Bronx, New York - Quite a lot of molesting going on over the years, in and out of the Catholic church...
Catherine
[10-2003] The decision to [...] re-immersed St. Benedict's in controversy only two
years after parishioners opposed the archdiocese's assignment of a priest who was
facing allegations of sexual misconduct against boys going back decades.
The priest, the Rev. Gennaro Gentile, a former pastor at Holy Name of Mary in
Croton-on-Hudson, was removed from St. Benedict's after a few weeks. Parishioners had
threatened to withhold contributions to the church. Zwilling said Gentile's
assignment to St. Benedict's was intended to be temporary.
Gentile, who was replaced by Whalen at St. Benedict's, was removed from the ministry
by Cardinal Edward Egan last year because of the allegations against him
[6-2001] When HIV-positive teacher Milton McFarlane last month was accused of having
sex with boys in his Bronx classroom, New Yorkers wanted to know how it could happen.
A better question might be: How often?
I've reviewed files of a teacher and an administrator whose sex-abuse cases reached
binding arbitration - a kind of trial used to discipline bad teachers. It was an
education.
As with McFarlane, the cases were ignored or badly bungled from start to finish.
**************************************************
Trail of Pain in Church Crisis Leads to Nearly Every Diocese
New York Times ^ | January 12, 2003 | Laurie Goodstein
Posted on 01/26/2003 12:13:01 PM PST by american colleen
+
The sexual abuse crisis that engulfed the Roman Catholic Church in the last 12 months
has now spread to nearly every American diocese and involves more than 1,200 priests,
most of whose careers straddle a sharp divide in church history and seminary
training.
These priests are known to have abused more than 4,000 minors over the last six
decades, according to an extensive New York Times survey of documented cases of
sexual abuse by priests through Dec. 31, 2002.
The survey, the most complete compilation of data on the problem available, contains
the names and histories of 1,205 accused priests. It counted 4,268 people who have
claimed publicly or in lawsuits to have been abused by priests, though experts say
there are surely many more who have remained silent.
The survey provides a statistical framework for viewing the sexual abuse crisis
against the modern history of the American Catholic Church. It found, for example,
that most priests accused of abuse were ordained between the mid-1950's and the
1970's, a period of upheaval in the church, when men trained in the traditional
authoritarian seminary system were sent out to serve in a rapidly changing church and
social culture.
Most of the abuse occurred in the 1970's and 1980's, the survey found. The number of
priests accused of abuse declined sharply by the 1990's.
But the data show that priests secretly violated vulnerable youth long before the
first victims sued the church and went public in 1984 in Louisiana. Some offenses
date from the 1930's.
"This has been going on for decades, probably centuries," said Richard K. O'Connor, a
former Dominican priest who says he was one of 10 boys sexually assaulted by three
priests in a South Bronx parish in 1940, when he was 10. "It's just that all of a
sudden, they got caught."
The survey also shows how pervasive the abuse has been. Using information from court
records, news reports, church documents and interviews, the survey found accusations
of abuses in all but 16 of the 177 Latin Rite dioceses in the United States.
Every region was seriously affected, with 206 accused priests in the West, 246 in the
South, 335 in the Midwest and 434 in the Northeast. (Some priests were counted more
than once if they abused in more than one region.) The crisis reached not only big
cities like Boston and Los Angeles but smaller ones like Louisville, Ky., with 27
priests accused, and St. Cloud, Minn., with 9.
The scandal has set off an intense debate within the church over what caused it and
what can resolve it. Many Catholic conservatives blame the reforms of the Second
Vatican Council and the social upheaval of the 1960's for removing priestly
inhibitions on sexuality and dissent. Liberals tend to find the root causes in what
they call the church's repressive approach to sex, including priestly celibacy, and
its deeply ingrained culture of secrecy. The Times database provides evidence to
support the arguments of both sides.
The data, together with extensive interviews with priests and former priests, abuse
victims, church historians, psychologists and experts on sexual disorders, suggest
that although the problem involved only a small percentage of priests, it was deeply
embedded in the culture of the Catholic priesthood. Many priests began seminary
training as young as 13, and all of them spent years being groomed in an insular
world in which sexual secrets and transgressions were considered a matter for the
confessional, not the criminal courts.
The Times survey counted priests from dioceses and religious orders who had been
accused by name of sexually abusing one or more children. It determined that 1.8
percent of all priests ordained from 1950 to 2001 had been accused of abuse.
But the research also suggested that the extent of the problem remains hidden. In
dioceses that have divulged what they say are complete lists of abusive priests —
under court orders or voluntarily — the percentages are far higher. In Baltimore, an
estimated 6.2 percent of priests ordained in the last half-century have been
implicated in the abuse of minors. In Manchester, N.H., the percentage is 7.7, and in
Boston it is 5.3.
In November, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a top Vatican official, declared that "less
than 1 percent" of priests had abused minors, and that there were fewer sex offenders
among priests than other groups.
But experts say it is impossible to know whether priests abuse more or less often
than people in other professions, or even in the general population, because there
are no reliable studies.
