The Worthy Adversary

Category: Clergy Abuse Crisis

  • Fifteen Years After Dallas, Part One: The Altoona-Johnstown Grand Jury Report

    Read the Introduction to this series here.

    In 2016, the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General announced that “a statewide investigating grand jury has determined that hundreds of children were sexually abused over a period of at least 40 years by priests or religious leaders assigned to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-­Johnstown.”

    The two-year investigation included a search warrant of the Altoona Bishop’s “secret archive.” That secret archive is the file cabinet under lock and key in the bishop’s office that holds evidence of child sex abuse and cover-up, including letters, reports, photos, records, statements, memos, etc. A bishop is required to keep this file under Canon Law.

    The report also determined former Altoona Bishop Joseph Adamec was at the forefront of the cover-up and acted to avoid scandal rather than protect children.

    The widespread abuse involved at least 50 priests or religious leaders and endangered thousands of children and allowed proven child predators to abuse additional victims.

    The complete grand jury report can be read here.

    Reforms Take a Year … Yet Look Oddly Familiar

    A year later, in 2017, Bishop Mark L. Bartchak of Altoona-Johnstown Diocese announced “reforms” in conjunction with the Attorney General’s office.

    Bishop Mark L. Bartchak

    Those reforms included:

    1. The creation of an independent, multidisciplinary oversight board;
    2. The retention of an outside expert to develop a new, comprehensive child abuse prevention program;
    3. A reporting protocol that requires the Diocese to report allegations of child sexual abuse to law enforcement within twelve hours after receipt; and
    4. Counseling and support services for victims by qualified and independent mental health professionals chosen by the victims.

    Sound familiar? They should.

    All of the above items were already a part of the 2002 Dallas Bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People and its Norms.

     You can read the Charter here–note where you can find the corresponding reforms:

    Item A is Dallas Charter Norm Number 4;

    Item B is Dallas Charter Articles 9 and 12;

    Item C is Dallas Charter Articles 2 and 4; and

    Item D is Dallas Charter Article 1.

     

    So … it takes Bishop Mark L. Bartchak a year to copy and paste reforms from 2002?

    Hundreds of kids are sexually abused in his diocese and all he can do is rewrite his own booklet?

    I guess the next question is: how much has he spent to lobby against legislative reform for victims of child sexual abuse in Pennsylvania? Wait … I don’t want to know.

    Next up, Part Two: Crooked dealings in Crookston

  • Fifteen Years After Dallas, A Seven-Part Series: Introduction

    The 2002 Dallas Bishops’ Conference was a barn-burner. On the heels of the Spotlight series and scandals in dioceses across the nation, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) got together at their annual June meeting to put together “massive reforms.”

    Protesters at 2002 Bishops’ Meeting in Dallas

    Those reforms became the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People and its accompanying Norms. It was later referred to as the 2002 Dallas Charter.

    CrimeCon to BishopCon

    Flash forward to 2017. The bishops’ June meeting is currently underway in Indianapolis. As luck or fate would have it, I found myself in the same city, at their very hotel (The JW Marriott Downtown) as the 2017 USCCB June Conference. I am in town attending CrimeCon 2017 (a conference for true crime aficionados) to meet some people interested in my work. (And wouldn’t you know it, The Keepers was the talk of the conference.)

    Less than 3 hours after CrimeCon checked out last night, the bishops began checking in.

    While the USCCB official schedule says the spring meeting doesn’t begin until June 14, they are well entrenched in the third floor conference center of the hotel, where CrimeCon signs still point people to the USCCB conference rooms (ah, the irony). Meetings are going on as I type.

     

    So in honor of the 15th anniversary of the 2002 Dallas Charter, I thought I would take a look at some recent scandals that show us that the problem is far from over and that any glad-handing on behalf of the members of the USCCB this week is just for show.

    Nothing has changed, except the window dressing.

    The Charter, which the Bishops have been hailing as “watershed” document in child protection, I contend, is a massive failure.

    Fifteen years after Dallas, the protesters may be gone, but the disgust remains.

    Up next: Part One ~ Altoona-Johnstown

  • Don’t lie

    Don’t lie

    That’s today’s lesson for Claretian priest Fr. Tony Diaz.

    He’s the organizer of San Gabriel Mission’s May 25 Build the Dreams Scholarship Fundraising Dinner. His fatal error was deciding to honor admitted child molester Bruce Wellems along with actor Edward James Olmos. Wellems is a priest of questionable standing who has been banned from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, removed from ministry in the Archdiocese of Chicago, and told he may not act as a priest by his own order, the Claretians.

    In fact, he couldn’t even answer a reporter’s question as to whether he is still a priest at all.

    Why? Wellems admitted to molesting a seven-year-old before he became a priest, is being sued for abuse, and has allegedly admitted to other misconduct.

