DUBLIN (Reuters) – Priests beat and raped children during decades of abuse in Catholic-run institutions in Ireland, an official report said on Wednesday, but it stopped short of naming the perpetrators.
Orphanages and industrial schools in 20th century Ireland were places of fear, neglect and endemic sexual abuse, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse said in a harrowing five-volume report that took nine years to compile.
The Commission, chaired by a High Court judge, blasted successive generations of priests, nuns and Christian Brothers — a Catholic religious order — for beating, starving and, in some cases raping, children in Ireland’s now defunct network of industrial and reformatory schools from the 1930s onwards.
"When confronted with evidence of sexual abuse, the response of the religious authorities was to transfer the offender to another location where, in many instances, he was free to abuse again," the report said.
"Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from."
The report slammed the Department of Education for its failure to stop the crimes. In rare cases when it was informed of sexual abuse, "it colluded in the silence," the report said.
Successful legal action by the Christian Brothers, the largest provider of residential care for boys in the country, led the Commission to drop its original intention to name the people against whom the allegations were made.
No abusers will be prosecuted as a result of the inquiry.
John Kelly, coordinator of the Survivors of Child Abuse (SOCA) group, said there could be no closure without accountability.
"I have been getting phone calls all day from former residents, they feel their wounds have been reopened for nothing," he told Reuters. "They were promised justice by the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) in 1999 and they feel cheated. They expected that the abusers would face prosecution."
UNDERWEAR INSPECTIONS
The Christian Brothers said they were appalled at the revelations but denied that their lawsuit had obstructed the report. "We are deeply sorry, deeply regretful for what has been put before us today," Brother Edmund Garvey said.
Many of the children were sent into church care because of school truancy, petty crime or because they were unmarried mothers or their offspring. Some were used as laborers, churning out rosary beads or set to work on farms.
Sexual abuse was endemic in boys’ institutions and girls were preyed on by sexual predators who were able to operate unhindered.
The Commission interviewed 1,090 men and women who were housed in 216 institutions including children’s homes, hospitals and schools. They told of scavenging for food from waste bins and animal feed, of floggings, scaldings and being held under water. There were underwear inspections and in one case, a boy was forced to lick excrement from a priest’s shoe.
Absconders were flogged and some had their heads shaved.
Tom Sweeney, who spent five years at industrial schools including two years at the notorious Artane Industrial School, said it still haunted its former residents.
"Unfortunately there are a lot of people that have committed suicide, there are a lot of people that have ended up in hospitals and they have been forgotten about," he said.
Revelations of abuse, including a string of scandals involving priests molesting young boys, have eroded the Catholic Church’s moral authority in Ireland, once one of the most religiously devout countries in the world.
The inquiry, conducted at a reported cost of 70 million euros ($95.16 million), was announced in 1999 by then Prime Minister Bertie Ahern after he apologized to victims following revelations made in a series of television documentaries.
The government has paid out around 825 million euros in compensation to former residents of the institutions and the final bill is likely to top 1 billion euros.
FoxNews
Thursday, April 09, 2009
DUBLIN — The Archbishop of Dublin said Thursday that an upcoming report on child sexual abuse involving Catholic priests will likely reveal that thousands of youngsters were abused from 1975 to 2004.
The report "will shock us all," said Diarmuid Martin, during Mass at Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral.
The archbishop said the report, compiled by the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation, is expected to show that "thousands of children or young people across Ireland were abused by priests in the period under investigation and the horror of that abuse was not recognized for what it is."
The government-appointed commission was set up to investigate abuses within the Dublin archdiocese in 2006, the same year the diocese admitted that up to 102 of its priests were suspected of abusing children. The report is studying how complaints of child sexual abuse were handled.
The commission has also now begun an investigation into the Diocese of Cloyne, in County Cork. Commission member Ita Mangan said that could potentially delay the publication of the Dublin report which had been planned for this summer.
"The commission will be finishing the report in May; we then send it to the government, and they then decide when to publish it," Mangan said Thursday. "The government is obliged to publish it, but not necessarily the next day. It could be further complicated by the fact that we’re also inquiring into the Cloyne diocese. It is possible the government would decide to publish the two reports together, which could then be September, October."
The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform said Thursday that it could not confirm any planned date of publication.