The Times data include only cases in which priests were named, and many bishops have
released only partial lists of accused priests, or refused to identify any.
"My assessment is it's only the tip of the iceberg," said William R. Stayton,
professor and coordinator of the human sexuality doctoral program at Widener
University in Chester, Pa., who was shown the results of the Times study. "You really
don't have a true picture. I have worked with many clergy sexual abuse cases over the
years, and very, very few of them were reported."
That attitude may be changing. Since last January, when the Boston Archdiocese was
forced to disclose documents showing that for years its officials had protected
priests who molested, hundreds of people have come forward with accusations of abuse.
In those 12 months, as the scandal exploded throughout the church, 432 accused
priests have resigned, retired or been removed from ministry.
Because in the nearly 20 years since the problem surfaced the American bishops have
refused to cooperate with researchers who sought to initiate studies, the Times study
offers the fullest picture possible of the extent of sexual abuse within the church.
These are among the other findings:
Half of the priests in the database were accused of molesting more than one minor,
and 16 percent are accused of having had five or more victims.
Eighty percent of the priests were accused of molesting boys. The percentage is
nearly the opposite for laypeople accused of abuse; their victims are mostly girls.
While the majority of the priests were accused of molesting teenagers only, 43
percent were accused of molesting children 12 and younger. Experts in sexual
disorders say the likeliest repeat offenders are those who abuse prepubescent
children and boys.
Those ordained in 1970 and 1975 included the highest percentage of priests accused of
abuse: 3.3 percent. More known offenders were ordained in the 1970's than in any
other decade.
Of the 432 priests removed from or who left the ministry last year, 183 were
suspended, living in limbo while waiting for church panels to decide their cases.
Bishops were known to have begun the most drastic step, defrocking, for only 11
priests, despite agreeing to a policy at their Dallas meeting last year that
encouraged this option. At least nine priests have been reinstated.
The Boston Archdiocese, which received the most scrutiny in news reports last year,
did have the most accused priests — 94 — but not the worst problem proportionally.
More than a dozen other dioceses had a higher rate of accused priests when taken as a
percentage of their active priests.
The study shows only what has become public about a crime usually kept secret by both
abuser and victim. Some experts, for instance, contend that the sharp drop in priests
accused of abuse in the 1990's is less a result of efforts by the church to confront
the problem than a reflection that the victims have not yet come forward.
Resisting Only `Punch and Judy'
The first significant number of priests accused of abuse to emerge in the study were
trained in the 1950's and early 1960's. It was the heyday of American Catholicism,
when newly comfortable middle-class Catholics financed hundreds of new parochial
schools and seminaries, and many of the faith's best and brightest enlisted to serve
their church. Many are bishops today.
"The priesthood was riding high," said Jay P. Dolan, a professor of history at the
University of Notre Dame and author of "In Search of American Catholicism" (Oxford,
2002). "A lot of boys were entering the seminary. It appealed to your altruism, your
desire to help others, and it was a profession very highly valued by Catholics and
others."
To qualify, a young man needed little more than to say he felt "called" to a priestly
vocation. "Getting in the seminary then was a rather easy process," said Mr. Dolan,
who entered a seminary in 1954. "There was no screening of candidates at all. They
accepted anybody, and the numbers were incredible."
It was typical then for boys to begin their training in a minor seminary at age 13 or
14, continuing directly through for 10 or 12 years until ordination. Many of the
minor seminaries, most of which were phased out starting in the 1970's, were
essentially boarding schools. There young men lived together in semi-monastic
isolation, missing most of the social, sexual and developmental milestones their
peers were experiencing back home.
"If you remained in the system, you were treated the same way when you were 26 as
when you were 14 — basically as little children," said the Rev. Robert J. Silva,
president of the National Federation of Priests Councils, who studied to be a priest
in northern California in the 1950's. "On Thursdays, you signed out to go to town and
buy what you needed. You couldn't go to a movie, to a restaurant. You went to a
drugstore, and you came home. Once a month when we were younger we used to get what
we called a walk into town. We could go and get milkshakes, but we always went
together. You rarely socialized with other people."
Seminary instructors warned students to stay away from temptations, but they never
mentioned altar boys and teenagers. Their chief concerns, Mr. Dolan remembers, were
"Punch and Judy" — alcohol and women.
Diocesan priests take a vow of celibacy, promising never to marry or have sex with
women. Seminarians were taught that all other sexual activity was unchaste and
sinful, but not a violation of the celibacy vow.
Some priests relied on this distinction to rationalize to their victims, the
authorities or church superiors that mutual masturbation, fellatio or touching
children's bodies, however wrong, left their celibacy vow intact, according to some
victims, therapists who treated the abusers and court records.
In general, though, the entire subject of sexuality was taboo in seminaries.
