An Open Letter to Youth Organizations, Churches, and Schools.
By Kelly Clark
April 2010

After six weeks of trial against the Boy Scouts of America—resulting in, as far as I know, the largest child abuse verdict in American history on behalf of one plaintiff—I am being asked repeatedly to blog about the lessons from the trial.  There are of course many, and some of the most important have to do with Kerry Lewis, my client and now friend, who stood so courageously and told his story so clearly.  But the lessons from the other end of the evidence—about what happens when good youth organizations forget their first principles and react to allegations of child abuse by keeping secrets—is what I want to write about first. So here is an open letter to youth organizations; here is what I hope they learn:

Dear Youth Organization:

I write this to you because you have taken on the great task of working with children.  Whether you are a school, a church, an athletic league, a dance company or a day care center, whether you are a public or private entity, whether you are a new organization or have been around for decades, you are doing good work. You are helping our young people to grow up, and you are doing your best. No doubt.  So I respectfully offer some of the lessons of the long trial in Portland, Oregon against the Boy Scouts.  Please learn these lessons, so that kids will be safe and so that you don’t make the same mistakes that too many other youth organizations have made.

So, while it is all fresh in our minds, let’s consider the lessons from this trial against the Boy Scouts of America—once America’s most trusted youth organization– as the evidence came in to a very attentive and unusually well-educated jury:

1.     You Cannot Keep Secrets About Hidden Dangers to Children.
“Youth organizations must do everything feasible to protect children, and cannot keep secrets about hidden dangers to children.”  This simple theme was the foundation for our entire case. It seemed to us—my co-counsel Paul Mones and I– to be a fair and general principle to which any youth organization would agree.  We had planned to go from that principle to showing that BSA had not adhered to the common sense rules.   Yet numerous times during the trial we were stunned to hear witnesses for the BSA who would refuse to acknowledge this basic idea. Not refuse to acknowledge that the BSA violated this idea– we expected that.  But refuse to acknowledge the basic principle itself!   The message given to the jury by such quibbling was that the BSA was playing word games and putting qualifiers on the question of safety to children. 

The fact is, the BSA has known for decades that it had a serious child abuse problem. They kept interior confidential files on the problem since the 1920’s, and certainly by the 1950’s and 60’s knew that the thousands of files (the evidence was that by 1985 the BSA had at least 3000- 4000 pedophile files)—representing thousands or tens of thousands of children abused–  meant that their program was being targeted by pedophiles. 

Yet, the BSA still refused to admit in open court the very obvious truth that it had, and has, a child abuse problem.  Several key witnesses repeatedly argued about or qualified the simple phrase “problem” in response to direct questions. It was like listening to an alcoholic or addict refuse to admit that he or she “has a problem” and needs help, when everyone around sees the chaos and insanity of substance addiction.  The jury saw this fierce and calculated denial of the problem, and quite apparently did not like it.

So the message is simple: youth organizations cannot keep secrets about hidden dangers to children. Parents and the community have a right to know if there is a risk to children.  You would give a clear warning about food poisoning among your kids, or about a dangerous crosswalk near your building.  The fact that your warning might have to be about an embarrassing problem with child abuse within your organization does not change the obligation to warn. Not even for the esteemed Boy Scouts of America.  That is one of the key lessons of this trial.

2.    As your knowledge increases, so does your responsibility. 
Oregon law, as is true of the law in most states—as well as common sense– says that whether a person acted “reasonably” under the circumstances depends upon what the person knew about the dangers at issue.  A seaside hotel owner who knows that people regularly get caught in dangerous ocean undertows right in front of the hotel has a different obligation to warn guests than that same hotel owner might have to warn about a freak and unforeseeable storm.  It is just common sense.  So, as the BSA over the years and decades gathered its knowledge about the pedophile problem within Scouting, it was no longer good enough simply to keep a list of the pedophiles so they could not come back into the organization.  At some point, the BSA had an obligation to take and use that information to make the organization safer. If the BSA headquarters had been filled with $100 bills instead of the names of little boys, and 4000 times over a 5 decade period thieves had broken in to steal money, the BSA would not simply have kept a list of the thieves to prevent them from getting into the building. The BSA would have changed its security systems to prevent new thieves from getting in!  That simple analogy perfectly describes the BSA’s response to its child abuse problem.

So the second lesson for youth organizations from the BSA trial is painfully obvious– as your knowledge increases so does your responsibility.  Is it a good thing to keep data about your safety issues?  Of course. Is it smart to make sure that a known pedophile cannot get back into your organization?  Obviously.  But that, in and of itself, is not enough to fulfill your duty to protect children.  You must look at what changes are necessary to make the organization safer.