    When a reporter from the Pasadena Star News asked Fr. Tony Diaz about the May 25 event, Diaz stated that he had full permission of the Archdiocese of LA to honor Wellems.

    What did the Archdiocese say?

    [A] spokesman for the Archdiocese, said no such permission was given.

    Oops.

    Nice work, Tony.

    Wellems is no longer going to be honored at the event, although there is no word as to whether or not he will be attending. The Claretians have yet to apologize to Wellems’ victim. A couple of reps for the Archdiocese did tell the victim they were sorry, but only because he’s been hounding them to do something.

    Here’s something revolutionary: how about honoring his victim?

  • Banned priest and admitted abuser slated for San Gabriel Mission award

    Banned priest and admitted abuser slated for San Gabriel Mission award

    Not fake news. They’re really doing it. And Edward James Olmos is gonna be there, too.

    Bruce Wellems is a problematic guy, to say the least.

    He’s been banned from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He’s been removed from ministry in the Archdiocese of Chicago and by the Claretian order. Last year, he was sued for child sex abuse by one of his alleged victims.

    He’s even admitted to molesting the alleged victim.

    But the San Gabriel Mission (where he was working when he was banned from Los Angeles—and whose leadership is well aware of everything I have written here) is still honoring him at their May 25 Build the Dreams Scholarship Fundraiser, alongside actor Edward James Olmos.

    My sources tell me that Olmos has known for more than a year about Wellems. We will see if he pulls out of the event.

    The folks at the mission are going to say that Wellems is not to blame here because the abuse happened before Wellems was a priest. Wellems was 15 and the victim was seven years old.

    But I ask you this: does that make the abuse feel any different to the seven-year-old?

    I will also say this: in all of the interviews that Wellems has done regarding the abuse and the lawsuit, not once has he apologized to the victim. Not once has he acknowledged that he hurt a little boy and his family. Not once has he said he was sorry. And at every turn, he has minimized the abuse, called himself a victim, and spent years covering it up when his victim sought justice.

    But if two archdioceses and a religious order decide independently that Bruce Wellems is unfit for the priesthood, something tells me that there is much more here than meets the eye.

    If Archbishop Gomez and Cardinal Cupich are half the pastoral leaders they claim to be, they’ll step in and put an end to this nonsense immediately.

     

  • Cardinal Dolan and his Belief in Sex Abuse Reform Bills

    Cardinal Dolan and his Belief in Sex Abuse Reform Bills

    It’s true:

    New York’s Archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan believes in Window Legislation and Statute of Limitation Reform for victims of child sexual abuse. He knows they both work to help victims heal. He’s showing us right now.

    Just look at his actions, not his words.

    In fact, since last fall, he’s shown that archaic Statutes of Limitations for child sexual abuse should NOT matter in pastoral care and that there is an INHERENT NEED for window legislation in Albany.

    It gets better.

    The requirements and success of his own compensation plan have CONTRADICTED the arguments that he and the Catholic Conference have been waging against window legislation.

    Let’s start at the top.

    The Independent Compensation and Reconciliation Plan (IRCP), now in its second phase, has one goal: compensate victims of sexual abuse by Archdiocesan priests, no matter when the abuse occurred.

    According to the plan administrator, success will be measured by the number of victims who come forward and take advantage of the plan, accepting compensation offers by the Archdiocese.

    Remember: All of these cases are barred by the civil statute of limitations.

    That means these survivors don’t have a legal leg to stand on in the courts. Yet, Dolan—in his own press conference—said that pastoral care REQUIRES some kind of reconciliation and compensation.

    From Catholic New York:

    Even with the progress to date, Cardinal Dolan acknowledged “the deep scars” and the need for “further healing and reconciliation” by “one group of members of the Church’s family”—the victim-survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

    But it gets better:

    Victims who apply for the plan have to provide corroboration that the abuse occurred. You know, EVIDENCE … things like witnesses, psychiatric reports, church records, photos, letters, gifts, medical records, assignment histories, yearbooks, transcripts, etc.

    And guess what? Victims are providing it.

    Victims are providing such good evidence, in fact, that approximately 75 people have been made offers through the plan. Only one person has been rejected because a claim could not be verified (to date). Everyone else rejected was due to ineligibility (abuse was outside of Archdiocese, the priest was not an Archdiocese priest, etc).

    So, what happens to Dolan’s and the Catholic Conference’s argument of:

    “Memories fade, evidence is lost, witnesses move …”?

    Dolan himself has proven it wrong.

    The memories ARE vivid. The evidence IS there. The witnesses ARE here.

    The pain is great. Victims deserve justice and transparency in the courts.

    It’s time for Albany to act for victims and pass meaningful window legislation. Even Dolan agrees and has proven victims right, even though he won’t admit it to you.