Tag: Priest Abusers

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Woman shares story of alleged abuse by priests

An Iowa woman contemplating a return to the Roman Catholic Church last year agreed to meet with a priest on one condition — he remove his collar.

“Roman collars still frighten me,” Kathleen Bowman, 47, told the priest.

She then emerged from four decades of silence, having only ever shared with a therapist her story of alleged abuse as a child by three priests because the memories were making her suicidal.

“I didn’t know I could report,” Bowman told the Quad-City Times, her first time speaking publicly about the alleged abuse. “It was taking everything just to maintain life.”

The Clear Lake, Iowa, woman first told a Mason City parish priest in the Archdiocese of Dubuque in August 2011, and he encouraged her to report her story. That brought her before a review board with the Diocese of Davenport, where her three alleged abusers had been clerics around the time she says she was abused.

How the Davenport diocese handled her case was the subject of a judge’s decision last week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The diocese recently emerged from bankruptcy after a $37 million settlement covering 150 child sex abuse victims.

U.S. District Judge Lee Jackwig ordered the diocese to add the now-deceased Revs. John Bonn, Michael Broderick and William Dawson to its online list of credibly accused priests, according to a filing late Tuesday.

Bowman petitioned the court last month to require the diocese to put Bonn, Broderick and Dawson on the list. The diocese resisted, saying it had reviewed Bowman’s case and found her accusations not credible, although she received a settlement after an arbitrator heard her case earlier in the year.

“If they think throwing money at you compensates having your childhood ripped away, it doesn’t,” Bowman said. “I want the names on that list, so that if someone else comes forward, they don’t have to go through what I went through reporting my abuse.”

One of the bankruptcy settlement’s non-monetary requirements is that the diocese identify on its website priests whom it deems to be credibly accused of committing child sexual abuse. The list includes 31 former priests, their places of employment, dates and other details.

As of Friday, Bonn, Broderick and Dawson weren’t on the list.

Diocese weighs response

Diocese spokesman Deacon David Montgomery said the diocese received the court’s written order Thursday morning and is “exploring its options,” declining further comment about Bowman’s case.

A lawyer representing the diocese, Rand Wonio of the Davenport law firm Lane & Waterman, said the diocese is studying the judge’s order and will respond soon.

Bowman said she was 4 years old when a tall, white-haired man wearing a priest’s collar reached down and picked her up and carried her upstairs in her family’s home in Waterloo, Iowa. When she woke up from a nap, the priest was lying beside her, fondling her, she said.

The incident occurred in 1969, and Bowman has identified the man as John Bonn. She said she was abused again by Bonn as well as by Broderick and Dawson in separate incidents over the course of five years. She said her parents knew.

The three priests made multiple weekend trips together to her home, she said.

“They were family. They were my dad’s best friends.”

She said her father, Michael Huston, who once considered the priesthood, went to high school with Dawson at Catholic Central in Ottumwa, Iowa.

An obituary shows that Dawson co-officiated Huston’s funeral in 1997.

Fellow priest skeptical

The Rev. John Hynes, a retired Davenport diocese parish priest, said Friday that he knew Dawson for more than 60 years, since they were students in college, and affectionately called him “Digger.”

Hynes said he was “devastated” by the allegation against Dawson.

“Every instinct I have within me tells me it couldn’t have happened,” Hynes said.

He said Dawson was admired as a professor at St. Ambrose University in Davenport and was recognized for leading peaceful demonstrations during the Vietnam War. He received multiple awards for his teaching and has long been regarded for his work in social justice, Hynes said.

Hynes doesn’t remember an accusation ever being made against Dawson before this.

“Anyone who knew Digger well would have a hard time thinking he could be involved in such a thing,” Hynes said.

Hynes confirmed that Dawson and Huston were friends. Hynes said he personally knew Huston’s parents when he spent his first 10 years as a priest in Ottumwa, where Huston grew up.

“I knew of Michael Huston. He was a friend of Digger’s,” Hynes said. “I knew his parents.”

Dawson once visited Huston at a hospital after Huston was in a car accident, Hynes said.

Hynes also confirmed that Dawson and Broderick traveled together and were close friends. He said Broderick was a parish priest in Ottumwa while Dawson was a student, and “Broderick thought the world of Digger.”

He said he doesn’t recall Bonn ever joining Broderick and Dawson on their trips but said it is possible the three were acquainted. According to Hynes, Bonn served at the Ottumwa Naval Air Station during World War II around the same time Broderick and Dawson were in Ottumwa.

