Part II in a look at the problems facing falsely accused priests.
WASHINGTON — New allegations of clerical abuse have revived public outrage regarding weak oversight in U.S. chanceries, but there’s another related concern that worries priests: accused clerics denied due process by their own Church.
The explosive clergy sex abuse scandal and the U.S. hierarchy’s uphill struggle to regain credibility with the faithful and the public at large have resulted in pleas for forgiveness, promises of reform and financial settlements for thousands of victims.
But advocates for accused priests contend that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishop’s “zero tolerance” policy has also spawned an unjust system that tramples on the rights of priests. In many cases, priests who have been found innocent remain barred from active ministry, while others who appeal their cases to the Vatican can be sidelined for years.
The simmering problem is grist for online blogs and rectory debates, but receives little attention in the secular media. Yet similar concerns were raised when the bishops approved the zero tolerance policy and related procedures.
Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, then-archbishop of Philadelphia, tried to amend the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People that the U.S. bishops passed in Dallas in 2002 so that bishops would have to contact civil authorities only in response to allegations of sexual abuse deemed “credible” by each bishop.
“It’s hard to understand why, when someone makes an accusation that is obviously frivolous, it has to be reported,” Cardinal Bevilacqua said. “Once you involve the authorities, it goes into public record and it can ruin the reputation of a perfectly good priest for no reason. The priest has to live with a blemished public record, yet he’s completely innocent. The damage to his reputation will be very difficult to counter.”
Father Michael Maginot, a canon lawyer who works with the clergy support group Justice for Priests, said he knew of no case where a priest that had been tried and cleared by a diocesan tribunal was then fully reinstated in active ministry.
Father Maginot, who has represented 20 accused priests, explained that the local ordinary essentially decides the fate of the accused. The bishop directs the investigation into the alleged abuse, and also serves as the tribunal judge. Generally, several associates assist with the trial, and many dioceses hire private investigators.
“The number one problem,” said Father Maginot, is that every credible allegation of abuse of minors must go to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.”
Once the case is sent to Rome, the congregation only communicates with the local bishop, not the accused or his advocate. The congregation expects the bishop to relay that communication to the accused. Father Maginot contended that an inconvenient outcome could easily be ignored.
Joe Maher, president of Opus Bono Sacerdotii, which assists bishops and superiors of religious orders to solve the problems of the priesthood, echoes Father Maginot’s concerns. Maher notes that the advocates of accused priests do not have access to case files and thus cannot respond to undisclosed evidence or subjective evaluations.
Maher argues that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith should communicate directly with advocates, not only with bishops. He said that many of the accused did not even know the name of their accuser.
He added that some of the accused can be pressured by insurance companies to participate in pre-trial financial settlements designed to resolve a large number of civil claims alleging abuse and child endangerment in a diocese. In such cases, actual guilt or innocence becomes a secondary concern. But after the settlement, said Maher, the priest looks guilty and thus is likely to be barred from reinstatement.
Vast Backlog of Cases
In the wake of the 2002 U.S. clergy abuse crisis, hundreds of appeals were forwarded to the Vatican, creating a vast backlog. Almost a decade later, Justice for Priests reports that hundreds of cases are still unresolved, languishing in an appeals process that may drag on for years.
Canon law stipulates that appeals should be resolved within months, and that the accused should continue to receive financial support from their diocese, but Father Maginot says that many of the accused rely on funds provided by lay supporters.
Complaints regarding “indefinite delays dating back to 2005 appeals” — as Joe Maher puts it — have been noted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
In a 2010 interview posted on the Vatican’s website, Msgr. Charles Scicluna, the prosecutor of the tribunal that investigates cases alleging the clerical abuse of minors, defended the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s record. Recent complaints, he insisted, were “unjustified comments. In 2003 and 2004 a great wave of cases flooded over our desks. Many of them came from the United States and concerned the past. Over recent years,.. we now seek to deal with new cases as they arise.”
Msgr. Scicluna confirmed that between 2001-2010 his office at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had investigated an astonishing 3,000 cases forwarded from dioceses all over the world, involving crimes allegedly committed over half a century.
