so says Bishop Finn of Kansas City in his decision to have a bench trial instead of a jury verdict on his criminal charges of failure to report child sexual abuse.
Hopefully, the judge will give victims the justice and accountability they deserve. Let’s just hope that NY’s Cardinal Dolan doesn’t blame Fr. Shawn Ratigan’s six-year-old victims for causing such “shame” to the church.
I mean, c’mon. Fr. Davila pled GUILTY. He wouldn’t pass the diocese background check, yet he’s in a parish:
Bishops Robert Brom and Cirillo Flores say that they have addressed all of the pastoral concerns. Really? How about the concerns of the victim?
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For immediate release: Tuesday, June 12
For more information: David Clohessy (314.566.9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com), Joelle Casteix (949-322.7434, jcasteix@gmail.com)
Victims ask US bishops to censure CA colleague
“Denounce San Diego’s recklessness,” SNAP begs
They’re upset that a convicted priest is back in a parish
Clergy sex abuse victims are urging America’s Catholic bishops to denounce San Diego’s top church official for restoring a priest to ministry barely a month after he pled guilty to molesting a teenage parishioner.
In a letter sent today to the prelates, leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, express concern about Fr. Jose Alexis Davila of San Diego. In April, he pled guilty to battery for groping a then-19-year-old parishioner at her home. He was given three years’ probation. A month later, San Diego Bishop Robert Brom quietly put Davila back into active parish ministry at St. Jude’s Catholic Church.
“It’s hard to imagine a more reckless move,” said Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach, Western Regional Director of SNAP. “This basically sends the message that you can assault teenagers and go unpunished.”
According to a press release last week from the Diocese of San Diego, officials there “have no reason to believe that women or children are at a risk because of [Davila’s] return to ministry.”
Leaders of SNAP argue instead that his conviction shows that Davila is still a threat. They also believe that the decision to put Davila back into a parish so soon after being convicted of a sex crime flies in the face of the bishops’ sex abuse policy, and are hoping that other members of the church hierarchy will recognize the problem and work to fix it.
“A decade ago, America’s bishops pledged to ‘correct’ each other when clergy sex cases were mishandled,” said Barbara Dorris, SNAP Outreach Director. “That’s what we want to see here. If wrongdoing is ignored, wrongdoing is encouraged. So we’re hoping that – formally or informally – at least a few bishops will be brave enough to publicly say ‘The San Diego Catholic hierarchy is acting irresponsibly.’”
America’s bishops hold their semi-annual meeting this week. They are scheduled to discuss their ten-year old national abuse policy. SNAP wants that policy “radically revamped” to include penalties for “church officials who “ignore, hid and enable child sex crimes.”
(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. SNAP was founded in 1988 and has more than 12,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers and increasingly, victims who were assaulted in a wide range of institutional settings like summer camps, athletic programs, Boy Scouts, etc. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)
Contact – David Clohessy (314-566-9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com), Barbara Blaine (312-399-4747, bblaine@snapnetwork.org), Barbara Dorris (314-862-7688, 314-503-0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com), Joelle Casteix (949-322-7434, jcasteix@gmail.com), Peter Isely (414-429-7259, peterisely@yahoo.com)
I am a huge fan of the US justice system. After more than 200 years, our impartial courts have “gotten it right” a vast majority of the time. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best in the world.
Here’s a great example:
Last week, a jury unanimously found that Fr. Michael Kelly was liable for abusing a boy in the 1980s. The trial is currently in its second phase to determine whether or not the Diocese of Stockton knew about the abuse and covered it up. It took the alleged victim years to get the case in front of a jury, and 12 impartial citizens made their decisions based on the evidence. (One of Kelly’s supporters has been accused of jury tampering. Let’s hope that if true, that person is punished to the fullest extent of the law).
And another:
A Missouri judge has refused to drop misdemeanor criminal charges against Kansas City- St. Joseph Bishop Robert Finn and the Diocese. The charges stem from allegations that Finn knew that one of his priests possessed child pornography. Instead of reporting to law enforcement (possession of child pornography is a federal crime, remember?), Finn allegedly sat on the information, sent the priest out of state (?!), and didn’t warn local families that their kids may have been victims of abuse. The priest who took and kept the photos has been indicted on 13 counts of exploiting five children ages 2 to 13.
But sometimes, judges get it wrong:
A bankruptcy judge in Milwaukee has refused to make public secret church documents and depositions that outline the scope and scale of child sex abuse and cover-up in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. The documents were produced when the Archdiocese of Milwaukee sought bankruptcy protection to avoid potentially embarrassing public civil trials.
Judge Susan V. Kelley’s reasoning? They were “too scandalous.”
Note to Judge : Civil law exists to punish wrongs, compensate victims for injury and DETER FURTHER WRONGDOING. The only way to truly punish the Archdiocese and deter further wrongdoing is to expose the full scope and scale of the abuse. If we don’t know what church officials knew and did, how can we be sure that they won’t turn around and do it again?
This bankruptcy has nothing to do with finances. Instead, it has everything to do with silencing victims and denying them their days in court.
Yes, scandal is ugly. No one likes to learn that hundreds of kids were abused and that priests and bishops knew about the crimes and did nothing to help kids. But shining a public light on secret church files will serve every community where a predator worked. The documents will also help law enforcement who, in places like Delaware and California, used these kinds of documents to put child molesters behind bars.
Why, oh why, does the Catholic Church continue to bestow honors and awards on tragically flawed wrong-doers?
Disgraced Former Philadelphia Cardinal Justin Rigali
Trial watchers in Philadelphia have been treated to a firsthand view of vile and disgusting human behavior. What makes it worse is that the evildoers are priests and the victims are children. The lede from the Philadephia Inquirer’s Sunday story on the trial is enough to make even the hard-hearted ill:
Stalking. Groping. Gay bondage porn.
A sexually graphic love letter to a grade-school boy.
That they emerged in testimony about priests – and at times, from priests – only amplified the uneasiness.
One would think that the big boss who allowed this activity to continue and flourish would be castigated and forced to live a life of penance and contrition. Not so much.
Disgraced Philly Cardinal Justin Rigali—who retired last year after the Philadelphia Grand Jury exposed the fact that he was keeping more than two dozen accused priests in ministry in 2011—has been honored by the Pope as a special envoy and this week will be a special Mass celebrant at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.
So, while Philly jurors hear about how Rigali kept 37 accused predators from ministry, sat idly by as children were abused and accusers came forward, deceived his review board, and oversaw an organization that employed five men who were criminally indicted in 2011 for sex abuse and/or cover-up, Rigali will be the special guest of honor in one of the most famous landmark Catholic Churches in the United States.
Ummm … hello?
In 2004, LA Times writer William Lobdell (full disclosure: Bill is good friend and former business partner) wrote a great story about how child molesting clerics have been honored by Catholic officials, groups and communities that refuse to comprehend the horror of sexual abuse, can’t believe that “such a nice priest” could hurt kids, or simply don’t care:
When congregants at a parish in Rancho Santa Margarita in southern Orange County were told in 2002 that their longtime pastor [Fr. Michael Pecharich] had admitted to molesting a boy three decades earlier, the first reaction by some was to name the parish hall after him. The idea was quickly dropped. Three more alleged victims have come forward since then.
Fast forward to 2012, and little has changed:
Honors and awards are for people who do nice things. Honoring predators and enablers (who have never accounted for their crimes, atoned, made penance or attempted to right their wrongs) is little more than salt in victims’ wounds. I don’t think Jesus would approve.