The Worthy Adversary

Tag: Palma high school

Deadline Looming for Victims of Irish Christian Brothers

There is little time left: Victims of the Irish Christian Brothers or victims abused at Irish Christian Brothers schools only have until August 1, 2012 to come forward and get justice in the courts.

Last year, the Irish Christian Brothers (ICB), a Catholic religious order based in New Rochelle, New York, sought bankruptcy protection after more than 50 victims in Canada and Seattle came forward about the sexual abuse at ICB schools. The bankruptcy court instituted the deadline, otherwise known as a “bar date,” for all victims of the ICB and victims at ICB-run schools to come forward to the courts.

The Irish Christian Brothers ran and currently run schools across the United States and Canada. For a list, click here or here. Although a school may be listed as “closed,” victims from those schools still have rights. In other places, like Los Angeles’ Cantwell/Sacred Heart of Mary, the Archdiocese booted the brothers and took over the school. Victims who were abused at Cantwell (where a convicted child abuser and at least two accused child sexual predators worked) before the ICB were kicked out also have rights in the bankruptcy.

Other schools that were dens of abuse include Damien Memorial School in Honolulu; Palma School in Salinas, CA; O’Dea and Briscoe in the Seattle area; Cardinal Hayes in the Bronx (where Christian Brothers worked); Bergen Catholic in New Jersey; and Bishop Hendricken in RI; to name a few. Others are listed here.

The Christian Brothers harbored men like Br. Robert Brouillette, who victimized children across IL, HI, NM, AZ and WA, until he was finally arrested in an internet child sex sting. He was eventually convicted of child pornography. The ICB also hid men such as Fr. Gerald Funcheon, who abused kids nationwide. Funcheon was then sent to Damien Memorial in Honolulu where he abused again. When he was outed, he was sent to Palma in Salinas where, you guessed it: he abused at least two boys.

One the east coast, the perpetrator shuffle was in full swing, with men like Br. Charles Borromeo Irwin, Br. Ronald Alexius Howe, Br. Jerome Heustis, Br. Thomas Cuthbert Ford, Br. John Justin O’Connor, and Br. John Walderman were transferred from school to school after physically and sexually abusing children. Walderman and Ford were both arrested – Ford hid from the law and Walderman and his bosses kept mum on his arrest and so that he could continue working in schools. You can read more about how the ICB flew under the radar of police and prosecutors for years.

The only way we have been able to learn about many of these men has been due to the bravery of their victims. Many of of these traumatized men and women tried to come forward sooner, but because of archaic statute of limitations in many states across the country, these victims had no rights. Now, victims are empowered and can make their evidence public to warn communities about the dangers these predators pose. But only for a short time.

On August 2, the court doors will slam shut for many of these victims.

Click here to learn more about the bankruptcy proceedings.

July 12, 2012
**UPDATED**FIRST HAWAII LAWSUIT FILED** Gerald Funcheon: A missing priest appears ….

The first lawsuit under Hawaii’s landmark civil window was filed yesterday in Hawaii Circuit Court.

The lawsuit (posted here) charges that Fr. Gerald Funcheon sexually abused a 13-year-old boy at Damien Memorial School in 1983/1984 during an overnight retreat on the eastern shore of Oahu. Considering Funcheon’s history (you can read some of the documents here), we can only assume that there may be more victims in Hawaii who are suffering.

Besides exposing predators and keeping kids safe, the beauty of the anti-crime civil window is that the responsible parties are forced to be accountable for the harm they did to child victims and take some of the financial burden for victims’ care off of state coffers and taxpayers. The civil window provides an opportunity put that burden back onto the abusers and enablers, where it belongs.

Similar laws in California and Delaware have exposed hundreds of predators and helped law enforcement put child molesters behind bars.

Funcheon has also been accused of sexual abuse by two former students at Salinas’ Palma School, Chris Spedden and Steven Cantrell. Cantrell, a Monterey-area doctor, wrote an open letter to Palma and the community about the importance of coming forward and reporting sexual abuse. Both Spedden and Cantrell came forward as a part of the Irish Christian Brothers’ bankruptcy. The Brothers run Damien and Palma, as well as other schools across the United States

Spedden, Cantrell and the victim in Hawaii are heroes. Were it not for them, Hawaii and California would never have known about the predator dumped in their schools.

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Original post: March 15, 2012

Every once in a while, the stars align.

