By Michael Paulson Globe Staff / September 8, 2008

The Illinois Supreme Court justice who headed a board chosen by the Catholic bishops to assist them with preventing clergy sexual abuse accuses one of the nation’s top Catholic prelates of dishonesty and sharply criticizes a second in Kerry Kennedy’s new book, “Being Catholic Now,” which is being released tomorrow.

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The two cardinals named by Justice Anne M. Burke, Francis E. George of Chicago and Edward M. Egan of New York, both issued statements to the Globe rejecting the criticism.

Burke, who was interim chair of the National Review Board for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops for two years, details the scope of her concern about the American bishops in an interview with Kennedy, a daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, in her book.

She says the board “started having problems with individual cardinals and bishops who thought we were too aggressive,” and that “bishops got away with concealing crime,” and “just when you think these bishops are getting it, they turn around and do something that in any other enterprise would result in their own dismissal.”

She also alleges that, after Frank Keating, former governor of Oklahoma, was forced to resign as board chairman because he compared the bishops to the Mafia, the bishops declined to make her the permanent chairwoman because “there was no way they were going to appoint a woman to the position of chair.”

Burke’s strongest criticism is aimed at George, who is now the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. She says the cardinal withheld from her the fact that he was housing in his residence a priest accused of abuse in Delaware. She says she was “furious at his casual attitude” and that “the cardinal wasn’t honest with me. Perhaps he was not honest with himself.”

Asked by the Globe about Burke’s comment, George said in an e-mail that he allowed the Delaware priest to stay in his residence during a visit to Chicago, and that “to the best of my knowledge, I have been honest in every public and private statement I have made about the sexual abuse issue.”

“I stated publicly that there was no priest in ministry in Chicago who had against him a substantiated claim of sexual abuse of a minor,” he said. “That statement was true when I made it and it is true now.”

The priest from Delaware, he said, “was never in ministry here. He was someone I had known for several years who was coming to Chicago for a few days on business. At the time, I was unaware of all the details of his situation; but since, he let me know that a question had been raised about his past. I invited him to stay in my house rather than a parish when he came to Chicago while his own diocese was deciding whether or not he should be in ministry.”

Burke’s criticism of Egan is also pointed.

“Cardinal Edward Egan was offended by our insistence for independence,” she says. “I also think he was intimidated by the thoughts of fifty former FBI agents doing our questioning. His animosity reached an absurd level when he publicly uninvited us from attending the Cardinal’s Annual Gala in New York [an Order of Malta dinner].”

A spokesman for Egan, Joseph Zwilling, disputed Burke’s characterizations.

“The Cardinal never had or expressed an opinion on the matter of the so-called ‘dependence or independence’ of the Review Board,” Zwilling said.

“Throughout the process of audits in which former FBI agents were involved, the Archdiocese and the Cardinal Archbishop cooperated without hesitation. There was never any occasion for intimidation and at the last meeting the auditors were very complimentary regarding the Archdiocese and the Cardinal Archbishop.”

And, Zwilling said, “the Cardinal never invited the advisory board to the Order of Malta dinner, and therefore could not dis-invite them. When asked if they should be invited, he responded that in his opinion it would not be fitting because the Order of Malta had nothing to do with the sexual abuse crisis.”

Michael Paulson covers religion for the Globe. He blogs at boston.com/religion and can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.

Correction: Because of an editing error, a story on Page A8 yesterday omitted the full response of Cardinal Edward M. Egan to criticisms by Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne M. Burke, who served as chairman of the National Review Board, a panel appointed by the American bishops to review the sex abuse crisis. Egan’s spokesman said that the cardinal was fully cooperative with auditors who examined the New York archdiocese’s child protection measures, that the cardinal was not “intimidated” by the auditors, and that the cardinal had not disinvited board members from a gala dinner, but rather had expressed his opinion that “it would not be fitting” to invite them to the dinner, because the dinner was not related to the abuse crisis.

* * *

For immediate release: Monday, September 8, 2008

Statement by Barbara Blaine of Chicago, national president of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (312-399-4747)

Today’s Boston Globe discloses that a new book by an Illinois Supreme Court justice blasts Cardinal Francis George for letting a convicted Delaware child molester live part time in his mansion and work in the archdiocese.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/09/08/head_of_bishops_panel_criticizes_clerics/

In 2003, when the Chicago Sun Times disclosed the priest’s presence in Chicago, George initially claimed he didn’t know about Fr. Kenneth Martin’s past. Later, George’s spokesman split hairs, claiming the church’s sex abuse guidelines deal with only priests, and since Martin abused when he was a seminarian, the guidelines didn’t apply.

George’s secretive and reckless move happened in 2003, AFTER the US bishops supposedly committed to being “open and transparent” about clergy sex cases.

Sadly, however, the Martin case is just one of a long line of irresponsible, deceptive and insensitive steps taken by the Cardinal.