3.    You must always put the safety of children ahead of the interests of the organization.
If there is a common thread that I have seen in advocating for child abuse victims against a variety of institutions of trust—churches, schools, foster care agencies, and now the BSA—it is this:  there seems to be an idea that the work of the organization is so important, its goals so noble, that there might be times when it is necessary to “keep a lid on this problem.”  This, of course, is the misguided historical response that produced the ongoing scandals in the Catholic Church.  But it goes way beyond that particular institution of trust.  So many youth organizations have great goals and purposes.  They do good work. They help children and help the community.  And so, when trouble comes along, their first instinct is to protect the work. And if this means keeping a potentially embarrassing problem quiet—even at the risk of keeping secrets about child abuse—they reactively take that route.  While that may be an understandable reaction, it is always disastrous, sooner or later.  The old idea that “the ends justify the means” can never apply to a sluggish response to child abuse, and too many good organizations fall prey to the temptation to protect the organization.   The safety of children, and whatever it takes to accomplish that—including blaring trumpet warnings if that is necessary—must always take precedence over the reputation of the organization.  That is lesson 3 from the BSA trial.

4.    When it goes bad, accept responsibility and apologize.
It is a timeless truth that runs through all societies at all times and places, but especially through the religions and ethical systems of Western culture: apologies heal.  This truth is central to our legal system as well, even to the point that it is an expectation in the criminal justice system that someone who is found to have broken the community’s rules will apologize—in part, at least because we understand that it will be helpful for the victim.  But it is not limited to the criminal justice courts: we expect apologies from those who have harmed others, and those who have knowingly failed to protect those in their care—especially institutions of trust such as churches, schools and youth organizations like the Boy Scouts. 

And all this is especially true for victims of child sexual abuse, who so often believe that, somehow the abuse was their fault, that they should have done something to stop it, or they should have immediately told someone—all beliefs which the mental health professionals tell us are almost universal in child abuse victims.  So when they receive an acknowledgement of responsibility and a sincere apology from those responsible for their abuse— the perpetrator of the abuse, an institution that could have prevented the abuse, or both—it is incredibly healing and empowering.  Suddenly, in one moment, the survivor realizes that his or her core beliefs about this life-altering event—“it was my fault; I am fundamentally flawed because of what I did and did not do about this”—are all wrong, and that the person or institution who is factually and morally responsible for the abuse is owning up to what happened. The weight and burden of this wrong, which has been on the shoulders of the victim for so many years or even decades, is lifted off of the victim and placed where it belongs.

This is such basic common sense and human experience that it is hard to understand why institutions of trust—such as the Boy Scouts, the Catholic Church, and others— are so reluctant to make this simple and profound gesture.  Of course, it involves the acceptance of responsibility, and too often that acceptance is slow to come for an organization that prides itself on the nobility of its purpose. It is, after all, hard for someone who thinks he is a hero, or divinely inspired, to admit that he failed utterly in one of his prime responsibilities and is now being called to account for it.  We have seen this for at least a decade in watching the Catholic Church come to grips with the magnitude of its child abuse problem—to accept that it even had a particular problem, to acknowledge that the Church badly failed in its historic response to that problem, and to make unequivocal apologies to those who were damaged by those failures. 

This same dynamic of denial seems to be true for the BSA—which, apart from the specific facts of this case in Portland, continues to deny publicly that it has historically had a serious child abuse problem—different both in type and frequency from that in society at large.  Not once during the decades that we have litigated against the BSA, in dozens of cases, whether settled or tried to a jury,  has the BSA offered even a simple apology to any of our clients.  And we know of no circumstance in which the BSA ever has issued an apology to the thousands of boys who were abused by Scout leaders.

I want to say in conclusion, again, that the Boy Scouts of America is a great organization. Our boys need good, strong role models to learn the art and habits of living an honorable life as they move into manhood.  Lord knows our society needs more young men of integrity, purpose and faith.  BSA is in a position as it enters its second century to play a unique role in shaping young men.  It is an awesome responsibility.  We can only hope that the leadership of this organization steps back, moves past the shock and shame of a jury’s stern rebuke, and takes stock of what is truly all about.  If it does, then it can move to reclaim society’s trust and admiration. If it does not, if it continues to shoot the messengers—lawyers, plaintiffs, juries, the news media– then it will lose its credibility, it will become a shell of what it once was and again could be, and it will eventually slide into irrelevance. 
 

Why the Grand Jury Probe Should Be Welcomed, Not Criticized

By MARCI A. HAMILTON
Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009
FindLaw

Recently, it was announced that Los Angeles United States Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien was starting a grand jury investigation into allegations of a child sex abuse coverup by the Catholic Church’s Los Angeles Archdiocese. The announcement was met with consternation and defensive cries from various Catholic quarters. Before they drown out the larger public good, however it is worthwhile to spend some time with the facts – which, I will argue, show that a grand jury investigation is exactly what should be occurring now.