"It amounted to don't ask, don't tell, don't touch," said Paul E. Dinter, a former
priest ordained in 1965 and the author of a new book, "The Other Side of the Altar"
(Farrar Straus & Giroux). "In my lifetime there were still seminaries handing out
paddles so you could tuck your shirt into your pants and never touch yourself. There
were nuns showering in gowns so they were never naked."
Psychologists who have treated priest offenders now say that such a sexually
repressed environment appealed to some young men who felt guilty about being sexually
stimulated by children, male teenagers or adult men.
Dr. Eli Coleman, professor and director of the Program in Human Sexuality at the
University of Minnesota Medical School, said, "The church was definitely an
attractive haven for a lot of people who naturally wished that somehow, through a
spiritual life, they would not have to deal with those conflicts."
Accused priests first became a significant proportion of ordination classes in 1956,
the Times study found. Of that class, 32 priests have been accused of abuse. Of
priests ordained from 1956 through 1959, 119, or 1.8 percent, were accused of abuse.
The number of those accused out of each ordination class fluctuated only slightly
through about 1963, when it reached 40, or 2.6 percent of that year's class. Then it
remained fairly consistent through the mid-1970's. But since fewer men were being
ordained in the 1970's, priests accused of abuse made up a larger proportion of their
classes.
Many of these priests did not commit their offenses until the 1960's or 1970's. But
the Times research found that 63 priests were accused of abuse that occurred in the
1950's, and 7 in the decades before.
The relatively low numbers do not indicate that the sexual abuse of children was not
a problem in those days, sexual abuse experts said, since it is likely that people of
previous generations rarely reported it because of the social stigma, the fear of
retribution or the failure to understand that what happened to them was abuse.
Mr. O'Connor, who is now 73, said that when he was raped at age 10 by priests at St.
Rita of Cascia Shrine Church in the South Bronx, he did not dare tell anyone. He
said his mother found out only when she discovered blood on his underwear. (The New
York Archdiocese said it was unable to comment on the allegation because the director
of priest personnel was traveling abroad.)
Mr. O'Connor said that his parents wrote a letter complaining to the senior pastor,
and even threatened to hire a lawyer. But he said he knew of 10 other boys who had
been similarly attacked and whose mothers had learned of the molestations but said
nothing. He says the women, devout Catholics, refused to confront the priests.
"In the 40's and 50's, when you were talking to a priest, it was like you were
talking to Jesus Christ himself," Mr. O'Connor said.
One day, the three priests disappeared from the South Bronx parish, Mr. O'Connor
said. His parents later learned that their letter had eventually made its way to
Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York, who sent the three priests, all now dead, to
work in parishes upstate.
Loosening the Roman Collar
By the mid-1960's young priests emerged from their near-cloistered seminaries and
stood blinking at a world changing around them.
There were simultaneous cultural revolutions inside and outside the church. The
Second Vatican Council, which ended in 1965, suddenly lowered barriers between the
church and modern society, and between the clergy and laypeople. The liturgy went
from Latin to English, the altar was turned around and priests faced the people at
Mass for the first time in centuries. Laypeople took on leadership roles. Priests
and nuns joined the antiwar movement and the civil rights struggle, rubbing elbows
with Protestants and Jews, college students and feminists.
Priests who had had strict curfews in the rectories where they lived with their
fellow priests were suddenly free to come and go. They bought cars, were invited to
meetings and marches, moved about without their collars.
Father Silva, ordained in 1965 in San Francisco, said: "All of a sudden, father is
expected to be close to the folks, and so he takes off his cassock, he takes off the
Roman collar and puts on a sport shirt, and he's assigned to work with the teenagers.
"Here you are developmentally somewhere between age 13 and 16, never having ever
looked at your own sexuality, never having asked the question, gay or straight? — you
didn't even know the words," Father Silva said. "And so you find yourself with the
teen club, and father is taking the students on a ski trip overnight. If he is
emotionally still a teenager, very inappropriate things can happen."
In fact, it was customary for new priests then to be assigned to supervise the teen
club or the altar boys, church experts said. Parishes in those days had full
complements of three or more priests, and the priest with the least seniority was
often given the job with the least status — working with youngsters.
Dr. Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea, executive director of the Trauma Treatment Center of the
Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis and a sexual abuse expert who addressed the
Catholic bishops at their Dallas meeting last year, said of priests: "They were
thrown into the company of young men who were having adolescences very different than
they had — dating, masturbating, having buddies. The priest saw himself as an age
mate of the youth, and better yet, as a leader of the pack. At some point, all those
genuine human needs for closeness, including touch, just burst."
The Times study found that 4 of 5 victims of priests were male. That is nearly the
opposite of those victimized by nonpriests, nearly two-thirds of whom are female,
several experts in sexual abuse said.
The experts offered several possible explanations: that priests simply had more
unfettered access to boys; that priests who had had their first sexual encounters in
seminaries were more likely to be attracted to boys; that a high percentage of
priests were gay; that women and girls hesitated to report such abuse for fear they
would be accused of inviting the attention.