Bonn, a Jesuit priest from the New England Province of the Society of Jesus, relocated to the Davenport diocese in 1969, according to New England Province spokeswoman Alice Poltorick.

Poltorick said the Davenport diocese notified the province about the allegation in late 2011. The province has not received any other allegations against Bonn, she said.

Bonn was a professor at Boston College from 1937-43, when he joined the service as a World War II naval chaplain, Poltorick said. He returned to Boston College and was a member of the faculty until 1946, she said.

Bonn applied for and was given a faculty position at Marycrest College in Davenport in 1969, Poltorick said.

Bonn died in 1975; Broderick died in 1984.

Accuser denied meeting

Bowman brought her allegations to the Davenport diocese in September 2011, while Dawson still was alive. She repeatedly requested a meeting with Dawson and was refused, she said. He died Dec. 13, 2011, and she said she never received a written apology from him.

“With or without their blessing, I’m credible,” Bowman said. “I need them to do the right thing and name those priests.”

Complete Article HERE!

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N.J. man publishes book on abuse by priests in the Diocese of Trenton

It took Bruce Novozinsky more than seven years and 14,000 pages of letters, memos, manuscripts and interviews to produce his book on the decades of sexual abuse allegedly covered up by the powers that be in the Roman Catholic Church.

“Purple Reign: Sexual Abuse and Abuse of Power in the Diocese of Trenton”, written with co-author Linda Vele Alexander, hit stores and online in June and recently became the sixth-most purchased e-book about Christianity on Amazon.com.

“Purple Reign,” the result of what the Upper Freehold resident calls an “obsession,” chronicles his memoirs in Catholic school — and three years at the former Divine Word Seminary in Bordentown — and the sexual abuse suffered in the Diocese of Trenton through the mid- to late 20th century.

“We were all products of the 1970s, where you just kind of prayed to, obeyed and paid the church. Nobody ever questioned the politics involved,” Novozinsky said in a telephone interview earlier this week.

The book reads like a conversation with Novozinsky — “I write like I speak and that’s with candor and very little filtering,” he writes. The book is interspersed with firsthand accounts of others’ sexual abuse, correspondence with the alleged perpetrators more than 40 years later, and reflections on the abuse perpetrated by men wholly trusted by their victims.

“I didn’t look like the typical candidate for a kidnapping, or a sexual assault for that matter, and yet less than an hour before, I had a priest on top of me,” Novozinsky writes of his own close call with sexual abuse by his parish priest decades ago.

He latched onto the subject when news broke of the sexual abuse scandal 10 years ago in the Archdiocese of Boston, as those experiences and rumors started “eating at him.”

“To say that the Catholic Church abuse crisis started in January 2002 in Boston, Mass., is naive and simply not true,” Novozinsky writes. “Sexual abuse and the abuse of power in the Church have been around since Adam bit the apple.”

The book includes anecdotes of weeping parents pleading with priests to take action over the abuse witnessed by their sons — and the resulting inaction.

“Everybody had a horrible, horrible story to relay, but the common theme was, ‘Nobody did anything about it,’ ” Novozinsky said. “Or they settled a case and were told to be quiet, or were told, ‘This is a secret between us and God.’ Just being in a workforce and in corporate America, it just dawned on me that this is the highest degree of sexual harassment.”

“The abuse is bad enough. It’s horrid,” Novozinsky said. “But the cover-up is worse, as far as I’m concerned.”
Many of the alleged perpetrators — who he said were never charged due to a “loophole” in the legal system — still live in the area, still wearing priest collars.

Even Novozinsky’s attempted abuser lives “scot-free,” he said.

The Diocese of Trenton declined to comment on any of the allegations made in “Purple Reign.”

“We have nothing to say about this book,” spokeswoman Rayanne Bennett said in a statement. “Regarding the overall issue, the diocese has been proactive and diligent in the steps we’ve taken to protect children and assist victims. Our efforts have been pastoral and transparent and we take our responsibilities in this matter very seriously.”
Novozinsky said parents, though, have ramped up efforts to protect children.

“People today are so aware that if one accusation was made, the school would be shut down,” Novozinsky said. “People are much more in tune and sensitive to it.”

The sex abuse scandal and the cover-up his book alleges hasn’t shaken Novozinsky’s faith at all, he said. His children even attend Catholic schools.

“My faith is my faith in God and the Roman Catholics. I will always be a Roman Catholic. (The research) has made my faith stronger for me,” Novozinsky said. “However, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, from Trenton to Rome — I have absolutely no confidence in them.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Fort Worth Roman Catholic Diocese settles sexual abuse case

A man who accused disgraced priest Philip Magaldi of sexual abuse settled his claim Tuesday with the Fort Worth Roman Catholic Diocese, according to a news release.