Ireland, a predominantly Catholic country, has been rapidly secularizing in recent years, spurred by the outrage at the hidden abuses within the clergy. Archbishop Martin, a Vatican diplomat assigned in 2003 to address the problem, appeared to address that disillusionment Thursday in his homily.
"There is a dramatic and growing rift between the church and our younger generations and the blame does not lie principally with young people," he said.
NAPSAC, the National Association to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children, and the NAPSAC Foundation are organizations dedicated to ending childhood sexual abuse in three generations through awareness, education and the advocacy of children’s rights through legal reform.
NAPSAC is an organization dedicated to ending the sexual abuse of children through awareness, education, and the advocacy of children’s rights through legal reform.
NAPSAC represents a future of hope where children will be allowed to enjoy their childhood and where society stands firmly against those who cause pain and violence against the innocent. There is no singular solution to this problem. NAPSAC believes it is with this three-key strategic plan, outlining the necessary steps to ending childhood sexual abuse in three generations, is what we must all follow to create a safer America for our children.
Last week, it was reported that U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien had empaneled a grand jury to investigate the sexual abuse crisis in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Prosecutors will consider charging Cardinal Mahony and other church officials "under a federal fraud statute that makes it illegal to ‘scheme…to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services,’" according to the L.A.Times.
Cardinal Mahony immediately took to the airwaves to declare himself "mystified and puzzled" by this development. Yet his interview in fact provides the best possible justification for U.S. Attorney O’Brien’s decision. To see why, read Cardinal Mahony’s interview, transcribed in full for the first time here. Then test his claims of full disclosure against the archdiocese’s misrepresentations in the sample case of Rev. Lynn Caffoe.
Cardinal Mahony would have us believe that the archdiocese offered "a complete breakdown of all of those cases" in 2004. Then they "reached a settlement with the plaintiffs, and that’s all behind us." But as the 508 plaintiffs know, the document release promised in the settlement still has not happened, almost two years later. Without the documents, we are left with the archdiocesan version of events. Thanks to the courage of survivors and their families, and the hard work of attorneys and reporters, the archdiocese’s silence and lies in the Caffoe case have begun to be challenged. But much is still secret. And Caffoe is one of hundreds. O’Brien has a long row to hoe.
The U.S. attorney in L.A. reportedly launched a grand jury probe to see if the prelate failed to adequately deal with such priests. A church lawyer says he was told Mahony is not the inquiry’s target.
By Scott Glover and Jack Leonard
January 29, 2009 www.LATimes.com
The U.S. attorney in Los Angeles has launched a federal grand jury investigation into Cardinal Roger M. Mahony in connection with his response to the molestation of children by priests in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, according to two law enforcement sources familiar with the case.
The probe, in which U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O’Brien is personally involved, is aimed at determining whether Mahony, and possibly other church leaders, committed fraud by failing to adequately deal with priests accused of sexually abusing children, said the sources, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.
Authorities are applying a legal theory in an apparently novel way. One federal law enforcement source said prosecutors are seeking to use a federal statute that makes it illegal to "scheme . . . to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services."
In this case, the victims would be parishioners who relied on Mahony and other church leaders to keep their children safe from predatory priests, the source said.
To gain a conviction on such a charge, prosecutors would have to prove that Mahony used the U.S. mail or some form of electronic communication in committing the alleged fraud, the source said.
The inquiry has been underway since at least late last year, the source added.
O’Brien declined to comment, refusing to even confirm the existence of the investigation.
J. Michael Hennigan, who represents Mahony and the archdiocese, confirmed that federal prosecutors had contacted the archdiocese and requested "information about a number of individual priests, at least two of whom are deceased."
He said he was also aware that some witnesses had testified before the panel.
But Hennigan said he has been informed that Mahony is not a target of the inquiry.
"We have been and will continue to be fully cooperative with the investigation," Hennigan said.
Mahony has repeatedly apologized for the church’s sex scandal and asked for forgiveness for not acting sooner to remove priests who abused minors. He has declared that the archdiocese handles abuse allegations seriously, notifying police when complaints are made and removing priests from active ministry when allegations are deemed credible.
As the Catholic Church’s highest-ranking official in Southern California, Mahony has been dogged for years by allegations of covering up the sexual misconduct of priests.
The cardinal was accused of transferring priests who molested children to other parishes rather than removing them from the priesthood and alerting authorities.