Overall, 256 priests were reported to have abused minors in the 1960's. There were
537 in the 1970's and 510 in the 1980's, before a drop to 211 in the 1990's. The
numbers do not prove that the upheaval in the church and society in the 1960's and
70's caused the abuse, but experts who reviewed The Times's research said it was
important to consider the historical context in which the scandal occurred.
The church was jolted by two earthquakes in the 1960's. Vatican II was the first,
and Humanae Vitae, the papal encyclical upholding the church's condemnation of
artificial birth control in 1968, was the second.
Amid surging use of the birth control pill, many priests say it fell on them to
promulgate a teaching they could not agree with. And many said the controversy
removed their inhibitions about criticizing or even disregarding church teachings on
sexuality.
"People were beginning to decide that the church couldn't make the rules anymore,"
Mr. Dinter said.
At the same time, many healthier priests were jumping ship. Beginning in 1967 and for
the next 10 years, priests abandoned their vocation in droves. About 525 left in
1968, 675 in 1970 and 575 in 1973 — at the height, more than 1 percent of the
American priesthood annually, according to figures supplied by the Center for Applied
Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.
Many left disillusioned that Vatican II had not eased the rigid episcopal hierarchy
or the rules on celibacy, and many left to marry. Those left behind included a
greater percentage of priests who were theologically conservative, gay or
maladjusted, a trend that the bishops had apparently begun to note. In 1971, they
commissioned a study by Dr. Eugene Kennedy, a psychologist at Loyola University of
America and a former priest, and Dr. Victor Heckler, the principal investigator.
Their report, "The American Priest: Psychological Investigations," found that 57
percent of priests were psychologically "underdeveloped."
Sinners in Therapy
By the 1970's and 1980's, when abuse was reaching a peak, church leaders were still
doing little to confront it effectively. As they had for centuries, bishops and
priests regarded priests who molested not as criminals but merely sinners.
"If a priest was having sex with a boy it meant he was weak and gave in," Mr. Dinter
said. "It meant he should go to confession and not be weak again."
Even a serial offender like John J. Geoghan, a defrocked priest who was convicted of
abuse last year in Boston, was repeatedly given a pass by his bishops and his peers.
He has been accused of molesting more than 130 children over 30 years in a half-dozen
parishes.
"If you read his record, seminary rectors were wondering about him," Dr. Kennedy
said. "But the culture of the priesthood was very supportive, so a fellow got a lot
of cover just for wearing a Roman collar."
By the 1970's, some bishops had begun referring priests to therapists, but most of
the therapists were priests, or working at church-related treatment centers, Dr.
Frawley-O'Dea said.
Bishops who turned to outside clinicians sometimes disregarded the advice they were
given. Dr. Stayton recalls that in the early 1970's, a bishop asked him to have
precisely six sessions with a priest who was molesting children.
After the six meetings, Dr. Stayton said: "They transferred him to a high school
someplace outside of his diocese, and they didn't ask me. I never had to make a
report, I just had to turn in a bill. I would never have recommended that he go to a
high school."
The Times study found that half of the priests accused of abuse had more than one
victim, and one-third had three or more. In the rest of the cases, only one victim
has come to light. But there have been many cases in which an accused priest
insisted he had only one victim, and more came forward later. Experts in sexual
disorders say that the high percentage of priests with multiple victims suggests that
the church was dealing with a cohort of offenders who were not easily stopped.
Dr. David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the
University of New Hampshire, said, "The more victims you have, the higher chance of
reoffending."
Sixteen percent of the priests accused of abuse had five or more victims, which may
be an indication, said Dr. Finkelhor, that these were "compulsive child molesters —
those who actually have a preference for juvenile victims. That's their primary
sexual orientation."
By the mid-1980's, the warning had been sounded. The Rev. Gilbert Gauthe, a
Louisiana priest who molested as many as 100 boys, was sentenced to 20 years in
prison. Two priests and a lawyer who defended the church in that case produced a
report predicting that sexual abuse by priests could eventually cost the church in
the United States more than $1 billion. The report was never distributed to the
bishops.
A Scandal's Unwritten Chapter
The Times's research confirms a point that the nation's Catholic bishops made as the
scandal escalated last year: most of the abuse cases are old. Of the accused
priests, 211 abused in the 1990's, and 36 since 2000.
The bishops say the abuse declined because they began to address the problem in the
mid-1980's. In 1992 the bishops' conference issued five recommendations, which
included removing an accused priest from ministry for evaluation and treatment, and
reporting cases to law enforcement.
Seminaries were overhauled, in part, in recognition that they were producing
unhealthy priests. By the late 1980's, many Catholic seminaries and dioceses began
psychological screening of candidates for the priesthood, said Sister Katerina
Schuth, a sociologist at St. Paul's Seminary at the University of St. Thomas.
Human sexuality was added to seminary curriculums soon after 1992, when Pope John
Paul II called for the church to pay attention to the "human formation" of priests,
said Sister Schuth. Studies show that more seminarians and priests now identify
themselves as homosexual than in previous generations, and with the openness has come
more candid discussion in seminaries of celibacy and chastity, she said.