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed at the man’s request, the diocese said.

The man’s attorney, Tom McElyea, said the abuse occurred in Tarrant County and started in about 1994 when his client was 9.

Magaldi was being defrocked when he died in 2008. Before his death, the diocese announced that he was HIV positive. McElyea said his client does not have the virus.

As with two other known accusations against Magaldi, the man was subjected to enemas as part of his abuse, McElyea said.

In 1997, while serving at a parish in North Richland Hills, Magaldi was accused of paying a young man to give him enemas. Within two years, another man came forward to say Magaldi had given him enemas and had raped him as a boy.

People also claimed that Magaldi engaged in other inappropriate behavior, including “looking for minors” in Web chat rooms and possessing “pedophilic material,” according to court documents.

Bishop Kevin Vann, leader of the diocese, said in a statement that “he is deeply sorry for any sexual abuse this victim may have endured and suffered by Magaldi.”

McElyea said the diocese worked to resolve the matter and “hopefully my client can live a productive life.”

Magaldi served at St. John the Apostle Catholic Church in North Richland Hills. Besides accusations of sexual abuse, he was a convicted embezzler of church funds from his Rhode Island parish.

He had also been accused of perjury in 1985 at the second attempted-murder trial of socialite Claus von Bulow.

Complete Article HERE!

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Diocese offers loan to priest accused in sex case

The Archdiocese of Portland has offered an open-ended loan to the Rev. Angel Armando Perez to cover legal fees as he fights an accusation that he fondled a 12-year-old boy.

Archbishop John G. Vlazny approved the loan to Perez this week, Archdiocese of Portland spokesman Bud Bunce said Friday. Police said Perez chased a 12-year-old boy down a Woodburn street early Monday while dressed only in his underwear.

Perez served a parochial vicar at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Corvallis from May 2002 to July 2005.

“It’s available if he needs it,” Bunce said of the loan.

Bunce said he didn’t have details on the loan or how it would work. Parishioners in Woodburn also have begun to raise money for Perez’s defense, he said.

The Salem boy told investigators he ran from Perez’s church-owned house, with Perez chasing after him.

The 46-year-old parish priest at St. Luke Catholic Church made an initial appearance Tuesday in Marion County Circuit Court on accusations of sexual abuse, abuse of a child in the display of sexually explicit conduct, furnishing alcohol to a minor and driving under the influence.

Police said the boy told them the priest gave him a beer and he drank about half of it and that Perez also fondled him. Court documents filed after Perez’s arrest say the boy awoke to flashes and thinks the priest was taking cellphone photos of him.

Detectives wrote in their affidavit that the priest, a native of Mexico who has permanent legal residency in the U.S., told them he drank too much at a community event and doesn’t remember what happened after he and the boy watched a movie.

David Clohessy, director of the Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said the church will cover the cost of defense for priests “in the overwhelming majority of cases,” but it’s usually not called a loan.

Complete Article HERE!

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‘We’re not supposed to touch,’ said Woodburn priest accused of sex abuse

The ordination of Rev. Angel Perez in 2002 was significant for two reasons: He was the rare Mexico native among priests in Oregon and, in a year when the Catholic Church sex abuse scandals were making national news, he was the rare priest ordained period in the state.

A decade ago, Oregonian reporter Shelby Oppel wrote a profile of Perez that described his ascent from a seminary student in Mexico to the archdiocese in Portland. The piece, which follows in its entirety, was published on the front page on Aug. 5, 2002.

On Monday, Perez, now the parish priest at Saint Luke Catholic Church in Woodburn, was arrested after police responded to a complaint at about 1:30 a.m. Monday alleging inappropriate contact between the priest and a 12-year-old boy.

He faces accusations of sexual abuse, use of a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct and furnishing alcohol to a minor. Perez, 46, was booked into Marion County Jail Monday evening and remains held without bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned at 3 p.m. in Marion County Circuit Court, according to the jail.

Perez is only the second priest to face criminal charges in Oregon since 1983, when the Rev. Thomas Laughlin was convicted of molesting two boys in Multnomah County.

Complete Article HERE!

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Belgian bishop faces new abuse allegations

A Belgian lawyer said on Monday he had launched an inquiry into a new case of alleged sexual abuse by the former bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, who has already admitted to having abused his under-age nephews.