We hope every Chicago area Catholic and law enforcement official reads this book, or at least the sections relating to Cardinal George, and George’s recent deposition. We hope they will keep in mind that the author (Justice Anne Burke) is no church dissident or critic, but was deemed loyal and devout enough to be named to a national panel to oversee the church’s handling of sex abuse cases. And we hope they realize that the Martin case is part of a much larger, on-going, and disturbing pattern in the Chicago archdiocese.

– In March 2004, twice-suspended abusive priest Fr. John Calicott was caught working, living and teaching sex education to kids at his old parish, with the full knowledge of the pastor. George slapped Calicott on the hand, but refused to discipline or censure the pastor, Fr. George Miller, who knowingly put children in harm’s way and violated the US bishops’ national abuse policy.

– In February 2005, Fr. Michael T. Yakaitis worked at the University of Chicago’s Catholic Center, despite admitting sexual misconduct with a teenager years ago. A victim reported Yakaitis’ exploitation and manipulation to at least seven church officials. But George let the abuser stay in ministry until this was publicly exposed.

– In October 2005, George refused to discipline or warn others about Father Elijah Martin who seduced a young woman, fathered her child, ignored her, and refused to pay child support. Martin’s direct superiors also refused to give the mom any information about the priest’s whereabouts. George washed his hands of this controversy, despite repeated requests by our group to show compassion.

– In the fall of 2005, Fr. Daniel McCormack was arrested for child molestation. Weeks later, he was promoted to head a deanery, or region, of the archdiocese.

– In January 2006, McCormack was arrested again. He assaulted one 11 year old boy “on an almost daily basis” from Sept. 2005 until Jan. 2006. McCormack was kept in ministry for years despite several reports of child sexual abuse, including repeated written and verbal ones from a Catholic nun more than seven years ago to archdiocesan staff.

– We repeatedly urged Chicago Catholic officials to “aggressively and immediately” reach out to parishes where McCormack worked, and prodded George to personally visit those churches, emphatically reminding Catholics that they have a moral and civic duty to disclose anything they know about these allegations to law enforcement. He ignored us.

– For months awaiting trial, George let McCormack live with relatives, refusing to order him to stay in a treatment center for pedophiles.

– We were highly critical of that move, calling it ‘reckless’ and ‘irresponsible.’ We repeatedly urged George to reconsider. He ignored us.

– Five top church staff who were involved in the McCormack case have all essentially been promoted since then. Only one has been disciplined - the female school principal who actually called the police and reported McCormack’s crimes.

– Just last month, newly released secret church records and Cardinal George’s sworn deposition show that an accused serial predator priest, Fr. Joseph R. Bennett. Bennett was suspended from his suburban parish in 2006 only after at least a dozen of his victims had reported him to church authorities.

– Those same documents show that George overruled the recommendations of his own hand-picked abuse panel and had him alleged and secretly (but ineffectively) ‘monitored’ by a fellow priest (Fr. Leonard Dubi) who is a close friend of Bennett’s. The two of them own property together in Indiana. They then took a trip to Mexico together.

– George’s hand-picked abuse panel specifically, in two memos, urged George to NOT assign Dubi to this role. The Cardinal rejected their recommendation.

– The same deposition and documents also reveal that George and his top staffers spent considerable time and effort secretly trying to win the early release of a convicted serial child predator, Fr. Norbert Maday, who is in a Wisconsin prison.

– We suspect and fear there are or have been other jailed sex offender clerics who have gotten or are getting the Cardinal’s ‘behind the scenes’ help. We have asked George to stop it immediately, and to disclose if he’s taken similar reckless action with other pedophiles. He has ignored us.

–Last month, we publicly called on George to promise he’d never again try to get a convicted pedophile priest out of jail early. He has not responded.

– We fear other accused child-molesting clergy are in still Chicago parishes right now, unbeknownst to parishioners, allegedly being ‘monitored’ by peers. We’ve asked George to disclose who and where they are and/or abide by the church’s national abuse policy and publicly suspend them. He has ignored us.

In the same documents, Fr. Edward Grace, the archdiocese’s Vicar for Priests, urged Bennett to essentially lie about birthmarks on his genitals to ‘beat’ multiple child sex abuse allegations before a lay church panel.

– Yesterday, we asked George to discipline these ‘enablers’ - Dubi and Grace - whose deceit put kids in harm’s way.

The bottom line is that George continues to put his own reputation and comfort above the safety and well-being of his flock.

(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the nation’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 17 years and have more than 8,000 members across the country. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

Contact David Clohessy (314-566-9790 cell, 314-645-5915 home), Peter Isely (414-429-7259) Barbara Blaine (312-399-4747), Barbara Dorris (314-862-7688), Mark Serrano (703-727-4940)

 

Written by Kelly Clark, attorney
September 3, 2008

Note: These occasional blogs are my personal reflections on the work we do at this law firm on behalf of child abuse survivors, and are not the views of any client, partner or lawyer at O’Donnell, Clark, and Crew LLP.