Professor Kmiec’s Argument: The Claims of Abuse Were "Well-Litigated"

Pepperdine law professor Douglas Kmiec (who has also been a guest columnist on this site) quickly posted a lengthy critique on Catholic Online, arguing that "wading into this already well-litigated matter gives every appearance of ‘piling on.’" In support of his claim, he pointed to the fact that the Archdiocese settled civil claims with over 500 victims for a total of $660 million. The fact, though, is that the claims never were "well-litigated." Kmiec is right about one thing: The end result was a settlement, not hundreds of trials, which would have released mountains of information to the public.

The apparent reasons behind the settlement are very pertinent: First, early on, the church hierarchy succeeded in getting many claims consolidated together, so as to avoid individual litigation. Many survivors wanted their day in court and opposed consolidation, but this procedural move by the hierarchy meant that large collections of cases were treated as though they were single cases with judges overseeing many at one time. That way, the hierarchy could argue to reduce per-person claims, because the size of the total award would be large no matter what and the hierarchy could more effectively and efficiently control what information about the coverup would be released.

Second, the Archdiocese settled essentially on the eve of trial, when it appeared that the Cardinal would have to testify regarding his obvious knowledge of a great deal of abuse. In other words, the settlement was a tactic to keep a further lid on damaging information. Thus, despite the settlement, relatively little information, especially given the amount that is still under the sole control of the Archdiocese, has reached the public.

Kmiec still claims, however, that the public has enough information. He writes: "What’s more, the hypothetical prosecution cannot really be said to promote greater disclosure, as the Cardinal already issued a 2004 report giving individualized detail of priests accused of abuse." Yet that report is better described as a mere outline. Moreover, and more importantly, as part of the Los Angeles settlement, Cardinal Mahony promised to release millions of pages of files on the abusers, the abuse, and the coverup. Survivors insisted on it as a necessary element of the settlement.

These promises have not yet been worth the paper they were printed on. Mahony’s lawyers, on behalf of their client, have been in court ever since the agreement was signed, to oppose release of each of the papers, one by one. As Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley has said, "Three years ago, I urged Cardinal Mahony to provide the fullest possible disclosure of evidence of sexual abuse by clergy. Despite two court rulings ordering full disclosure, Cardinal Mahony continues to claim ‘confidentiality privileges’ that no court has recognized." Few citizens know that the Archdiocese’s lawyers still continue to drag the plaintiffs’ lawyers to court on a regular basis to evade Mahony’s promise to reveal all of the relevant secrets. It is not over, and the reason it is not over is because of the continuing tactics of truth-evasion practiced by Mahony.

The Church’s Claims of a New "Zero Tolerance" Policy Are Belied by the Evidence

Kmiec goes on to claim that "under Rome’s supervision, which the Holy Father personally reasserted just months ago in his visit to America, abusers have been defrocked and a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy is in place." But Kmiec is simply too smart to make such hollow claims. If zero-tolerance is the policy, then the Cardinal has made a mockery of it.

The facts speak for themselves. In 2006, Los Angeles police questioned church and school officials about Daniel Murphy Catholic High School’s Dean of Students, John Malburg, against whom current child sex abuse allegations were being asserted. (Malburg comes from a prominent Los Angeles family.) Yet, despite receiving clear notice from authorities that there were claims of abuse asserted against Malburg, the Archdiocese did not suspend him and kept the information secret. When Malburg was arrested and charged six months later, and parents complained that they had not been timely alerted about the allegations, the Archdiocese blamed the police, saying that they had asked that the information be kept secret. The LAPD, in the Los Angeles Times, said it had never made such a request.

And Malburg is far from the only example demonstrating the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s and sadly the larger Church’s continuing tolerance – and, indeed, protection – of alleged child abusers. Fr. Nicholas Aguilar Rivera allegedly abused at least 26 boys in Los Angeles in a mere nine months. In August 2007, church records about Aguilar were released to the public. The records indicated that then-Msgr. Thomas Curry notified Aguilar about the release of the records, leading Aguilar to escape to Mexico to avoid prosecution, where there are credible allegations that he went on to molest more children. The upshot? Far from being demoted for violating the "zero-tolerance" rule, Curry was promoted to be one of Mahony’s auxiliary bishops, and was never disciplined for putting more children within reach of a priest whom evidence strongly suggests is a serial pedophile.

Then there is Franciscan monk Gerald Chumik — an admitted child molester who has been a fugitive from his native Canada for fourteen years. Until 2005, Mahony had permitted Chumik to live in the Los Angeles Archdiocese; Chumik left only because the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and others demanded that he be turned over to the authorities. Even in the face of these reasonable demands, Mahony did not go to the authorities; instead, he let Chumik move to Missouri.

