By Ed Langlois

A Portland attorney who refused to enter talks over an Archdiocese of Portland document release is continuing a solo legal venture.

Erin Olson hopes to publicize thousands of pages of clergy personnel information.
Olson, who represented multiple accusers during the archdiocese’s three-year bankruptcy, came before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth Perris last week to push her point about the documents.

Perris has set up a hearings schedule that aims to settle Olson’s request by fall.
“It’s been a long time,” Perris told lawyers last week, urging them to find a resolution on documents soon.

Meanwhile, a mediation over document release will begin April 1, with the archdiocese and a handful of accusers’ lawyers being guided by retired Circuit Court Judge Lyle Velure. If that fails, U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan will step in to arbitrate. The process was the plan all along in case negotiations over the documents stalled.

In the $72 million sex abuse settlement reached a year ago, lawyers for accusers and the archdiocese agreed that documents would be released to shed light on how church leaders handled abusers. The archdiocese last June placed almost 400 pages of letters, depositions and memos on a website — www.archdiocesedocuments.org. Church leaders and their lawyers said more documents might follow, but did not want to give out private information that is not germane.

Negotiations began over what documents would be released when. Seven attorneys representing accusers joined, but Olson stayed out. Immediately after the web release, she had written to lawyers on both sides, urging that thousands more pages be unsealed.

Late last year, attorney Kelly Clark walked out of the document negotiations with the archdiocese, despite church leaders’ contention that the talks were progressing.
Tom Dulcich, legal counsel for the archdiocese, told Perris at last week’s hearing that neither side appears to be “dragging feet” in talks.

Bud Bunce, spokesman for the archdiocese, says Olson and Clark are trying to rush a process that had been planned out in advance with the agreement of everyone except Olson.

“We have already released a number of documents,” said Bunce. “We have said we will release more, and we are in the process of working that out. It does take a certain amount of time.”

The archdiocese had suggested that Olson’s document dispute could be handled by Hogan, who with Velure helped achieve last year’s landmark bankruptcy settlement. But Perris said such an appointment is not part of bankruptcy court rules.
Judge Perris, by setting the schedule the way she did, affirmed the archdiocese’s request that her decision be deferred until Judge Hogan has a chance to rule in his arbitration.

Meanwhile, parishes all over western Oregon are showing mandatory films and continuing an education process so that students, parents and staff can recognize and block possible sexual abuse. Last week, Catholics fasted and prayed for a day to promote healing of abuse victims and the church.

By Bill Bishop

The Register-Guard

PORTLAND — Lawyers who charge the Archdiocese of Portland is going back on a promise to open its records about priests who sexually abused children were back in court Thursday to ask a judge to decide what should happen to thousands of documents in question.

The judge set a schedule for hearings that should settle the controversy in October.

The disputed records were part of an April settlement in the archdiocese’s historic bankruptcy reorganization, the first in the nation by a Catholic diocese facing lawsuits that sought millions of dollars in damages for sexual abuse by priests.

The reorganization, filed in 2004, paid $77 million to settle 175 lawsuits. It allowed the archdiocese to continue operations without selling any parish or school properties. As part of the deal, Archbishop John Vlazny released some priest personnel and other church records, and said other documents may be released through a mediation process between the church and lawyers for victims.

The mediation process broke down last month when one of the main negotiators for abuse victims, attorney Kelly Clark of Portland, walked out. Clark said Thursday he is embarrassed that he ever believed church leaders intended to keep their promise.

Another lawyer for abuse victims, Erin Olson of Portland, then asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth Perris to open records that had been under seal in the case. Olson said she never had any faith in the mediation process between the church and Clark, and refused to participate in it.

Archdiocese spokesman Bud Bunce said Thursday that both lawyers are jumping to conclusions and rushing a process that had been set up for the purpose.

“We have already released a number of documents,” Bunce said. “We have said we will release more, and we are in the process of working that out. It does take a certain amount of time.”

In court Thursday, Perris made it clear that she intends to settle the controversy as quickly as possible.

“It has been a long time,” Perris told lawyers for both sides. “This process isn’t going to take another year. I can assure you of that.”