Last year, I was contacted by family members of a child sex abuse victim. They asked me if I had any information about a priest named Gerald Funcheon who worked at Damien Memorial High School in Honolulu. I had never heard of Funcheon, but a quick search showed that he had a nasty past.

Not only was the Crosier priest banned from the Diocese of Indianapolis, but there were numerous sex abuse lawsuits against him from his time in the midwest. And then Funcheon vanishes: he disappeared from the Official Catholic Directory in the early 1980s. There is really only one reason why a living priest would vanish from the Official Directory. He was probably in hiding.

I told the family that I couldn’t find any information about Funcheon in Hawaii, but to keep in touch.

A few months later, the Irish Christian Brothers based out of New York declared bankruptcy because of more than 50 allegations of abuse at one of their Seattle schools and more than 250 allegations of abuse at Mt. Cashel Orphanage in Newfoundland. They are the 10th Catholic diocese or religious order to seek bankruptcy protection due to sex abuse claims.

When a religious order or diocese declares bankruptcy because of child sex abuse, the court will order a “bar date,” that is, a deadline for ALL victims to come forward and use the bankruptcy court to “out” their perpetrator and file a claim. This is a good thing and a bad thing.

It’s good because it opens a window for victims who couldn’t come forward before because their statutes of limitations had run out. It allows potentially hundreds of victims to use the court system to get justice and do what they can to ensure that what happened to them doesn’t happen to another child.

It’s bad because the window is only open for a very short period of time. After the deadline, many victims lose the ability to use the civil justice system forever.

In the case of the Irish Christian Brothers, getting the word out is tough. They run or ran dozens of schools across the United States. Many well known perpetrators (like Thomas Ford, who was convicted of beating abandoned children, and Robert Brouillette, who was convicted of child pornography after being arrested in a police sting for attempting to meet a child he had lured on the internet) worked in seven or eight of the schools. Many of the brothers sailed under the radar and were never listed in diocese directories.

But yearbooks never lie.

I decided to go to Honolulu (I know, it was a tough decision) and do a press event to garner attention about the bankruptcy. While many alumni at the school were scheduled to receive letters telling them that they may have rights, I knew that there was going to be no publicity about perpetrators that worked at the school.

I got copies of the Damien yearbooks from the Honolulu public library (because of a super-dooper friend who shall remain nameless) and we started comparing faculty to known, admitted, or convicted predators. And guess who we found? Thomas Ford and Robert Brouillette (our two arrested and convicted Christian Brothers) and … Gerald Funcheon. He worked at the school for two years (1983-1985), right after he escaped allegations of abuse in Florida, Indiana and Minnesota.

We got all three men in the news.

But there’s more.

Not only did we find Funcheon in the Damien yearbooks, but we also found him in Palma School yearbooks. Palma, which is a Catholic all-boys school in Salinas, CA, was where Funcheon was “dumped” in 1984 after parents in Hawaii complained that Funcheon was possibly molesting kids. Two victims from Funcheon’s time in Palma have now come forward.

I kept in touch with the family in Hawaii. They now know that their son has legal rights. They also have photographic evidence that Funcheon worked at Damien.

And the Irish Christian Brothers? I fear we will uncover a cover-up scandal where Irish Christian Brothers officials knowingly shuffled child predators from school to school and destroyed hundreds of children across the country.

May 25, 2012
I don’t think this is what Fr. Damien had in mind …

Things are looking uglier and uglier for the Irish Christian Brothers at Damien Memorial High School in Honolulu. To date, we have found five known perpetrators who worked at the school, had direct access to students, and abused. There are the three we discovered in January:

Fr. Gerald Funcheon, Br. Robert Brouillette, and Br. Thomas Ford,

And the two latest additions, just discovered in the past week:

Fr. Lawrence Spellen and Br. J.B. Lackie.

Call me crazy for saying it: but it’s looking like Damien was a den of child sex abuse.

Victims Rights

Victims at Damien High School have until August 1, 2012 to seek justice and accountability from the Irish Christian Brothers. But there is good news: victims rights in the Hawaii have expanded dramatically—but only for two years.

A new law in the State of Hawaii has given these victims and other victims of child sexual abuse new rights in the courts. Last month, Governor Neil Abercrombie signed Act 068 into law. It temporarily lifts the civil statute of limitations and gives victims of childhood sexual abuse a two-year “window” to come forward and use the civil courts to seek justice and expose predators, no matter how long ago the victim was abused.