One priest, Michael Stephen Baker, told Mahony in 1986 that he had molested children, but he was allowed to remain in active ministry. Mahony sent Baker to a treatment center in New Mexico and later reassigned him to other parishes, where he allegedly victimized children.
Prosecutors later filed criminal charges against Baker. He pleaded guilty to molesting two boys and was sentenced in 2007 to more than 10 years in prison.
Mahony also came under fire for vigorously fighting attempts by prosecutors, victims and the victims’ attorneys to gain access to the church’s personnel files, which tracked the problems of accused priests and the church hierarchy’s reaction to them.
Mahony argued that the records should remain confidential, but Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley accused the archdiocese of engaging in a "pattern of obstruction." Mahony was eventually ordered by the courts to turn the files over to prosecutors.
The district attorney’s office launched a grand jury investigation into the archdiocese several years ago, but no charges were filed. District attorney’s spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said Wednesday that prosecutors are continuing to look at documents from the archdiocese for evidence of molestation by priests and former priests but that charges against Mahony are "highly doubtful."
Two years ago, the archdiocese agreed to pay $660 million to 508 people who accused priests of sexual abuse. The payout was the largest settlement in a scandal that has involved an estimated 5,000 priests nationwide and cost the Roman Catholic Church more than $2 billion to resolve cases in this country alone.
David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said he had not heard about the latest investigation but welcomed the new scrutiny of Mahony.
"It is long, long overdue," Clohessy said. "It is just crucial that the hierarchy face criminal charges, because almost every other conceivable means have been tried to bring reform."
Legal experts said the theory that prosecutors are pursuing is usually reserved for cases against public officials, such as politicians and law enforcement officers, and corporate executives accused of wrongdoing.
In Mahony’s case, prosecutors would have the difficult task of defining the "honest services" expected from a Catholic cardinal, said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor and former federal prosecutor. Then they would have to persuade jurors that criminal charges were not a stretch.
"I’d put it in the category of creative lawyering," she said. "It doesn’t mean it’s bad. But it will be challenging to not only get charges on these grounds but, if they get charges, to win a conviction."
Rebecca Lonergan, a professor of law at USC and a former federal prosecutor, said she was unaware of the law’s ever being used to charge a member of the clergy.
"They would have to show some intentional wrongdoing rather than just after-the-fact cover-up," she said. "I think it would be a creative, new and different way of using the statute."
LOS ANGELES — Federal authorities are investigating the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles to see whether top church officials tried to cover up the sexual abuse of minors by priests, said a person familiar with the matter.
A federal grand jury has issued subpoenas and begun calling witnesses in the probe, which began late last year, said this person. The investigation is still in its early, fact-gathering stage, and it isn’t known whether any criminal charges will result.
Thomas O’Brien, the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles, declined to comment on the investigation.
J. Michael Hennigan, a lawyer for the archdiocese, said in an email on behalf of church officials: "The Archdiocese has received requests from the U.S. Attorney’s office for information about a number of individual priests, two of whom are deceased; none of whom remain in ministry. We have been and will continue to be fully cooperative with the investigation."
Cardinal Roger Mahony, who heads the archdiocese, the largest in the U.S., has been criticized by victims’ groups for his past handling of sexual-abuse allegations against priests. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office has been investigating allegations of such abuses for several years.
District Attorney Steve Cooley criticized the archdiocese in 2007 for its "institutional moral failure" to "supervise predatory priests." A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office said their investigation is still open.
Catholic Church leaders said they have done much to address the priest sexual-abuse problem. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, for example, set up a national review board in 2002 aimed at "preventing the sexual abuse of minors in the United States by persons in the service of the Church," according to the organization’s Web site. Individual dioceses "have made significant strides to instill practices that will ensure the safety of children in the church," said the organization’s Web site.
The district attorney’s investigation began in 2002, around the same time that internal archdiocese emails about priests accused of abuse surfaced in the media.
Over the following two years, dozens of alleged victims stepped forward, with many filing lawsuits. They claimed the archdiocese shielded priests accused of molestation by keeping the allegations secret and allowing them to keep working, sometimes moving them from one parish to another.
In 2004, the archdiocese, which covers three Southern California counties containing more than four million Catholics, issued a report on the priest sex-abuse scandal. Cardinal Mahony apologized to victims and acknowledged "my own mistakes during my 18 years" as the archdiocese’s leader.