Perris encouraged both sides to continue negotiating to settle on as many disputed documents as possible through the mediation/arbitration process involving Clark. But she also set out a parallel court process that will conclude with a hearing Sept. 30 after which she will rule on any remaining documents.

The outcome either will set a precedent for Catholic organizations nationwide, or will shift the fight for church accountability to another diocese elsewhere in the country, said John Shuster, a former Catholic priest and current member of the national board for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

He said abuse survivors will never stop pushing for public safety from pedophile priests, and for accountability among church leaders who covered up their crimes against children.

“The bishop should be made to live up to what he agreed to,” said Shuster, who attended Thursday’s hearing. “There are priests out there who have committed serious sex crimes against children. They have never been identified. There is information in those records that is going to show more priests and more complicit church leaders. You can be 80 years old and still abuse a child. This is an issue of public safety.”

However, Bunce said church leaders have publicly and repeatedly apologized for abuse by clergy and for failures in leadership. He said the archdiocese has implemented policies to help educate parents, teachers and children about recognizing, reporting and preventing child abuse.

“We are not in denial about this,” Bunce said. “We understand it very clearly.”

Ten times more than medical treatment to U.S. victims

Legal Fees now total $200 million for the past four years

Also, number of never before reported clergy offenders in U. S. increases for first time

Statement by Peter Isely, SNAP National Board, Milwaukee

United States bishops paid a staggering $60 million dollars to their attorneys last year to defend themselves for covering up child sex crimes, according to a yearly “self-report” issued today.   The total amount of money bishops have been billed by attorneys in the last four years now tops $200 million dollars.

In comparison, the bishops last year spent one tenth of that total, or about 8 million dollars, on therapy costs for victims.  And $22 million dollars was spent on child protection efforts in 2007, or just one third of what church attorneys billed Catholic dioceses last year.   

These figures were buried today in the annual self-report “audit” released by the American Catholic Bishops and they reveal very starkly exactly what the priorities are for the bishops:  themselves.   

Of equal concern, for the first time since self-reports were issued in 2004 the number of U.S. Catholic clergy with “new, credible” allegations of child sex abuse increased last year by ten percent.  204 newly identified clerics last year were reported to have committed child sex crimes in Catholic institutions across the United States.  The number of clerics known by church authorities who have raped or sexually assaulted children over the past several decades totals, with the new numbers, over 5,000.   

Sadly, on the eve of the Pope’s first visit to the United States, just a few months away: 

-The identities and settlement locations of clerical sex offenders remain secret.

-56 U.S. religious orders refused last year to even participate in the self-report and are not in compliance with the Dallas Charter.

-Clergy are still not mandatory reporters of child sex abuse in the majority of U.S. states. 

-No bishop or priest has yet to be disciplined or fired for not reporting child abuse or for covering up child sex crimes.

-Several lay review boards did not even meet in 2007.

-Church hired “auditors” who issued the report were again given no access to personal files, making it pretty hard to review criminal conduct.

-The quality, duration or nature of outreach to victims or treatment and supervision of offenders remains a mystery. 

Admittedly, some information about child sex crimes from American bishops is better than none.  But today’s self-report, like the ones issued in the past, raise a lot more questions than they answer. 

Even so, when the Pope visits the United States this spring, will the American bishops insist that the partial reforms in the United States must be implemented across the globe?   

There are 400,500 clergy in the Catholic Church worldwide.  The American bishops have admitted that at least 4 percent of their clergy are or have been child sex offenders.  That would mean, conservatively, some 20,000 priests worldwide are likely child molesters who are unpunished, untreated and unsupervised.    

As for the United States, as long as federal or national authorities, such as the Department of Justice, no doubt out of political considerations, will not investigate how over 5,000 priest child molesters were transferred into virtually every parish and school in the United States, including across state and international boundaries, Catholics have little choice but to rely on these on these thin, compromised, and poorly constructed yearly reports.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) is the nation’s oldest and largest self help organization of clergy sex abuse survivors, founded in 1980 with over, 7,000 victim/survivors in 61 chapters nationwide.  Visit SNAP online at SNAPnetwork.org