Twenty percent of those cases resulted in a “full trial, penal or administrative, in the diocese of origin,” Msgr. Scicluna reported. Depending on the case, charges might be dismissed because the accused was judged to be innocent, or because there was insufficient evidence to establish guilt. Even when the accused was cleared of guilt, the ability of the accused to return to active ministry depended on what Msgr. Scicluna described as the discernment of “his fitness for public ministry.”
Church authorities may have good reason to bar a priest from active ministry. To the uninitiated, however, the outcome of a trial can appear confusing, or even unjust.
Many dioceses contacted for this story did not return calls asking for clarification regarding their guidelines for reinstatement, and due process for those appealing decisions. While diocesan spokesmen are quick to outline the “Safe Environment” policies established since 2002, “talking points” on the return of clerics once vilified as “predator priests” are rarely introduced.
Mary Jane Doerr, associate director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection, insists that the hierarchy cares deeply about the rights of accused priests.
“The bishops that we work with are careful to honor the allegation, but also to make sure that it’s credible. They have no reason to ruin a man’s career,” said Doerr.
Doerr suggested that lawyers representing an accused priest might ignore troubling details that could figure in a bishop’s decision to bar reinstatement. The public “may only hear one side of the story,” she said.
Blogging from Prison
Perhaps the most publicized case of a priest challenging his conviction for child sexual abuse is Father Gordon MacRae of the Diocese of Manchester, N.H. The priest has spent 16 years of a life sentence in prison.
In 2005, Father MacRae’s cause was championed by Dorothy Rabinowitz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, whose columns appear on the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal.
Previously, Rabinowitz’s research and advocacy won the release of preschool operators unjustly convicted of child sex abuse. Subsequently, she wrote two columns outlining Father MacRae’s case but failed to win his release.
Today, Father MacRae continues to maintain his innocence. In a post on his blog, “These Stone Walls — Musings from Prison of a Priest Falsely Accused,” written in his overcrowded prison cell, he quoted Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights: “There is no segment of the American population with less civil liberties protection than the average American Catholic priest.”
The Diocese of Manchester doesn’t share Rabinowitz’s belief in the priest’s innocence. “Father MacRae pleaded guilty to felonious sexual assault,” stated diocesan spokesman Kevin Donovan.
Rabinowitz offered an exculpatory back story to Father MacRae’s guilty plea, but Donovan referred this reporter to local media coverage of the trial. Donovan also would not address Rabinowitz’s charge that the Manchester Diocese issued a pre-trial statement that lent credence to the abuse allegations.
A few dioceses acknowledge the struggle to accommodate both “zero tolerance” policies and the rights of the accused. Dan Andriacco, a spokesman for the Diocese of Cincinnati, which has reinstated several priests cleared of charges, believes it is possible to adhere to the Dallas Charter and also provide due process for the accused. Joseph Zwilling, the long-time spokesman for the New York Archdiocese, noted that Cardinal Edward Egan, emeritus archbishop, had appointed a priest cleared of charges to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The prominent appointment signaled the cardinal’s trust and desire to restore the priest’s reputation, said Zwilling.
Amid fresh allegations of clerical abuse and episcopal negligence in Los Angeles and Philadelphia, the rights of the accused are unlikely to draw much sympathy or media attention.
But Father Roger Landry, a pastor in the Diocese of Fall River, Mass., and the editor of its newspaper, underscores the importance of fighting false accusations. He has written about the struggles of Church leaders and saints unfairly tarnished in past scandals. While some have suffered silently, others sought to defend their honor.
St. John Vianney, once accused of “impregnating a young woman who lived near the church in Ars,” came to realize that he was not only obligated to defend his own reputation, wrote Father Landry, “but also the reputation of the priesthood. For that reason, he undertook a defense, lest by failing to do so, he would give any plausibility to the vile rumors.”
More recently, Church leaders like Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago and Cardinal George Pell of Sydney shared that conviction, noted Father Landry. They also understood that a vigorous defense would help ”dissuade others from making similar false accusations in the future.”
