But Why Are ‘Other Bishops Refusing to Release Child-Abusing Priests’ Names?’

From the Culture and Family Report
By Allyson Smith
March 4, 2002

Leaders of Roman Catholic Faithful (RCF), a lay organization dedicated to exposing the U.S. Catholic Church’s harboring of pedophiles, are grateful that a scandal in Boston is finally forcing church authorities to deal with the problem. But they say church officials continue to “stonewall” efforts to fully expose pederasts in the church.

An RCF attorney also said that the church has paid out $1 billion in settlements to victims of (mostly homosexual) molestations by priests. The money is paid in return for a commitment by the victim not to discuss the abuse, or the financial settlement, in public, he said.

Since early January, the American Catholic Church has been rocked by a series of Boston Globe reports exposing how known pedophile priests have been protected by the Boston Archdiocese and its archbishop, Cardinal Bernard Law.

The criminal trial of Fr. John Geoghan, a former priest of the archdiocese who is named as a defendant in more than 80 civil lawsuits for sexual molestation, has focused national attention on the problem of clerical pedophilia. Geoghan was sentenced last week to 9 to 10 years in state prison with lifetime probation in one of those cases. His case has also shed light on the complicity of Catholic bishops who pay off complainants, seal records, and move offending priests to other parishes instead of defrocking them.

In the midst of the unfolding scandal, many have called for the resignation of Cardinal Law, who has flatly rejected the idea. Instead, he proposed in a January 27 open letter to archdiocese Catholics “to implement a comprehensive and aggressive child protection program in order to better uncover and prevent the sexual abuse of children.” He has also turned over the names of other Boston priests implicated in molestations to law enforcement authorities.

RCF SKEPTICAL

“Nothing is going to change. The only reason Cardinal Law is implementing this program is because he was caught and is getting bad publicity,” said RCF President Stephen Brady. “If anything was going to change regarding the U.S. bishops’ mode of operation, it would have been after the Rudy Kos case in Dallas.”

In 1997, a jury found the Diocese of Dallas guilty of gross negligence in the case of Kos, a former priest accused of molesting at least 11 boys from 1981 to 1982. The initial award of $120 million — in what was at that time the largest clergy-abuse case in history — was later reduced to $23 million.

“At that time,” said Brady, “the National Conference of Catholic Bishops [NCCB] was stonewalling and fighting release of any of their documents. In the Boston case, the judge was brilliant in demanding that the Boston Archdiocese release the documents. If that hadn’t happened, I believe the archdiocese would still be stonewalling. All Cardinal Law is doing now is walking away from the problem by throwing all the clergy’s names out there. It still doesn’t undo the liability and address the real problem of how these people got into the priesthood and the seminary formation process in the first place.”

Brady added, “Thank God the Globe is putting the heat on. God bless the papers and people who are doing it, because it’s the only hope we have of any change. The Boston Globe has done Catholics a great service regardless of what [the Globe staff’s] politics are.”

The Globe has a reputation as one of the most liberal and pro-homosexual newspapers in the nation.

“If Cardinal Law has suddenly seen the light, why are so many other bishops refusing to release [child-abusing] priests’ names?” asked Brady, citing the case of Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany, New York. According to a February 24 report in the Albany Times Union, Hubbard’s diocese has “allowed priests to remain working even though an internal investigation determined they were guilty of sexual misconduct with minors, diocesan officials said.” The diocese acknowledged that it has “paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle abuse claims,” the Times Union reported. Hubbard said the implicated priests had been reassigned to jobs “where they are not allowed to be unsupervised with children,” according to the newspaper.

“Cardinal Law, as an ‘elder cardinal’ in this country, should be encouraging the other bishops in the NCCB to follow his lead and to release all the information,” Brady said. “Let every diocese come out with the information about the money that has been paid by the people in the pews.”

$1 BILLION IN SETTLEMENTS

“One reason why so much money is paid out,” Bendell said, is because “under the law of most states you have to prove that the diocese knew or should have known of the priest’s dangerous propensity. The fact that a billion dollars has been paid out means the plaintiffs’ attorneys have been able to demonstrate that the diocese had prior complaints, or they have obtained a file of the priest’s psychological screening before he became a priest, or to demonstrate that the diocese had prior knowledge of his dangerous propensity.”

Bendell said the plaintiffs’ attorneys have a “collection of damning information that they cannot tell the public, worried parents or anybody,” because it is protected by the seal of confidentiality under various financial settlements with church officials.

“The other party [the church] has the right to waive that at any time. The diocese could say, ‘It’s true that we have the right to keep these secret, but we want these to go to the Catholics in this diocese to keep them fully informed,’” Bendell said.

“Yes, the bishops could do that — but of course they haven’t done that. … And it’s not just the documents; they also keep the settlements secret. Virtually every case where a pedophile claim is settled by a diocese or religious order, they make the boy sign an agreement that says, ‘You will not tell anybody about the amount of money you got, or even that you got money for this case’ under threat, implicitly, that they will sue to get the money back if he blabs about it.”

Bendell also complained about the muddled public explanations coming from Catholic Church officials.

“You’ll find that when the bishops get caught with their hands in the cookie jar, so to speak, in terms of personally negligent behavior [by predatory priests], they always publicly apologize [using] emotional terms.”

Bendell said that bishops are now adopting “Politically Correct language” to describe past predatory conduct by priests.

“There is no [talk of] longer sin and virtue; there is ‘appropriate behavior’ and ‘inappropriate behavior,’” he said. “And most ‘inappropriate behavior’ is due to people not having enough ‘counseling’ in life.”

CODDLED ‘GAY’ PEDOPHILES?

“Some priests have gone through programs two or three different times. The Servants of the Paraclete in New Mexico specializes in treating priest pedophiles and alcoholics. One of the priests running the program was having an affair with one of the priest-patients,” he said. “The facility had a number of rainbow flags outside the buildings. There were gay magazines available for reading by the priest-patients. Priests were permitted to socialize in the evenings at gay bars, because they were told that the goal of getting well is to integrate your sexuality with your entire persona.”

“The bishops get tough only when they get caught,” Bendell said.

A complete video tape of James Bendell’s talk, “Fighting Child Molestation in the Priesthood,” is available from RCF for a $35 donation. See the RCF Web site or mail a check to Roman Catholic Faithful, P.O. Box 109, Petersburg, Illinois 62675. Phone: (217) 632-5920.

Allyson Smith is a regular contributor to C&F Report, and a reporter for San Diego News Notes, a traditional Catholic lay newspaper.