This is not remotely zero-tolerance. Rather, it is just plain tolerance of pedophiles. Mahony has not made a clean break from the internal culture and rules requiring coverup and secrecy, and his actions and omissions have obviously created danger for children in other states and countries. According to Kmiec, though, "this is not the equivalent of a federal public or corporate corruption offense meriting 20 years in the federal pen." Explain that to the kids evidence strongly suggests were abused by Malburg, the Mexican kids believed to have been abused by Rivera, or to Chumik’s acknowledged victims, wherever they may be. Explain that to the parents at Malburg’s school who surely trusted in all of the public assurances from the Pope on down about zero-tolerance, whose children attended school with a credibly accused pedophile and were told nothing about it until the authorities were involved.

Other Arguments Against the Grand Jury Investigation Are Also Completely Unconvincing

Others came to Mahony’s defense as well, including Professor G. Robert Blakey of Notre Dame Law School, who said the investigation was "outrageous" because the alleged conduct at issue is unrelated to the federal government. That is a mistake, though. It is a fact that predator priests often have been sent across state or national boundaries (see above). The national and international movement of pedophiles makes the task of a full investigation by any local district attorney impossible. Moreover, many of the perpetrators have taken their victims across state lines, frequently for "vacations" or camping trips. The United States should have been involved long ago, and one can only speculate what took the Department of Justice so long to consider investigating what are obviously federal crimes.

Professor Nicholas P. Cafardi, of Duquesne University School of Law, called the inquiry "an intrusion into the church’s First Amendment rights." For him, "It’s time for this to be over. L.A. has settled with all of their claimants." Yet it is crucial to recall that one of the very reasons the victims participated in the civil settlement was to obtain the release of the Archdiocese’s records on abusers – and recall that they continue to wait as the Archdiocese balks, claiming non-existent privileges. The First Amendment is no dispensation from the law or decency. Moreover, since when do crime victims have to choose between civil and criminal justice? Those molested deserve compensation from those responsible, those at risk deserve protection, and the rest of us deserve real justice in criminal court.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Archdiocese issued a statement referring to picketing abuse survivors as "an angry mob" and asserting that "there is no priest currently in the ministry in the archdiocese who had been found to have abused a minor." Yet the latter point offers no comfort: As I explained above, there were virtually no trials and no "findings" in the settlement involving hundreds of victims, likely because the Archdiocese did not want its sins, omissions, and crimes spelled out.

Religious Rules Against Airing "Scandal" Cannot and Should Not Be Enforced in Our Secular Justice System

Finally, it is most telling that the Archdiocese’s defenders would become so worked up over the start of a grand jury investigation. They are opposing the gathering of information and evidence. Why do they care so much, if all the information to be released is out, as they claim? And why do they care so little about children that Mahony’s recent, appalling record regarding credible child-abuse allegations does not give them pause?

The answer likely lies in culture and theology. There is an internal rule within the Church against "scandal." That is, believers are not supposed to bring shame to the Church by airing its dirty laundry in public. The same principle can be found in Orthodox Judaism, in which it is known as chilul hashem. The phrase literally means "desecration of God’s name," but is used to prohibit giving the community a bad name. The parallel is notable, for certain Orthodox Jewish organizations have become the latest religious groups whose secret coverup of child sex abuse is being exposed to the public. Despite their very different religious beliefs, the two religious groups’ organizational operations with respect to child sex abuse within their community are strikingly similar. Each has something to learn from the other. The Orthodox can learn that internal control of sex abuse never works and the Catholics can get over the destructive tendency to cling to notions of persecution when in fact they are simply on the wrong side of the law.

If U.S. Attorney O’Brien has hit upon a "novel" legal strategy, as has been alleged, so be it. We have an epidemic of child sexual abuse, which is attributable in part to a lack of imagination and sometimes political will on the part of prosecutors and courts. O’Brien should be applauded for joining the small group of federal prosecutors who are now taking a stand for children who suffer abuse in religious settings. Let’s hope that, in the Obama Administration, more U.S. Attorneys will take the same courageous stance. Making children a top priority would be a true change in federal policy.

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Marci Hamilton is the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and author of Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children (Cambridge 2008). A review of Justice Denied appeared on this site on June 25, 2008. Her previous book is God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law (Cambridge University Press 2005), now available in paperback.

 

January 15, 2010
By John R. Ellement and Jonathan Saltzman, Globe staff

Defrocked Roman Catholic priest Paul Shanley today lost his appeal before the state’s high court, ensuring that a key figure in the priest abuse scandal that rocked the Boston Archdiocese will remain behind bars.