Register correspondent Joan Frawley Desmond writes from Chevy Chase, Maryland..
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There should be no problem of filing a report with the police so two independent investigations could occur. None.
As far as the priests falsely accused, or those claiming to be, that is a hard one. Some have maintained their innocence in order to deceive others. Such is a sad part of that nature. But what is true and what is false? You do the best you can. But I could see that taking a while.
It is most interesting in this article that the Diocese of Manchester does not share Ms Rabinowitz’s belief that Fr. MacRae is innocent of the charges for which he is in prison. In 2000, PBS FrontLine took an interest in the case of Fr. MacRae. A representative of PBS, who is a devout Catholic, notified Bishop John McCormack of the Manchester Diocese of Frontline’s interest. The gentleman was immediately summoned to the Chancery office for a private meeting with the Bishop. He was told in no uncertain terms of the Bishop’s belief that Fr. MacRae is in fact innocent. “But none of this can ever leave this room,” the Bishop is reported to have said. The PBS official got Frontline to back down believing that the Diocese was about to step up and hire legal counsel to further review this case. I have seen first hand documentation indicating that the Diocese of Manchester was about to do just that when the national scandal erupted in 2002 and Fr. MacRae became “guilty” once again. Interesting that it is primarily Church officials who now take umbrage over this man’s defense.
Cardinal Bevilaqua had a vested interested in asking that the charter be amended. If you read the Philadelphia Grand jury report summary, you will find his name all over the place, and not in a favorable light. This man did the children of Philadelphia no service. Were it not for his current advanced age and poor health, the grand jury likely would have addressed him further. Don’t read the media accounts; read the report summary. As an ardent defender of the church and priests, I am greatly distressed by what they did in this post-2002 era in Philadelphia and feel betrayed by both.
The heirarchy of the RCC has lied to the faithful and the public on this subject to such an extent that they have no credability. That is the crux of the situation as it exists today. You might say it is a problem of the heirarchy, by the heirarchy and about the heirarchy. A complete turnover in the church heirarchy is needed before the church’s credability can be restored. It must be a new breed of leader not the appointment of different people trained by the present heirarchy.
I agree with Mrs. O. Of course, every state requires that police must be notified when there is an accusation. However the idea that there will be legitimate investigations is simply not realistic. The fact is that the vast majority of accusations against priests - more than 70% - were brought 20 to 50 years after the claim was alleged to have happened and only after it became clear that the Church will settle these claims for big bucks. There is no investigation technique known to anyone that could legitimately investigate a 50 year old claim of child abuse. So priests are being thrown to the litigious wolves without any realistic hope of ever clearing their names. And this is happening only to Catholic priests. No one else faces accusations that are 30 or 40 years old. Have a good look at the SPECIAL REPORT at http://www.TheseStoneWalls.com for a clear picture of this tyranny.
“There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.” Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, 1742.
Priests should be innocent until proven guilty and smearing all priests with the offenses committed by a minority is wrong.
That said all accusations of impropriety must be reported to authorities immediately (despite what bishops like Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua would wish) . One can prosecute the priests that are accused of crimes, the exoneration of those found innocent is not that easy. The latter is a fact of life independent of whether the accused is a priest or not.
But first and foremost go after the bishops who systematically covered up these crimes and refused to report them to civil authorities ‘for the good of the Church”. The Catholic hierarchy’s moral relativism on this topic has in fact accounted for much of the downfall of the Catholic Church in the west. Ironic when the pope accuses atheists of practicing moral relativism when in fact the abuse of children is one ethical principle that most atheists would hold as an absolute.
Again, I am a bit surprised that Ms. Desmond has not reported the eye-opening comments of former Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Donald H. Steier. He has declared in court that there is RAMPANT FRAUD being perpetrated against the Church.
Steier: “One retired F.B.I. agent who worked with me to investigate many claims in the Clergy Cases told me, in his opinion, about ONE-HALF of the claims made in the Clergy Cases were either entirely false or so greatly exaggerated that the truth would not have supported a prosecutable claim for childhood sexual abuse.”
