJ Advance Media because he is an alleged victim of sexual assault, said he reported it to the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office in March of 2003, the same month he first reached out to the archdiocese.

The man, now a 46-year-old married father of two in Union County, said he was told the case could not be prosecuted because it was beyond the statute of limitations.

In a detailed letter given to the Archdiocesan Review Board — a panel that investigates sex abuse claims — and in testimony before the board in October 2003, the man said Gugliotta was a close family friend who lived near him in Newark and and who served as his troop leader in the Boy Scouts.

Beginning in 1986, he said, Gugliotta repeatedly fondled him against his will at Scout events, at his home and on family vacations. He said Gugliotta also once spied on him through his bedroom window as he masturbated.

On another occasion, the man said, Gugliotta hid in his room quietly, apparently hoping to catch him masturbating.

The accuser said Gugliotta eventually confessed to him that he was gay and that he loved him. When the man tried to avoid contact, Gugliotta continued to stalk him into his late teens, he said, at one point showing up unannounced at his college in Pennsylvania.

The man said he felt compelled to come forward in 2003 because he realized he was keeping a secret for the wrong reason and because he wanted to protect others.

“I was not asking for or looking for any reward from the archdiocese,” he said. “I just wanted solely to keep him out of a position of power where he could abuse others.”

He said he was speaking up again now because the archdiocese, despite the child pornography charges, had remained silent about the previous abuse claims until questioned by NJ Advance Media.

Crawford, of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, echoed that criticism.

“They have said, in their words, they have a responsibility to be open and honest and transparent with the faithful and to put kids before the institution,” he said. “Clearly they failed at all levels here.”

Complete Article HERE!