(Yoon S. Byun/Globe Staff/file)

The Supreme Judicial Court upheld Shanley’s convictions for two counts of rape and two counts of indecent assault and battery obtained by Middlesex prosecutors in 2005. The victim first made his accusations against Shanley in 2002, some 20 years after the abuse took place at St. Jean’s Church in Newton when the boy was between the ages of 6 and 11.

The SJC rejected defense attorney Robert F. Shaw Jr.’s contention that Shanley’s trial was flawed because the "junk science” of "repressed memory" was used by prosecutors to explain that long gap.

 

 

An Advent Reflection on Child Abuse.
December 15th, 2009
By Kelly Clark

I just returned from a trip to Australia, where I traveled to take a class as part of my studies for a Master’s Degree in Theology—a course I am taking as I consider my own vocational direction, and not because of the child abuse cases I regularly file against churches.  I was glad to get away “down under,” to jump into academia, to wander about in Melbourne in the warm sunshine and friendliness of the Aussies, glad, especially, to get away from child abuse for a few days.  Or so I hoped.

My first day there—the first Sunday of Advent, as it happened–I found myself unexpectedly in a beautiful Catholic chapel at Newman College on the campus of the University of Melbourne, listening to a stunning Advent choral concert.  I pondered the ironies: me, a lawyer who has sued the Catholic Church for nearly twenty years, but also a Christian man hungry for spiritual truth and beauty, sitting among these devout Catholic people, enjoying their hospitality.  Twice in my life I have almost joined the Catholic Church, once only about 8 years ago, well after I had begun to do this kind of work, and once as a young law student; neither time have I been able to make the leap from Canterbury to Rome—from Anglicanism to Catholicism—the last time because I simply could not get around what I have learned in the child abuse cases.  But as I sat at Newman College in Melbourne, listening to Palestrina, to Thomas Talis, to Bach and Handel, I was for a few precious moments free from the agonies of the child abuse cases, free from worry about my clients– about their addictions, their depressions, their suicides– free to bask in the beauty of the Christian celebration of Advent in a Catholic chapel.

But as I walked out and headed over to the chapel at Trinity College—the Anglican college at University of Melbourne—for another service, this one a celebration of the Eucharist for the First Sunday of Advent, I thought about the day in a few weeks when I would take the deposition of the Archbishop of Portland, asking him about the actions of Father H, one of his priests who has abused children.  I thought about the questions I would need to ask him, about the way the Archdiocese of Portland has treated child abuse survivors, both historically and in litigation over the last two and a half years since the Archdiocese emerged from bankruptcy. Any of you who have followed these blogs will recall my frustration at the broken promises—promises to treat abuse victims with understanding and Christian compassion, to expedite the legal process to find resolution and healing— promises all broken in a return to scorched earth tactics in litigation.  I wondered how the same great faith that produced the beauty that I had just witnessed at Newman College Chapel could also produce a church that would repeatedly violate the Spirit of its Lord in allowing children to be abused, and then in abusing them again when they seek justice.  I considered the words of Jesus in Matthew 25—“whatever you have done to the least of these my brothers and sisters, so you have done to me”—and in a rush of anger I found myself wanting to shout those words at the legal teams for the Catholic Church and demand that they also consider them.  I quieted, then, and  prayed for guidance, for humility, lest I become too self-righteous or judgmental—I who have also failed to live up to my calling so many times, hurting so many people along the way. 

I found myself wishing I could ask the Archbishop of Portland to come sit with me at Newman Chapel, and then again at Trinity Chapel, to take in the choral anthems and to break the holy bread together, and then to talk about these things, not as trial lawyer and deponent, but as two Christian men trying to solve a problem.  I found myself thinking we could probably settle this case—probably all of the cases– in twenty minutes, focusing more on the healing of my client and the treatment for this sick priest than on anything monetary, which is not what my 17 year-old client cares about anyway.  I wondered if it might not be just that easy.

But then I reminded myself what my friends so often tell me—that I am often highly naïve and too trusting, and that I should just stop hoping for things that can never happen.  Probably they are right, I thought.  But still, as I turned up the sidewalk towards the doors of Trinity College Chapel, I felt immensely sad.  Sad for abuse survivors, most of all, but also sad for a broken church, for broken promises and for broken people.  And so I sang the opening hymn at the Advent Eucharist—“O come, O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel”—with all the air in my lungs, with a broken voice, and with tears in my eyes.

 

 

by Timothy Lytton
December 7, 2009
Huffington Post

News Coverage of Cardinal Edward M. Egan’s cover up of clergy sexual abuse in the 1990s while he was the bishop of Bridgeport would be shocking if it weren’t so familiar. The list of high ranking Catholic Church officials who failed to report credible allegations of child sexual abuse by priests to law enforcement includes the most prominent prelates of this generation: Cardinal Joseph Bernadin in Chicago, Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua in Philadelphia, and Cardinal Roger Mahony in Los Angeles.