The decline in priest cases in the 1990's parallels a 40 percent decline in the
sexual abuse of children generally, Dr. Finkelhor said. There are many reasons, he
said: more offenders are incarcerated for longer periods; children are more closely
supervised; and there is more awareness about identifying and reporting sexual abuse.
But many say that the real reason for the decline may be simply that the victims of
the 1990's have not surfaced yet.
"You will see some kind of a bubble in 2005, when the people who were abused in the
1990's come forward," said Dr. Frawley-O'Dea, who has treated many abuse victims.
"It takes a lot of survivors until their mid-20's, when they have accumulated enough
life experience, to know they were messed up."
But there could be another explanation for the 1990's decline: the church is still
covering up cases. Despite the pressure on bishops over the last year to reveal the
extent of the abuse, some refused to release the number of accusations or the names
of the accused priests.
Anthony Zirilli and the research staff of The New York Times contributed to this
report.
****************************************************************************
The second installment of our collection of informative newspaper accounts and
diocesan announcements, arranged chronologically to describe [Bishop Edward] Egan's
role in the clergy sex abuse crisis in both the New York archdiocese and the
Bridgeport diocese.
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/ny-ny/Egan-2002-04-d.htm
Note bolded portions...
3 victims claim sex abuse by priest, 63
More come forward to accuse monsignor
By Daniel Tepfer
(Bridgeport, CT) Connecticut Post
April 23, 2002
Bridgeport - A day after the Bridgeport Diocese admitted that Monsignor Charles W.
Stubbs was suspended in 1997 for molesting a boy in the 1980s, three other men told
the Connecticut Post they - and two others - also were sexually assaulted by Stubbs.
<snip>
Papp, 51, who now lives in Massachusetts, said he was assaulted by Stubbs while
attending a retreat at Stonehill College in Brockton, Mass., in August 1968.
Papp said he was 17 then and had recently graduated from Notre Dame High School in
Fairfield, which at the time had an all-male student body. He said one night in a
dormitory room Stubbs opened a portable bar he often carried and offered Papp
alcohol.
After a few drinks, Papp said he became sleepy. He said Stubbs then sexually
assaulted him. "I tried to resist him, but he kept at me," Papp recalled.
Papp said the next day, he reported the incident to two other priests on the Notre
Dame faculty.
A 47-year-old city man, who did not want his name revealed, testified in a 1999
deposition before diocesan lawyer Joseph Sweeney that Stubbs had sexually assaulted
him during the 1970-71 school year while he was 15 and a student at Notre Dame.
He said he and two friends attended a retreat with Stubbs at the former Christ the
King Seminary in Trumbull. Instead of driving the teens home, he took them to his
residence at the former Holy Ghost Fathers Residence in Norwalk.
There, the man recalled, Stubbs gave the three boys wine until they became sleepy and
then led each to a bedroom. The man said Stubbs then went from bedroom to bedroom,
sexually assaulting the teens.
"The next morning I told the boy in the room next to mine that he wouldn't believe
the crazy dream I had last night and he said, 'He got you, too,' " the man said. "We
found the third boy in his room naked and the priest's collar was on the bedpost."
He said the three of them got dressed and hitchhiked back to Bridgeport.
A 51-year-old Redding man, who asked that his name not be used, wrote a letter to
Monsignor Laurence Bronkiewicz, diocese chancellor, on April 10.
In the letter, he recounts a sordid story of abuse at the hands of Stubbs when he was
15 or 16 and an altar boy at St. Ann's Church.
"For a couple of months he'd bring me along to movies, pizza and CYO [Catholic Youth
Organization] functions, often with some girls from Notre Dame," he recalled. "One
evening he took me alone to his parents home in the Brooklawn area. There, Father
Stubbs gave me Scotch until I passed out."
When he awoke, he said, Stubbs was sexually assaulting him.
The man said after that, whenever he saw Stubbs walking along the street he would
jump into the bushes to hide from him. Now married, he is raising his two children as
Protestants.
Diocese spokesman Joseph McAleer said Bronkiewicz had received the Redding man's
letter and was trying to arrange a meeting with him.
He said the Bridgeport man's statement during the February 1999 deposition was the
first time the diocese had heard of his complaint. Since Stubbs had already been
suspended for another abuse, he no longer posed a danger to anyone, he said.
McAleer said they had no record that Papp had complained of abuse and had no comment
on it.
Daniel Tepfer, who covers state courts and law enforcement issues, can be reached at
330-6308.
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/ny-ny/Egan-Pre-2002.htm
Losing Faith in the Clergy
Bronx Priest's Hollow Words Gloss Over Sex Scandal
By Rod Dreher dre...@nypost.com
New York Post
June 25, 2001
The pastor at St. Simon Stock Church in The Bronx told Mass-goers yesterday that
allegations of sex abuse by their former priests was taken "very seriously" from the
start.
Father Michael Kissane told me he also let parishioners know that his "door is always
open" to talk about the matter, which was revealed in The Post on Saturday.