No one was more hopeful than I, fifteen months ago at the conclusion of the bankruptcy of the Archdiocese of Portland.I believed– and I now see that I WANTED to believe– the promises of Archbishop John Vlazny, of his advisors and his lawyers.Those promises talked of treating victims of sexual abuse by priests with compassion.They offered hope that, in the future, the Archdiocese would be open and forthcoming about the records of past criminal conduct by pedophile priests and the bishops who covered up for them.Archbishop Vlazny himself led a mass of healing and reconciliation, again offering words of sorrow, repentance and new beginnings As I say, I believed these words.I stood shoulder to shoulder with the Archbishop and his lawyers, congratulated him on doing the right thing in resolving cases and in making the hard decisions to open the files of the past. See news articles here. I gave presentations and wrote articles on it all. See here. As a person of Christian faith, albeit a very flawed and broken one, I was particularly pleased that we– my clients, other abuse survivors and their lawyers– had held out for a nearly unique commitment and promise from the Archbishop that he would open the files of the past.  I believed this church could not achieve healing and reconciliation for itself, its members and its victims without shedding its old habit of secrecy, and so I was delighted at the promises.  I was even proud, thinking that my clients, other abuse survivors, and I and other lawyers had really accomplished something, that we had helped change an institution that had failed to live up to its own best ideals, and certainly to the example and words of its Lord. A new era of openness; I foolishly called it. Well, how things change. Now—over a year later—now that the lights of the TV cameras are off, now that the media and the public aren’t watching, now that the Archdiocese does not need the cooperation of plaintiffs or their lawyers to get out of a self made mess of a bankruptcy, now that the plaintiffs bring claims one at a time– instead of dozens and scores at a time, as before--my, my how things have changed.

Compassion for victims? The Archbishop and his lawyers are litigating new cases like any other powerful corporation with a pack of insurance lawyers. He has attempted to force plaintiffs to use their full names in public litigation, breaking the time-honored practice, virtually unanimously agreed upon by all institutions facing child abuse cases (Boy Scouts, the Mormon Church, schools, etc), that recognizes that plaintiffs in these cases are crime victims, are covered with the shame of child abuse, and do not need or deserve to be identified publicly. For news coverage of this incredible move, click here. When confronted publicly about this in court papers and by the news media, the Archbishop and his spokespersons have responded in ways that are, at best, simply disingenuous--claiming all they were doing was leaving it up to the Court. Well, that just isn’t so. The fact is, courts NEVER raise the issue on their own. It was the Archbishop’s move, and only that, that tried to force survivors to use their names publicly. Fortunately, a humane and common sense federal judge saw through the tactic, and refused to countenance it

A new era of openness? The Archbishop and his lawyers have fought full disclosure of the files of the pedophile priests tooth and nail, and even as late as July, 2008, were filing papers in bankruptcy court and in federal court to protect the files of such notorious pedophiles as Fr Thomas Laughlin. Even in the process of mediation and arbitration of the issues relating to openness, the Archdiocese sought to secret the entire briefing and arbitration of the agreement to release files.Yes, that’s right– in a proceeding where the sole issue was the Archbishop’s promise to open old files and change old ways, he sought to have the proceeding itself kept secret! And, although the Archdiocese and its lawyers quickly point to the “thousands; of pages of documents they have publicly released, a comparison of that which they have publicly released with that which is actually in the files that they routinely must turn over to plaintiffs in litigation, shows that they continue to be quite selective in what they release. Just one example suffices; concerning Laughlin. In litigation they turn over thousands of pages of documents, because they have to.Yet, as of summer 2008, what they have posted publicly on the internet concerning Laughlin is sparse and selective.Even more staggering, as recently as late July 2008, they filed papers in bankruptcy court ON THE SIDE OF FR LAUGLHIN, as he personally objects to further public release of his files. Once again– as with bishops going back 40 years--a bishop of the Archdiocese of Portland sides with Fr. Laughlin against the interests of abuse survivors and against the full truth coming out.

Choosing a new way? In the face of new claims of abuse against some of the same old perpetrators–Laughlin, Grammond, etc– the Archbishop refused offers of pre-litigation mediation time and time again, instead choosing to litigate each case as vigorously and aggressively as possible, ignoring the cruel impact that such a tactic has on abuse survivors, who most of all want and need closure and justice. He even had his lawyers resist early and global mediation suggested by the federal judge overseeing the new litigation, arguing instead for a litigation-heavy approach that undoubtedly was intended to wear down victims with the brutal tactics and unending delays of litigation.

The fact is that, for the Archdiocese of Portland, nothing has changed.  In my view, the Archbishop has broken, or stretched to the breaking point, virtually every one of his bankruptcy promises. It is really no different than the bishops before him, and their promises to “handle; problems of abusive priests.After years of litigation, we learned what that meant: it meant nothing.It appears now, as to Archbishop John Vlazny’s promises at the conclusion of the bankruptcy, it still means nothing. No one is more disappointed than I.