The Egan case does, however, highlight one feature of this ongoing scandal that is frequently overlooked: the role that civil lawsuits have played in uncovering most of what we know about clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and in motivating Church officials to address the problem.

To begin with, plaintiffs’ have lawyers compelled Church officials to produce secret files concerning abuse allegations and to provide sworn testimony about their own failures to adequately address the problem. Media reports about Cardinal Egan’s failures in Bridgeport are based on more than 12,000 pages of memos, church records, and testimony from 23 lawsuits against the diocese. Indeed, most media coverage of the scandal–dating back to the early 1980s–has been based on these types of litigation documents.

Civil lawsuits have also shaped our understanding of the clergy sexual abuse scandal as an institutional failure on the part of Church leaders. Throughout the scandal, some within the Church have attempted to focus attention exclusively on the perpetrators, suggesting that clergy sexual abuse is merely a matter of "a few bad apples." Others have argued that the whole matter has been blown out of proportion by plaintiffs’ lawyers and their clients seeking to make money off of the scandal by filing lawsuits. One also frequently hears suggestions that news coverage of the scandal is motivated by anti-Catholic media bias. Indeed, Cardinal Egan’s successor, Archbishop Timothy Dolan leveled this very accusation against the New York Times this fall.

By contrast, civil lawsuits have focused attention on the failures of Church officials. Plaintiffs’ lawyers sue large institutional defendants because they are better able to pay large settlements and judgments, and so clergy sexual abuse lawsuits have emphasized the failure of diocesan officials–especially bishops–to protect children from known abusers.

Media coverage of the scandal has been heavily influenced by this framing of clergy sexual abuse as an institutional failure on the part of Church officials. Litigation and trials have traditionally provided the type of drama that makes them attractive to journalists seeking to draw in readers. In addition, documents filed in court and sworn testimony provide the kind of credible sources of information that journalists like to rely upon.

By framing clergy sexual abuse as a problem of institutional failure on the part of Church officials, civil lawsuits have also motivated dioceses around the country to institute new programs to prevent sexual abuse before it occurs and to report credible allegations of sexual abuse when it does happen. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reports that over 90 percent of dioceses have instituted such programs and have trained over 7 million people in preventing, investigating, and reporting child sexual abuse.

It is inconceivable that so many U.S. bishops would have instituted such ambitious efforts to address clergy sexual abuse in the absence of the intense media coverage and public attention generated by civil lawsuits–not to mention the liability exposure.

It has been 25 years since the first civil lawsuits were filed against Catholic Church officials for clergy sexual abuse, and much progress has been made as a result of them. That leading prelates such as Cardinal Egan are still fighting so hard to hide the record of their misdeeds indicates that there is more work to be done and that civil lawsuits against Church officials may still have a role in uncovering the truth, highlighting the misdeeds of officials, and providing much needed pressure for reform.

The head of the Catholic Church in Ireland has told UTV he was ashamed and shocked by the revelations of a report into 30 years of child abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese.

"I’m deeply ashamed and shocked at the abuse revealed in today’s report and I want to apologise to those who suffered abuse and to their families", the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, said.

"I also want to apologise to the people of this country that the abuse was covered up and that the reputation of the church was sometimes placed above the safety and well-being of the children."

On Thursday night, the head of the Dublin Archdiocese, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, branded the revelations revolting, adding no words of apology would ever be sufficient for the horrifying abuse.

Archbishop Martin said he was offering his shame and sorrow to survivors and claimed the Archdiocese had failed to recognise the theft of childhood.

The senior cleric said the paedophile priests were devious in their attempts to excuse and deny sickening attacks.

"I would appeal to each of those people who are named in the commission as having acted in a way which put children in peril to assess their behaviour in past and behaviour today," he said.

Archbishop Martin said the numbers of victims were likely to be much higher than known.

He handed over more than 5,000 secret Church documents to the Commission in January last year, sparking a legal battle involving Cardinal Desmond Connell.

The Cardinal tried to block the publication claiming they were legally privileged or confidential.

The Archbishop declined to be drawn on whether Cardinal Connell should step aside.

"I’m pleased to see that over the last few days the judgment of Cardinal Connell is not as black and white, or almost in the black that it was over a period of time," he said.

"He’s a man who struggled with his own personal make-up and his own conscience and came out earlier than most bishops on the right side.

"Give people credit for the good things they do."

On Thursday night, Cardinal Connell asked for forgiveness from the abuse victims who suffered at the hands of paedophile priests under his control.

The senior cleric said he was distressed and bewildered that those in such a sacred position could be responsible for the heinous crimes.

The frail 83-year-old, who was among four Archbishops criticised for not handing over information to authorities on abusers, said the abuse of children was an unspeakable crime.