“The present case concerns sexual abuse in the 1990s,” at a care home in Loker, in western Belgium near the French border, the lawyer, Walter Van Steenbrugge, said.

He said he had handed the allegations to a court in Brussels and lodged an inquiry with it. It was up to the court to decide whether the statute of limitations ruled out a prosecution, and if not, whether or not to prosecute the bishop, he added.

Vangheluwe, who was bishop of Bruges from 1984 to 2010, is the highest-ranking member of the Belgian Catholic Church to be involved in a child abuse scandal which resulted in 475 complaints of molestation by priests.

Vangheluwe admitted in 2010 that he had abused one of his nephews during the 1980s, when the nephew was a child.

That case was beyond the statute of limitations, but he was forced to resign as bishop and left Belgium under Vatican orders.

He caused outrage in 2011 when he told a Belgian TV station that he had also abused a second nephew but that he did not consider himself a paedophile.

Complete Article HERE!

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South Boston priest held on child porn charges

A South Boston priest who police said had images of girls who appeared to be as young as 8 on a computer at the parish rectory is being held on bail after he pleaded not guilty today to child pornography charges.

The Rev. Andrew J. Urbaniak, 39, pastor of Our Lady of Czestochowa, a Roman Catholic church on Dorchester Avenue, was arrested yesterday afternoon on charges of possession and dissemination of child pornography following a two-month investigation by Boston and state police.

Urbaniak was held on $10,000 cash bail following his arraignment in South Boston District Court. If he makes bail, Judge Michael Bolden ordered Urbaniak to wear a GPS bracelet, have no contact with children under age 16, surrender his passport and remain in the state. He was also banned from using the Internet and will be subject to random unannounced checks of his computer.

Urbaniak, who was wearing a polo shirt at the arraignment, kept his eyes downcast while prosecutor Kate Clayman detailed the charges against him.

Urbaniak had been downloading child pornography and child sexual abuse images on a computer at the church, said Clayman, and when police arrived at the church yesterday to execute a search warrant the “computer was actively downloading files.”

Among the images police found on the computer at the parish rectory were a “prepubescent female child displaying graphic sexual activity” and “a 10-year-old girl lying on a bed fully exposed,” Clayman said.

Urbaniak’s attorney, Jeffrey Denner, told the judge, “He is a very decent man charged with very indecent activities. He doesn’t pose any danger, nor does he pose any risk of flight. He has devoted his life to good.”

Urbaniak, a Polish national, has been a priest at Our Lady of Czestochowa for four years. He has been an ordained priest for 14 years and has been in the United States since 2000.

The Archdiocese of Boston said today that Urbaniak has been placed on administrative leave.

“The Provincial Superior of his religious order in Poland has been informed of the matter,” the Archdiocese added. “The Church prays for all those impacted by these events and is committed to providing for the pastoral care of the parish during this difficult time.”

Urbaniak is due back in court Aug. 31 for a probable cause hearing.

Complete Article HERE!

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What if the Catholic Church Responded to Its Sex Scandal The Way the NCAA Did to Theirs?

By Mike Rivage-Seul

Many were pleasantly surprised by the severity of the sanctions the National Collegiate Athletic Association placed on Penn State following its investigation of the Jerry Sandusky child abuse scandal. The NCAA’s measures evidenced an appropriately serious approach to unspeakable crimes. At the same time, however, the athletic association’s aggressive sanctions contrasted sharply with the lack of appropriate response to much greater crimes on the part of Roman Catholic clergy. It made some wonder what it might look like if the Catholic Church handled its infinitely larger scandal in a fashion similar to that of the NCAA.

Of course, the Penn State’s board of trustees had initially tried to defuse its shameful situation by having the institution’s president resign and by firing Joe Paterno, the football program’s legendary coach. Eventually, they even removed “Joepa’s” statue that (dis)graced the entrance way to the football stadium in Happy Valley.

But the NCAA went far beyond that — even further than most had expected. It appointed high profile Independent Counsel, Louis Freeh, to investigate responsibility for Sandusky’s crimes and the cover-up that followed. Then in the wake of Freeh’s damning final report, it fined the University $60 million dollars — the amount the football program takes in annually. It ordered the program to vacate its winnings since 1998 (thus depriving Paterno of his legacy as the winningest coach in NCAA football history). It forbade the program to extend any football scholarships for the next four years, and released all of its current players from their ties to Penn State, making them immediately eligible to play elsewhere. The football program will be devastated for years to come.