Fine. But if anyone in that parish has information about the alleged abuse - which
has been denied by the four priests named in the suit - they'd be better off going to
the media or the plaintiff's lawyer rather than the church.
<snip>
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/ny-ny/Egan-2002-03-a.htm
Church Split on Reporting Accusations
By Austin Fenner
(NY) Daily News
March 14, 2002
As the Catholic Church tries to deal with an explosion of sexual abuse allegations
against priests, the leaders of the three local dioceses are divided on whether to
notify cops of such accusations.
Bishop William Murphy, the head of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, which covers Long
Island, said that if the allegations are serious, a priest will be removed from his
pastoral and administrative duties.
"If there is any evidence of a criminal act, those with knowledge of the act are
urged to report the incident to the authorities," Murphy wrote yesterday on the
diocese's Web site, licatholic.org.
Diocese spokeswoman Joanne Novarro said Murphy was indicating that the victim should
call police but that the diocese would not.
Last week, the Rev. Michael Hands, who worked in East Meadow and Northport, L.I.,
pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy.
Edward Cardinal Egan of the Archdiocese of New York has taken a somewhat different
position to that of Murphy.
"When there is reasonable cause that abuse has taken place, and the victim or victims
do not oppose the reporting, the archdiocese will make the appropriate reports to the
authorities," said Egan's spokesman Joe Zwilling.
He said there are no allegations of sexual abuse against any priest in the
archdiocese.
This week, the Archdiocese of Boston agreed to settle a multimillion-dollar civil
suit with scores of people who had been molested as youths by former priest John
Geoghan. Geoghan was convicted of sexual abuse.
Bishop Thomas Daily of the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens - which does not report
allegations of sexual abuse to authorities - has not decided whether he will adopt
the same position as Egan.
"Brooklyn and Queens is taking that [Egan's] position into consideration," said Frank
DeRosa, Daily's spokesman.
Murphy and Daily, who served as church officials in Boston, were named as defendants
in a civil suit regarding the sexual abuse allegations against Geoghan.
A victims' group said the newly revealed policies don't go far enough.
"You have to judge the church like any other institution on behavior, not on
promises," said David Clohessy, a spokesman for the Survivors Network of those Abused
by Priests, based in Chicago. "It's naive to think there is [going to be] any real
change."
Monsignor in Abuse Case Faces No Criminal Charges
By Daniel J. Wakin
New York Times
December 7, 2002
The Bronx district attorney has found no cause for a criminal proceeding against
Msgr. Charles M. Kavanagh, the most prominent New York priest caught up in the
Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal. Now, according to the New York Archdiocese's
policy, a special review board is expected to take up his case next week to determine
whether the monsignor can return to ministry.
[Photo Caption: Kavanagh.]
The Bronx district attorney, Robert T. Johnson, found the Kavanagh case and a number
of others to be beyond the statute of limitations, his spokesman said this week.
<snip>
Ron Allard
>Don't know how close all this was to Metropolitan Oval, Bronx...
<Snip>
Don't know how close all was is to where Catherine lives...
http://www.preventchildabusewi.org/prevalence.htm
----------
In 2001 in Wisconsin there were:
40,215 reports of child abuse (that's about the same as the population of
Brookfield, Wausau, or Fond du Lac and would fill more than half of the seats in
Camp Randall Stadium.)
1,844 substantiated cases of physical abuse
4,606 substantiated cases of sexual abuse
77 substantiated cases of emotional abuse
3,628 substantiated cases of child neglect
17 child deaths due to substantiated child abuse or neglect
----------
"Yer point is?"
--
Ron in Vegas
mailto:ron.a...@att.net
"Because there was always something about the Skyliners...
and that music..."
- Donnie Solinger
Diceman Radio: 24/7 Old Time Drum Corps
Dialup:
http://www.live365.com/stations/diceman719
Broadband:
http://www.live365.com/stations/diceman719h
Senior Corps History site:
http://www.SrCorps.com
Andyroo111
>
>>Don't know how close all this was to Metropolitan Oval, Bronx...
>
><Snip>
>
>Don't know how close all was is to where Catherine lives...
>
>http://www.preventchildabusewi.org/prevalence.htm
>
>----------
>In 2001 in Wisconsin there were:
>40,215 reports of child abuse (that's about the same as the population of
>Brookfield, Wausau, or Fond du Lac and would fill more than half of the seats
>in
>Camp Randall Stadium.)
>1,844 substantiated cases of physical abuse
>4,606 substantiated cases of sexual abuse
>77 substantiated cases of emotional abuse
>3,628 substantiated cases of child neglect
>17 child deaths due to substantiated child abuse or neglect
>----------
>
>"Yer point is?"
>
>
>--
>Ron in Vegas
>mailto:ron.a...@att.net
>
I really hate to ask, but would a simple OT have been appropriate for this
crap?