Similar laws in Delaware and California exposed hundreds of predators and helped law enforcement put child molesters behind bars.

The new law gives rights to almost all victims, not just those at Damien Memorial. If you live in Hawaii or know victims who were abused there, pass the word. The biggest tragedy is when a victim learns about the law … after it has already expired.

May 22, 2012
Clarity at Cantwell High School

Sometimes, the most profound statements at a press conference come from the reporters, not us.

Today, my friend and colleague Ken Smolka and I were in front of Cantwell Sacred Heart of Mary High School in Montebello, California. We were there because the Irish Chrisitian Brothers, the religious order that ran Cantwell High School, declared bankruptcy when more than 50 victims of child sex abuse in Washington State and Canada came forward to file civil sex abuse and cover-up suits. Order officials sought bankruptcy protection to avoid embarrassing public civil trials. The Christian Brothers are the 10th diocese or religious order to take this (less than pastoral) path.

The Brothers ran Cantwell High School until 1990, when Cardinal Roger Mahony kicked them out and put the Jesuits in their place. No real explanation was given.

But I have an idea: in the six yearbooks I have reviewed, we have found four known perpetrators who worked at the school (three of them were there at the same time). Maybe Mahony realized that even he couldn’t keep a lid on the Christian Brothers much longer.

There was Thomas Cuthbert Ford, who was convicted in 2000 of violently beating abandoned children between 1956 and 1959 at the Mt. Cashel Orphanage in Newfoundland. He had been hiding in the United States at schools like Damien Memorial High in Honolulu, Cantwell and Bergen Catholic (Bergen, NJ) until he was finally extradicted to Canada. Ford was the 11th Irish Christian Brother to be sentenced for crimes at Mt. Cashel. He was principal of Cantwell in 1980.

We also found Br. Daniel Peter Ryan, a former vice principal, Br. Jerome Heustis, a former coach and teacher and Br. Robert Satterthwaite, a former teacher. All of these guys are the subject of numerous sex abuse and cover-up lawsuits. Satterthwaite was even named (although misidentified) in Mahony’s infamous “Report to the People of God.”

We told the reporter the reason we were there: victims from Cantwell only have until August 1, 2012 to come forward, expose their abusers, and seek justice (including secret church documents) in the courts.

We also told her that victims’ coming forward is important for more than healing, but also for protecting children and punishing wrong doers. Although some of the men who abused children are dead, many are not. Many of the men who covered up for the predators are still alive. Every official in the Christian Brothers organization is still sitting on important secret church documents that will expose more criminals and outline the scope and scale of abuse. These documents will only be released if victims come forward. It is VITALLY important that every victim at Cantwell come forward before the deadline, we said.

The Christian Brothers still run schools across the United States, and they are still covering up for abusers.

She looked at us for a moment in silence. Then she said, “This is huge. Why hasn’t the story gotten more publicity?”

Exactly.

Why isn’t the new LA Archbishop standing outside of the school? (He gets WAY better press than I do) Where is the president of the Irish Christian Brothers? Shouldn’t he be out in front of every single school where a known abuser worked? Nah. That would be too … pastoral.

And the last thing they want to do is let victims know they have rights.

March 20, 2012
August Deadline Set For Irish Christian Brothers Abuse Victims

The Irish Christian Brothers (ICB), a religious order of brothers (monks) headquartered in New York state, filed bankruptcy last year when they were faced with more than 50 victims of abuse, molestation and beatings. The Canadian congregation (affiliated with the ICB in New York) faced national disgrace when more than 300 children came forward to tell their stories of abuse at the Mount Cashel orphanage in Newfoundland.

In Ireland, it’s estimated that thousands of children were raped at ICB schools.

As a part of the federal bankruptcy proceedings, the court has set a special deadline date of August 1 for victims of sexual abuse. Read the court order here. ANYONE who was abused by a Christian Brother or was abused at an ICB school only has until that date to file a claim. After August 1, 2012, victims can no longer hold the ICB accountable for covering up and facilitating child sex abuse.

Patrick Wall and I went to Hawaii last week and found three previously undisclosed perpetrators at Damien Memorial High School in Honolulu. As we get more names of perpetrators, I anticipate we will find more.

For a complete list of schools run by the ICB, click here.

I am normally not a fan of pushing victims to come forward. But in the case of these bankruptcies, if victims to not come forward now, they lose the opportunity forever.

February 14, 2012