In 2007, the Los Angeles archdiocese agreed to pay $660 million to 508 alleged victims, among the largest settlements in the U.S. priest scandal.
No senior Catholic Church officials have been criminally charged in the national scandal. But representatives of abuse victims alleged that senior officials helped perpetuate the crimes by ignoring or covering up evidence of misdeeds. They have argued that prosecuting senior church officials would help stop future abuse.
"Everything else has been tried with minimal impact except charging an individual bishop. That would have to an impact," says David Clohessy, national director for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, a nonprofit victims-advocacy group based in Chicago.
A spokeswoman for the Catholic bishops conference said her organization has seen no evidence that senior church officials were involved in criminal acts. "Enormous strides have been made" in recent years by the Catholic church in dealing with the priest-abuse problem, she said. More than 1.8 million clergy and other church personnel have been trained to create a safe environment for children and to prevent abuse, she said, and a similar number of background checks also have been done on clerics and other church workers.
The federal investigation in Los Angeles is the latest chapter in government’s efforts to grapple with the priest-abuse scandals in the Catholic Church that have struck in waves over the past three decades.
Numerous individual priests have been criminally charged and convicted in abuse cases, and Catholic dioceses around the U.S. have agreed to settle civil lawsuits.
While most of the investigations have been done by state and local officials, federal investigators also have gotten involved at times. In 2005, the Archdiocese of Boston resolved a federal criminal investigation into whether the church officials had withheld information about an allegedly abusive priest. The archdiocese, which denied any criminal wrongdoing, agreed to new disclosure requirements and audits regarding its child-protection practices.
TIME.com
By Tiffany Sharples
Tuesday, Dec. 02, 2008
Children in highly developed countries suffer abuse and neglect much more often than is reported by official child-protective agencies, according to the findings of the first in a comprehensive series of reports on child maltreatment, published Dec. 2 in the British medical journal The Lancet.
Based on a review of research conducted on child abuse between 2000 and June of this year, researchers estimate that 4% to 16% of children are physically abused each year in high-income nations, including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. As many as 15% are neglected, and up to 10% of girls and 5% of boys suffer severe sexual abuse; many more are victims of other sexual injury. Yet researchers say that as few as 1 in 10 of those instances of abuse are actually confirmed by social-service agencies — and that measuring the exact scope of the problem is nearly impossible. (See the Year in Health, from A to Z.)
The issue lies in the delicate nature of the crimes — and the consequences of intervention. Many cases of abuse are rife with potential for long-term harm of the child, whether or not the assault is reported. The decision to report is rarely clear-cut, says Theresa Costello, director of the National Resource Center for Child Protective Services, who was not involved with the new research. "Professionals want to advocate for their clients, but they also know the reality of the public child-welfare system," she says. "There is a natural professional dilemma when you see a kid and you think, ‘I should make a report,’ but you’re not sure you want to subject that child to the system."
OAKLAND, California (CNN) — Terrie Light stands outside Oakland’s stunning new modern cathedral in a first-of-its-kind garden that honors victims of clergy sexual abuse. She was abused by a priest at age 7.
For the first time, the Catholic Church has offered a garden that honors victims of clergy sex abuse.
"It’s a really small, important physical representation of a horrific thing that happened in many places," she told CNN.
She says the garden’s centerpiece, a symbolic low stone sculpture that’s broken, is fitting for those whose lives were shattered by priests. "The energy that the artist put was this circular stone trying to pull itself to become unbroken. That is our journey. That is what we try to do every day — is to try to be unbroken."
The garden is placed near a wall of the Cathedral of Christ the Light, which was consecrated September 25.
Two low-curved benches bracket the sculpture, one facing toward the cathedral, the other facing away. The benches are surrounded by hedges.
The bench placement is deliberate and takes into account the feelings and needs of abuse victims.Those who choose not to face the cathedral end up facing a small lake across the street.
Father Paul Minnihan, the provost of the cathedral, says it was important to have the garden — for the victims, and for the church to atone for the sins of its past.
"Part of the church’s mission is to make sure we bring healing to people who are in need of it, even if we were the cause of it," he says. "Having this garden on the campus says we are serious about our desire to help in your healing process on whatever level. As this cathedral will be around for 500 years, so will that garden as a place of healing and hope."