Andy
Liz Duguay
"Andyroo111" <andyr...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20040529210324...@mb-m18.aol.com...
you beat me to it Andy.
but don't you see the twist coming of how it's relevant to drum and bugle
corps? after all the CYO drum corps shows must have been bait for those
evil pedophile priests and somehow it will all tie into DCI and how DCI
ruined drum corps. or some other BS like that.
because it could not be a fact that there are child abusers EVERYWHERE in
this country ~ not just in areas where there are or were drum corps.
L
Andyroo111
>you beat me to it Andy.
>but don't you see the twist coming of how it's relevant to drum and bugle
>corps? after all the CYO drum corps shows must have been bait for those
>evil pedophile priests and somehow it will all tie into DCI and how DCI
>ruined drum corps. or some other BS like that.
>because it could not be a fact that there are child abusers EVERYWHERE in
>this country ~ not just in areas where there are or were drum corps.
>L
>
You're absolutely right Liz. When this particular thread started without an
OT, it came from an individual for whom "the rules," such as they are, don't
apply.
And in some convoluted way, the information "proves" her point - to her at
least.
Andy
Liz Duguay
> >
> You're absolutely right Liz.
> Andy
ok so mark the date on the calendar. it only happens about once a year so i
want to remember i got this year's quota in already :-D
L
Andyroo111
Jeeez! Give some people a compliment and they get all snippy!
But as for marking the date on the calendar, I'm not going to bother. I'm
confident that SOMEONE will remind you of it whenever you say SOMETHING that
SOMEONE will disagree with - which could be just about EVERYTHING.
Andy
Liz Duguay
not snippy ~ just no caffiene running thru the veins yet this morning ~
sorry if the tone didn't come out with the joviality intended. :(
how 'bout i just send a hug on over there and we'll make up? :>)
L
Andyroo111
>not snippy ~ just no caffiene running thru the veins yet this morning ~
>sorry if the tone didn't come out with the joviality intended. :(
>how 'bout i just send a hug on over there and we'll make up? :>)
>L
>
YOU'RE ON!!!!! Eat your heart out TOMike!!!
Andy
Jr liberty
>but don't you see the twist coming of how it's relevant to drum and bugle
>corps? after all the CYO drum corps shows must have been bait for those
>evil pedophile priests and somehow it will all tie into DCI and how DCI
>ruined drum corps. or some other BS like that.
>because it could not be a fact that there are child abusers EVERYWHERE in
>this country ~ not just in areas where there are or were drum corps.
>L
>
Jim Reilly
Liz Duguay
"Jr liberty" <jrli...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20040530110150...@mb-m28.aol.com...
Thank you very much Father Reilly :>)
i've been meaning to ask you, were you ever in the Camden diocese? i had
family member who was a Monsignor down there.
L
Jr liberty
>i've been meaning to ask you, were you ever in the Camden diocese? i had
>family member who was a Monsignor down there.
>L
Sorry, Liz....the Archdiocese of Newark, my entire life. What was the Msgr.
name? I still might have known him!
Jim Reilly
Bleu Raeder
Gee, maybe I'll see you two at Muggs ?
The OTHER Mike
Catherine
Oh, Father - been meaning to askew...
From: jrli...@aol.com (Jr liberty)
Date: 23 May 2004 20:24:33 GMT
Subject: Re: Catherine's pet author is a charlatan
Message-ID: <20040523162433...@mb-m24.aol.com>
>Subject: Re: Catherine's pet author is a charlatan
>From: "Michael Siglow" nysky...@comcast.net
>Date: 05/23/2004 4:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <-YadnRaweLd...@comcast.com>
>
>"Jr liberty" <jrli...@aol.com> wrote in message
>news:20040523153557...@mb-m24.aol.com...
>
>> Sig:
>>
>> I think Pete's brother was Fr. BILL Devine. And, yes, I did know Frs.
>> Dowling, and Donovan. Great, caring priests, EVEN though I'm not one, as
>SOME
>> would have you believe!
>>
>> Fr. Jim Reilly
>
>That's it William Devine. He was the tough one, but definitely caring.
>Father Donovan ran the CYO and Father Dowling used to grub smokes off the
>8th, 9th and 10th graders just before 9:00 AM Mass on Sundays. :-) Dowling
>was one hell of an athlete as I recall. All-State Football at Marist High in
>Bayonne back in the 50's I believe.
>
>Siglow
>
>P.S.: Andy (my darker side) is right though. CB has every post ever posted
>here on RAMD on floppy and will try to use it against you at some time in
>the future. ;-)
>
You are correct! Can't understand how I would KNOW these things, since I'm a
"FRAUD and LIAR".....But, as I said: "Bring HER on".....somebody has to stand
up to her, BEFORE she destroys WHAT so many gave SO MUCH for!
Fr. Jim Reilly
***********************************************
Now, Fr. Jim -- Who are the "so many" you speak for? And how do my RAMD posts enable
me to "destroy" whatever (EVERYTHING?) those "so many" "gave"?
I would think something which COULD be "destroyed" by RAMD posts - given all that
genkus excellence out there in The Activity - is prolly something (EVERYTHING?) which
ought not exist in the first place.