Also: “In several cases my investigation has provided objective information that could not be reconciled with the truthfulness of the subjective allegations. In other words, in many cases objective facts showed that accusations were false.”
There’s A LOT more: http://www.themediareport.com/jan2011/special-steier-declaration.htm (Full disclosure: I am the author of TheMediaReport.com.)
Another consideration: In 2009, over 42% of all accused priests were DECEASED!
Cardinal Bevilacqua: Don’t you understand sir that you and your brother Bishops are the greatest cause for scandal in this entire affair. The systematic cover-ups that took place with priests who were KNOWN to be pedophiles has resulted in a situation where NO ONE, not even the priests are willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the Bishops in these matters.
If it is a frivolous allegation, civil authorities will quickly come to that conclusion and the matter never hits the public sphere as no charges will be laid. I know this to be true because prior to becoming a priest I worked as a graduate social worker for a child protection/welfare agency.
It will take a LOT of time and EFFORT on the part of the Bishops to win back the confidence of their priests in many, many parts of the English speaking world… even longer and harder to regain the trust of society at large.
I pray EVERYDAY that they will be up to the task.
Fr. Tim Moyle, p.p.
St. Anne’s Roman Catholic Parish
Mattawa, Ontario. Canada
As to presumption of innocence I am all for it but as the article notes false allegations are rare, just 1.5%. Where the allegations are clearly false then it would be only fair to return to Priest to his normal duties and be compensated, although no amount of compensation is good enough. But where the allegations could not be proved and there is an element of doubt then it would be a suicide for the Church to return the Priests to their normal duties. We must in that case error for the safety of children; as well the Priest would not be able to function adequately and would be in danger from those who believe he got off scot free.
The recent article on Irish Priests is consistent with your claim that the relationship between Priests and their Bishops leaves a lot to be desired – there appears to be a lack of communication. In my professional life I can’t recall a week where I did not have lunch with my boss and or my staff where we could discuss anything without any repercussions. My suggestion would be that the Priests form an association to address your concerns, no matter how smart one is the collective power is far greater. Bishops have their association why not Priests have their own. If you already have an association then I suggest you kick *** of whoever is the head. Remember you have more power than you think.
Too bad so many of the bishops don’t follow St. John Vianney’s excellent example.
Mary Jane Doerr is speaking out of both sides of the USCCB’s mouth. Anyone remember Msgr. Harris being accused in the Diocese of Orange in California? TWO successive district attorneys in the County of Orange refused to prosecute. Yet three bishops, two of Orange and the outgoing Archbishop of Los Angeles, in their seemingly infinite arrogance assured the people of the archdiocese and diocese that they had, “grave doubts,” regarding Msgr. Harris’ innocence and paid his accuser $5.2 MILLION dollars.
In the Buuffalo diocese,three monsignors were unceremoniously and mysteriously reired. One was later shown to be a child molester,alcoholic transvestite. The other tow,linger under a cloud of suspicion,even though they both have some reputation for spirituality. Lack of transparency hurts even the innocent. It really does nothing for the guilty
Outlaw wrote, “As to presumption of innocence I am all for it but as the article notes false allegations are rare, just 1.5%.”
And that’s a criticism I have with this article. That figure is VERY old.
As we now know, the figure is as high as 50 PERCENT! (See citation above.)
Fr. Moyle: “If it is a frivolous allegation, civil authorities will quickly come to that conclusion and the matter never hits the public sphere as no charges will be laid. I know this to be true because prior to becoming a priest I worked as a graduate social worker for a child protection/welfare agency.”
This may be the case in Canada. It ain’t so in the U.S.A.
To DPierre, I do not believe you can claim with a straight face that one letter to the editor false allegations as high as fifty percent give credence to the fifty percent figure. What other evidence of such a rate is there?
I have been reading these comments and weighing some of them against what I have been reading on These Stone Walls, a blog by a wrongly convicted priest. I think these comments are important because they show that people are beginning to put aside their anger at the scandal and are looking more honestly at the other scandal, the torment of innocent priests who are being discarded by their Church. Fr. MacRae wrote something that really caught my attention. He wrote that he asked the prisoners around him if any of them would ever accuse a priest falsely just for money. They all laughed hysterically at the naivete of the question, and then reminded him that some of them have snuffed out lives for a mere fraction of the money gained by those who took his reputation and freedom. What world do we think we’re living in if we truly believe that money hasn’t driven this entire picture?