The NCAA’s bold sanctions couldn’t be further from the response of the Roman Catholic hierarchy to its child abuse scandal. There instead the “old boy” defense of the institution and the members of its all male club kicked in just as it did at first inside Penn State’s football program when the Sandusky crimes initially came to light. At Penn State, the wagons were circled, Sandusky was mildly chided while everyone in charge from the University president and Joe Paterno on down denied any knowledge or responsibility. The attitude that “boys will be boys” threatened to carry the day.

The equivalent of that attitude and (non)response still prevails within the Holy City despite the shameful involvement of priests in raping and otherwise sexually abusing children on a worldwide scale that absolutely dwarfs anything that happened in Happy Valley. In the face of thorough investigations by independent groups (e.g. the absolutely devastating indictment published last year in Ireland) the Cardinal of New York invoked the “bad apples” defense, and protested that “only” a small portion of the clergy was tainted.

But what would it have looked like if (impossibly!) the Catholic Church had responded like the NCAA?

If it had done so:

  • Pope Ratzinger would have resigned immediately.
  • All cardinals and bishops who had covered up the scandal would have been removed from office.
  • The canonization process for John Paul II would have been terminated, because of the way he down-played the sex scandal. This would be the equivalent of removing Joepa’s statue.
  • An investigation independent of the Vatican would have been launched headed by an unimpeachable figure — say the Dali Lama, perhaps joined by Sr. Pat Farrell, President of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) which is currently being investigated by the Vatican.
  • Upon completion of its investigation (assuming it would have reached conclusions similar to the one in Ireland), the commission would have:
  • Fined the Catholic Church $500 billion — the equivalent of one year of the R.C. church income. The money would be used world-wide to aid victims of sex abuse and to institute programs to educate clergy about human sexuality using the best insights of current sociology and psychology.
  • Removed from the list of genuine popes all those whose public crimes made them unworthy of the title “Vicars of Christ.” Here the Borgia popes come to mind, as well as Pope Pius XII for his silence about the Jewish Holocaust. (Obviously, the process of his canonization would be abruptly ended.) This would be the rough equivalent of Penn State’s vacating its football wins since 1998.
  • The exclusion of women from the priesthood would be reversed, and seminary scholarships would be extended world-wide to women desiring to receive Holy Orders.
  • Mandatory celibacy would of course be set aside as a requirement of the priesthood — and a major contributor to the issue at hand.
  • A reforming Church Council (Vatican III?) would be ordered to deal with the sex abuse and related problems — to be attended only by bishops not involved in the abuse scandal and subsequent cover-up. Their places would be taken by women elected by national bodies equivalent to the LCWR in the United States.

Of course, nothing like the results just described is remotely possible. Roman Catholic insulation from the external processes necessary to achieve such outcomes prevents that eventuality. The only external source capable of moving the church in the desired direction belongs to the Catholic faithful itself. It alone has the authority to withhold church attendance and contributions till the desired decisions of reform are taken.

But not to worry: such pressure from the faithful will eventually be applied willy-nilly. That is, the faithful will either wage a purposeful campaign of withholding attendance and financial support in the light of failed church leadership.

Or alternatively (and more likely) the once-faithful will be driven away from the church as the realization dawns that a college sports organization possesses sounder moral character than what pretends to be the “Mystical Body of Christ.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Rafael Venegas and Luis Jose Cuevas, Catholic Priests, Accused of Sex Crimes Against Females

At least this can be said of the pending charges against two Roman Catholic priests from Southern California parishes–including St. Athanasus Church of Long Beach: only one of the four accusers is a child and all are female. The latest case involves Father Rafael Venegas, who is accused of sexual battery against a 20-year-old woman on the grounds of his St. Anne Catholic Church in Santa Monica.

The woman, who is not a parishioner, claims the assault happened in September 2011, and the Santa Monica Police Department launched an investigation July 1.

Venegas turned himself in on Monday after the city attorney charged the priest with one count of sexual battery and one count of providing alcohol to a minor.

Venegas made his $20,000 bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Friday.

Father Luis Jose Cuevas, 67, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to groping a 14-year-old girl and two women in their 20s while working at St. Athanasus, which is also where the assaults allegedly happened.

The women reported first to the archdiocese and then to Long Beach Police that they were each groped by Cuevas this past February.

Cops say that during the ensuing investigation, the teen came forward to accuse the priest of inappropriately touching “an intimate part” of her body for his sexual arousal in July 2010.

The archdiocese, which removed Cuevas from all ministry, issued a statement that was read at weekend masses indicating the Holy See considered the allegations credible and that it “takes all such matters seriously . . .”

Well, at least now it does.