"Although I am all too aware that such apologies and expressions of regret can never be adequate as a response to so much hurt and violation, and, in any case, lose value through repetition, I apologise again now from my heart," he said in a statement.

"The abuse of children is an unspeakable crime," he continued.

Although critical of the Cardinal, the report gave him credit for instigating two secret canon law trials, despite strong opposition from one of the most powerful canonists in the Archdiocese, Monsignor Sheehy.

They led to two priests being defrocked.

In 1995 he also handed over files on 17 suspect priests to gardai, although it was later revealed he was aware of at least 28 at the time.

Survivors have demanded the Cardinal and other senior figures face a criminal investigation.

© UTV News

www.NPR.org
By Frank James

The Philadelphia Inquirer
October 23, 2009

The best way for Wilmington’s Roman Catholic Bishop W. Francis Malooly to demonstrate his stated concern for "all victims of sexual abuse by priests of our diocese" would be to give those victims their day in court.

Instead, Malooly’s eleventh-hour decision Sunday to file for bankruptcy protection effectively halted the first of eight clergy sex-abuse trials set to start the next day. That will have the net effect to further delay or perhaps thwart many victims’ long quest for justice.

The bishop wrote to the diocese’s 230,000 faithful that the "painful decision" to file for bankruptcy was intended to ensure that funds are available so that all of the victims get a fair settlement.

In other words, the bishop claims he doesn’t want one big verdict to deplete the church coffers and leave nothing for the other victims.

Puh-leeze.

Malooly denied that church leaders were trying "to dodge responsibility for past criminal misconduct by clergy – or for mistakes made by Diocesan authorities."

If true, it’s a welcome change from a church hierarchy that for decades has shielded predator priests by moving them from parish to parish. But an idiom recited by the many fine nuns in parish schools comes to mind: Actions speak louder than words.

Given the real-world impact of the bankruptcy claim, there’s no way around the perception that Delaware church officials have ducked for cover – in what one attorney for an abuse-case plaintiff called "scandal prevention."

Indeed, the first trial in a civil damages lawsuit brought by a former altar boy, John M. Vai, 57, would have revealed chilling testimony about violent sex acts by a priest from 1966 to 1970, according to Vai’s attorneys.

Now, those embarrassing allegations and many others won’t be aired in open court for months and months, if at all. Nor will the public hear any details of church leaders’ efforts to cover for predator priests.

As time goes on, it becomes increasingly difficult to mount legal claims like these because they rely heavily on victims’ testimony about long-ago abuse. So the danger is that justice delayed will mean justice denied.

The diocese’s move represents a stunning rebuke to Delaware state lawmakers, who, in 2007, voted to clear the air on the state’s clergy sex-abuse scandal.

Dover lawmakers opened a two-year window permitting civil suits by adult victims of sex abuse, even though the alleged assaults occurred years ago and the statute of limitations had lapsed.

Patterned after a California law, the measure put the First State in the forefront to give abuse victims their day in court. It gave hope to victims’ advocates in Pennsylvania, who have been stymied in their push for similar legislation in Harrisburg. That effort is opposed by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the state Catholic Conference, and others.

In Philadelphia alone, hundreds of abuse victims have been awaiting justice since a scathing grand jury report in 2005. The report concluded that 63 archdiocesan priests had sexually abused children and that top church leaders helped cover for some.

But church officials across the nation continue to fight statute moratoriums with specious claims that victims’ lawsuits will lead to parish closings, and several dioceses have resorted to the dubious bankruptcy claim.

If nothing else, the Delaware bankruptcy filing appears premature. After all, diocesan officials won’t even know the full scope of their financial liability until the abuse cases go to trial.

Legal experts said the diocese – which is a separate entity from Wilmington parishes and church schools – could have awaited the outcome of the trials before claiming it is broke.

Had Wilmington church officials allowed the civil cases to go forward, they would have avoided the perception that the cover-up continues.

French ‘Minister of Culture’ Frederic Mitterrand Finds Childhood Sexual Abuse Still Not Acceptable—Even to ‘Sophisticated’ European Morals.

By Kelly Clark, Child Sexual Abuse Attorney
Portland, Ore.

American political junkies often use a phrase to describe a politician’s secure standing with the electorate: “He’s a shoe-in—that is, unless he gets caught sleeping with a dead woman or a live boy.”   In other words,  Senator Bulbousnose will surely win, unless, that is, he steps across the unspoken final lines of decency we all know about—necrophilia and pedophilia being two  of them.

So, there are two things that amaze me about the unfolding scandal in France: first, that the Minister of Culture, Frederic Mitterrand, would think that his lurid book accounts of “paying for boys” in Thailand could fly under the radar and not matter to his public career; and, second, that it almost did.