I do not doubt Fr. Moyle’s good intention, but he is misinformed about the current situation of priests accused in the United States. The Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire held a press conference in 2003 and released to the news media the name of every priest accused. There were 62 of them. Not one of them had been criminally charged. The Bishop of Portland, Maine did the same thing, but also took the added step of releasing the current address of every priest who had been accused. The Archdiocese of Boston is currently considering such a step, but one of the contingency lawyers there couldn’t wait and just two weeks ago he listed on his own website the name of every priest in Boston who has been accused. None of them were criminally charged. Beginning in New England the US bishops have published their own private “Megan’s Law” list of perpetrators whose civil rights were destroyed in the process. State authorities cannot release such names unless the person is charged in a criminal court. That has not been so for the US bishops.
@CER1940: Hi. It was not a “letter to the editor.” It was a declaration submitted to the Los Angeles County Superior Court. The actual links to the documents are in the article.
And, again, this attorney is about as experienced as anyone in California, especially with clergy cases.
http://www.themediareport.com/jan2011/special-steier-declaration.htm
@CER1940 - Let the Church say AMEN! The hierarchy has prevaricated, covered up, cowed victims into silence…The hierarchy’s refusal to honestly address its role in covering up and enabling pedophilia has cost it its moral authority. Now the Vatican’s edicts are greeted with growing indifference. The hierarchy has condemned itself to moral irrelevence.
It is so sad but not surprising that priests have lost their credibility b/c of their association to the morally bankrupt Vatican.
When your apartment is robbed do you go the police or to the landlord? Common sense would tell you do both. However, blaming the landlord probably won’t get you very far. Who but parents were in the best position to see that their children had been harmed, but did not take “immediate and forceful response” to protect their children?
Many of the alleged incidents of abuse occurred decades ago, in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. During this time there was a high level of respect for clergy and religious. It is said that this contributed to children being taken advantage of by predatory priests violating that trust. Is it possible that parents did not believe their children? Is it possible that there was insufficient evidence that the police could use to intercede and prosecute? If both are true, then is it fair to place all the blame on the diocesan bishop for not acting “decisively” on the same information? With the church unresponsive, reporting repeated abuse to the police by those most immediately affected and aware of a problem would seem to be that much more obvious and urgent.
It is a fact that what happened was almost entirely homoerotic sexual activity between priests and post-pubescent males. Recognizing that this behavior is homosexuality has been politically incorrect even though it is a fact that homosexuals had infiltrated the US Catholic priesthood. And aided and abetted by homosexuals in leadership positions in seminaries, they became priests and used their position to seduce young emotionally confused adolescents. Bowing to political pressure, the American Psychiatric Association reversed itself and declared that homosexuality is normal and untreatable; undermining the rehabilitative efforts of the treatment centers where priests were sent, as well as tainting the current debate.
Hindsight informs us that most bishops’ response was misguided. They did not clamp down and remove the unfaithful priests, conditioned in part by the Christian belief in compassion, repentance and forgiveness, and apparently failing to focus on the damage to young people. This was wrong.
Nonetheless, how much “abuse” actually occurred has not been proven since diocese and religious orders have chosen to settle the allegations rather than be the subject of a media circus in the courts. This lesson was learned early on in Boston. Many of the accused priests were dead. Others were shutout of church deliberations, and some sacrificed in a hypocritical attempt to cool the frenzy. As a consequence the general public has come to assume, listening to the endless one-sided coverage of such outlets as the NY Times and Boston Globe, that every new allegation is true. And the no questions asked payoffs are attracting an ever-increasing number of alleged victims.
Several years after the Boston Archdiocese paid out over $100,000,000 to alleged victims after appealing to them to come forward, three more claim to have been victimized some 30 years ago. And apparently motivated by Cardinal O’Malley’s quick apology, still three more are taking advantage of the opportunity. It is time for a believable explanation for why it has taken them so long, and what proof do they have to justify destroying the reputation of a dead and elderly priests.