Kinda like the subject matter in the subject line ought not to have ever happened...
particularly in the guise of worshipping God. Duya 'spose that given the capability
of some to abuse religion for predatory purposes, EVERYONE might have (whether or not
coincidentally) exploited patriotic military fraternal musical organizations?
After all, I'd hate to think that some gave so much and all that be forgotten...
-- Catherine
Jeffsnewjetta
i have her fascination with the good father figured out!!!
she wanted him to be like the evil priests we have heard about, but he turned
her down.
that explains a lot.
>Subject: Re: Bronx, New York - Quite a lot of molesting going on over the
>years, in and out of the Catholic church...
>From: "Catherine" Catherine@yahoo!!!.com
>Date: 5/30/2004 4:52 PM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <%Pruc.17278$eH1.7...@newssvr28.news.prodigy.com>
Jeff Ream
I am the drummer your color guard captain warned you about
Liz Duguay
Monsignor Thomas St. J. Cannon. i remember him being in Atco and Somerdale
tho i know he was in another parish prior to Atco but that was when i was
really young. he passed away in July 2001. he treated me like the daughter
he probably would have loved to have had. took me to Disney, the Army-Navy
football game, Rome in '84. he's the reason my son is able to attend
college. he married my parents, did some sort of re-christening ceremony
for me ( i was already baptized by the time my parents adopted me), was on
the alter for my confirmation, and did the invocation at my high school
graduation. even tho he was giving a speech to everyone he based everything
off of a conversation we had during lunch and came up with it pretty much
off the cuff.
he was a great guy ~ i was hoping that you had the pleasure of meeting him.
when they had the Jersey Surf show in Somerdale in July of 2002 i wished he
could have been there to see what it was that i got so much pleasure from.
L
BSteinhilb
Just for the record , I attended Catholic schools and marched in a
Catholic drum corps (as many who post here did) and taught Catholic High School
marching bands most of my life. I have never seen or heard of anyone in the
clergy sexually abusing a child. Instead they gave their time and money and
church facilities to see to the good of youth. Growing up one could go most
every night of the week to some CYO function; dances, sports, drum corps, to
name a few. And all free of charge and never turned away a non Catholic who
wanted to participate.
Its' a shame so many good men in the Catholic Church have to bear the
resposibility for the sins of a few. I'm not in denial here. There have been
abuses and the perpetators of these crimes should be vigorously punished by the
law and by the church, it's a disgraceful crime, but lets not forget all the
good the Catholics have done for all of us (in drum corps) and out of the
activity.
b
Jr liberty
>posts enable
>me to "destroy" whatever (EVERYTHING?) those "so many" "gave"?
>
>I would think something which COULD be "destroyed" by RAMD posts - given all
>that
>genkus excellence out there in The Activity - is prolly something
>(EVERYTHING?) which
>ought not exist in the first place.
>
>Kinda like the subject matter in the subject line ought not to have ever
>happened...
>particularly in the guise of worshipping God. Duya 'spose that given the
>capability
>of some to abuse religion for predatory purposes, EVERYONE might have
>(whether or not
>coincidentally) exploited patriotic military fraternal musical organizations?
>
>After all, I'd hate to think that some gave so much and all that be
>forgotten...
>
>-- Catherine
>
I have in the past, and will continue, in the future, to speak ONLY for
myself! Not being an "insider", I respect members of the Drum Corps Community.
They have entertained me for many, many years, and, I WILL NOT judge those I
don't know!
In fact, I won't JUDGE anyone, until I've walked a mile "in their shoes"!
Fr. Jim Reilly
Jr liberty
>years, in and out of the Catholic church...
>Date: 05/31/2004 12:50 AM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <20040531005007...@mb-m21.aol.com>
>
>wait......
>
>
>i have her fascination with the good father figured out!!!
>
>
>she wanted him to be like the evil priests we have heard about, but he turned
>her down.
>
>
>that explains a lot.
Thanks, Jeff! But, I only know Catherine from her posts.
Fr. Jim Reilly
Jr liberty
>years, in and out of the Catholic church...
>Date: 05/31/2004 11:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <20040531110114...@mb-m07.aol.com>
Dear "B":
I, and many of my brothers, DEEPLY appreciated your e-mail post!
Fr. Jim Reilly
PJC11251
Long Island Curcit and Open class show in what we called the old dust bowl.each
year.
==============================
Liz Duguay
or marched a mile in their Dinkles :>)
L
BSteinhilb
>
> I, and many of my brothers, DEEPLY appreciated your e-mail post!
>
>Fr. Jim Reilly
My pleasure Father.None of us who have benefited by the Catholic Church's good
will and guidence will ever forget it.
b OLPH
Jeffsnewjetta
>Subject: Re: Bronx, New York - Quite a lot of molesting going on over the
>years, in and out of the Catholic church...
>From: jrli...@aol.com (Jr liberty)
>Date: 5/31/2004 12:52 PM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <20040531125253...@mb-m27.aol.com>