The Catholic Church was rocked earlier this decade by allegations of children being sexually abused by priests, with scores of victims filing lawsuits against their alleged abusers. The church was accused of covering up the abuse for decades by sending offending priests to other parishes.
The church wound up paying hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements. Some priests went to jail; others resigned. Pope Benedict XVI in July apologized to victims and called the abuse "evil."
At the garden’s dedication on October 11, Allen Vigneron, bishop of Oakland, once again offered the church’s apology. "To the hurts of so many innocents, we preferred the darkness to the light. And for that, I again make heartfelt apologies to all victim survivors. As it says on the plaques at the entries, ‘We remember and we affirm: never again.’"
Terrie Light, who has been a vocal advocate for abuse victims for many years, says getting the garden built was not an easy process. "We got silence, then we got passed around," she says.
She said Barbara Flannery, the former chancellor of the diocese who became the church’s point person on helping victims, advocated for the garden to the bishop.
"He thought it was a good idea. But it’s different from ‘It’s a good idea’ to ‘Here’s the people to meet with to make it happen,’" she says. "When we finally met with the architect, things really changed."
"He really understood what we were trying to accomplish and put together some architects to create this garden that he thought would give us what we wanted for a place for people to come and connect to their spirituality not inside the church."
Why outside?
"There are people that want to go into a church that cannot. It’s too painful, too emotionally traumatizing," she says. "There are other people that are ambivalent — that want to be there and not want to be there. This gives them the option."
The garden is not what survivors had originally envisioned — a lush, English garden with flowers and trees. But they are pleased with the outcome.
"It’s a very simple space," Light says.
Most victims of abuse in the Oakland area favored the garden; a few opposed it, feeling that it implied closure to a problem that still exists.
Minnihan says the church has sought "to bring back healing and wholeness and work with those who are survivors" since the scandal. The garden is emblematic of that.
"We wanted to have a place respectful for their needs and their wishes," he says.
America’s children desperately need your help. Most of us are unaware that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused before their 18th birthday. Shockingly, 85 percent of these children are abused by someone they or their family knows and trusts.
Sadly, because of the ‘taboo’ nature along with trauma, fear, shame, misplaced loyalty and distrust associated with abuse, only ten percent of victims and survivors ever find the courage to report this crime.
Government statistics estimate that there are approximately 60 million survivors of childhood sexual abuse in America today. As American taxpayers we spend more than $103 billion each year on costs associated with child abuse. These facts strongly support the reality that childhood sexual abuse has reached national epidemic proportions that affect each and every one of us.
The National Association to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children is dedicated to ending childhood sexual abuse in three generations through awareness, education, and the advocacy of children’s rights through legal reform.
You can HELP ~ Donate Today!
http://www.trailblz.info/napsac/pages/donate.htm
Your generous gift will help NAPSAC ensure the success of its mission. NAPSAC believes that by 1) increasing awareness of the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse, by 2) educating parents and professionals on how to recognize, respond and report abuse, and by 3) advocating for laws that better protect our children and victim’s rights to pursue justice, NAPSAC and its supporters will help lead us toward a safer America for our children.
NAPSAC is actively recruiting committed individuals who are interested in being on the forefront of helping to ensure the success of the first-ever NAPSAC fundraising events planned for 2009/2010!
Our goal is to build a NAPSAC Event Committee for each of the following events proposed for 2009/2010:
* Survivor Art Social
* Dinner Gala
* Professional Networking Events
* Wine and Cigar Social
* Darkness to Light Preventathon
As a committee member you would be responsible for:
* Attending one meeting each month held for one hour
* Recruting additional committee members
* Soliciting businesses for sponsorships and silent auction items
* Helping to generate attendance by spreading the word about upcoming events
* Helping to spread awareness of NAPSAC and its mission
* Representing NAPSAC in a professional and respectful manner
* Attending your event to show your support
If you are interested in joining a NAPSAC event committee or if you have any questions or would like additional information, please email michele@napsac.us or call 651.340.0537.
Issue: 1
Book a NAPSAC nationally renowned professional speaker for your next corporate training or event!
National Association to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children
366 Jackson Street, Lower Level, Saint Paul, MN 55101
Phone: 651.340.0537 | Fax: 651.340.1252 www.napsac.us
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.
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.”
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.
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)