Suggested reading: George Weigel’s book, “The Courage To Be Catholic: Crisis, Reform And The Future Of The Church” and, “Goodbye, Good Men” by Michael Rose.
Mr. VanDunk is correct about the parents not paying attention or not believing their children. That is an issue no one seems willing to report on in the media. He also mentions the other side of that coin - the respect we had for clergy. Maybe we should stop putting them on pedestals and start asking questions when we see or hear something that doesn’t seem right. “Father or Sister said so,” just doesn’t cut-it anymore.
His thesis about homosexuals infiltrating and subverting the priesthood is, in my opinion, bunk. We have always had homosexuals in the priesthood and always will. Now that people are aware of the problems of pedophilia (children under 13 and not about homosexuality) and ephebophilia (13-18 and about homosexuality), we all need to be alert in every sector of society, not just the Church.
I strongly recommend reading David F. Pierre’s book, DOUBLE STANDARD: ABUSE SCANDALS AND THE ATTACK ON THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. Mr. Pierre has had the singular courage to cover an inconvenient truth that the rest of the media has ignored. Let me tell you exactly how bad this is: In 2002 Attorney Peter Hutchins expressed to the news media that he just settled 62 cases of sexual abuse alleged to have occurred over the preceding 60 years in the Diocese of Manchester. He expressed amazement that the Diocese handed over $5.5 million without seeking any details or corroboration whatsoever. “I’ve never seen anything like it!” he said. As soon as the checks were written, he suddenly came up with another gaggle of clients. Once that check was written, he had yet another collection. He has recently negotiated his fifth round of mediated settlements, and he expressed outrage when asked by a local newspaper what his total contingency fee has been. Well, I agree with this lawyer. I’ve never seen anything like it!
Quote “That is an issue no one seems willing to report on in the media. He also mentions the other side of that coin - the respect we had for clergy. Maybe we should stop putting them on pedestals and start asking questions when we see or hear something that doesn’t seem right. “Father or Sister said so,” just doesn’t cut-it anymore.” When I was growing up the indoctrination started in the first grade and continued thru the 12 th or beyond. The options were do as we preach/teach or suffer the wrath of the school leaders on earth and the gates of hell when you leave this earth. There were no real options. We were brain washed. It took me years to leave and I doubt that I am over the brain washing today. I left because I could not stand by and let my children be brain washed.
What priest can afford to launch a legal defense ?????
I was told it could 100 to 150,000.00 !!!
The fact is the priest is abandoned by his bishop + undefended ...
If you look at the “Findings of Fact and Law” issued by Judge Sontchi in the Diocese of Wilmington, DE, bankruptcy case, you will see that he accepted the term “credibly accused” at face value, and prohibited the Church from paying pensions to accused priests. I would suggest that in several of these cases there was no credibility, just a rush to judgment by the bishops, but that has now been strengthened by a court. It is true that in some cases there was a great deal of credibility, but in many there is not. This shows the need for stringent due process in these cases, and that process is sadly lacking. Most bishops seem to consider an accusation “credible” if the accuser gets the priest’s name reasonably correct and guesses the times of his assignment somewhat closely (plus or minus five years is about right). The Priesthood is being changed from a sacred vocation to an “employee at will” realtionship in which the bishop can fire (and indeifinite administrative leave is in fact a firing) a priest for any reason or no reason. If you consult handbooks of labor law (which do not cover priests since they usually are a “religious exception” to labor law protections) you will find that an illegal alien working at a California Wal-Mart has more due process protection than a Catholic priest. And we wonder why young men are not lining up to become priests!
“There is no segment of the American population with less civil liberties protection than the average American Catholic priest.”
Except for a child in the womb.
When looking at the USCCB and their doublespeak, I feel the urge to quote Shakespere ” Who will rid us of these turbulent Priests?”
The Hierachy in the US (with a few notable exceptions)are cowardly mice who had their backbones removed a long time.
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