In case you haven’t read about this unbelievable story, here is a quote from the Times Online, dateline October 8:

“President Sarkozy’s new Culture Minister, Frédéric Mitterrand, was struggling to save his name and possibly his job last night amid a storm over his past accounts of paying “boys” for sex. The nephew of the late President Mitterrand, who is openly gay, was thrown on the defensive after opposition politicians homed in on a memoir in which he described his delight in visiting brothels in Bangkok.

“I got into the habit of paying for boys … The profusion of young, very attractive and immediately available boys put me in a state of desire that I no longer needed to restrain or hide,” he wrote. The autobiography, La mauvaise vie (The Bad Life), was a critically acclaimed bestseller in 2005 and Mr Mitterrand, 62, a popular television presenter, was praised for his honesty. It rebounded on him this week after he leapt to the defence of Roman Polanski, the filmmaker, who was arrested in Switzerland for extradition to face a Los Angeles court for having sex with a girl aged 13.”

Now, let’s ignore the obvious about-face he has done in the last day or so, trying to play down what he has written. After all denying the obvious is what politicians do– although trying to say that admitting that he paid for sex with boys doesn’t mean that he paid for sex with boys may set a new standard.

No, I want to ponder the two aspects of all this that I mentioned above.  First, how did someone who wrote this—in 2005—get  appointed to a high post in a European government?  Surely he did not think no one would notice: he is, after all, the highly visible nephew of former President Francios Mitterrand and a TV personality in his own right.  No, it seems he was doing what a lot of celebrities do, which is to write a lurid autobiography “revealing all” to boost sales through shock value.  Surely he intended the world to know that he was tantalized and hooked by the Asian sex trade. He wanted people to know…

No, what is amazing to me is that he thought that this admission would shock people in no different way than, say, talking about drunken nights on the town or lurid sexual escapades of the kind we have grown used to with celebrities.  But that  he thought he could just cruise on in as Minster for Culture—that’s so rich in irony I can’t even know where to start— after admitting to deep-seated pedophilic behaviour is just stupefying. I don’t know whether this says more about the man’s flawed political judgment,  or about how far Western standards for decency have fallen.  After all, let’s not forget, that this book was published 4 years ago and up til now there had been no blow up.   He actually thought he could get away with it.

This brings me to the second source of amazement—he almost did. In fact, had it not been for the controversy over Switzerland’s arrest and the US’s extradition demands of filmmaker Roman Polanski for sexually abusing a 13 year old girl, we old-fashioned types in the US might not ever have heard about Mitterrand’s pedophilia.  But the fact that Europe heard about it and there was no uproar for nearly five years surely says something fundamental about the way those ‘sophisticated’ societies think (the condemnation by the avant garde of the US in fashionable circles for Polanski’s arrest is no less indicative).  Is it really okay for a major public personality now become public minister to have engaged in pedophilia?  Note that there is no indication that he has acknowledged in sorrow the wrongness of his behavior, sought help, amended his way of life.  This is not a story about a guy who couldn’t find forgiveness when he asked for it. This is about a guy who didn’t—apparently didn’t—even realize that what he had done was fundamentally wrong… even by the standards of Senator Bulbousnose… even by standards of European ‘sophistication.’  

Boy—no pun intended—did Mitterand get the surprise of his life. There are still some things that politicians, even in Europe,  can’t do. Thank God.

 

The justices on Monday turned down a request by the Roman Catholic diocese in Bridgeport, Conn.

Foxnews.com
Monday, November 5th, 2009

The Supreme Court has refused to block the release of documents generated by lawsuits against priests in Connecticut for alleged sexual abuse.

The justices on Monday turned down a request by the Roman Catholic diocese in Bridgeport, Conn.

Several newspapers are seeking the release of more than 12,000 pages from 23 lawsuits against six priests.

The records have been under seal since the diocese settled the cases in 2001. Courts in Connecticut have ruled that the papers should be made public.

The high court also refused to make a decision Monday on whether to hear arguments from a group of Chinese men who have been imprisoned at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for more than seven years.

The justices reviewed the case last week, but made no announcement about how they will move on the petition from the Uighurs — whose relocation has been part of a larger headache for the Obama administration, which is trying to meet its self-imposed pledge to close Gitmo by January.  The Uighurs were picked up in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks, but have steadfastly maintained they had no role in supporting the Taliban or Al Qaeda.  The Pacific island of Palau has agreed to take 12 of the remaining 13 Uighurs on a temporary basis.  Last year, a federal judge in Washington concluded the men had been detained long enough and ordered that they be released into the United States. On emergency appeal, another court blocked that decision and eventually overturned the ruling. 

FOX News’ Lee Ross and the Associated Press contributed to this report.