ARTICLES
December 2005 ARTICLES
Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
Slanderous and Hypocritical
Archdiocese Releases Priest Personnel File Summaries
BY CHRISTOPHER ZEHNDER
The Los Angeles archdiocese has called it "full disclosure and transparency," but critics call it kicking up more dust.
On October 11, as part of settlement talks with lawyers of alleged victims of sexual molestation by priests, the archdiocese released an "Addendum to the Report to the People of God." The first "Report," issued in 2004, contained the names of 211 archdiocesan, religious, or visiting priests that have been accused of sexual molestation of minors. The "Addendum" adds to that number 26 priests that "have come to our attention" since the report was filed. Both the "Report" and the "Addendum" do not list about 30 priests who have been accused but against whom no one has filed suit; the archdiocese, too, says it has not found the accusations against these priests credible.
But the archdiocese's alleged dust kicking is not so much the release of the 26 new names but the addendum's offering of details from the personnel files of 126 priests and lay employees who are the subjects of lawsuits currently filed against the archdiocese. These offerings are really nothing more than sketch-like summaries of information from the files. Mary Grant of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests is among the critics of what she calls a "public relations ploy" on the part of Cardinal Roger Mahony and the archdiocese. "It's a very watered down, sanitized version of what is in the priests' personnel files," she told me in late October, "and some of the most important information -- which church officials were receiving the reports and what they did with them -- is covered up in this report."
A reading of the summaries seems to support Grant's assessment. Each summary reads like a curriculum vitae, listing dates, with rather terse descriptions of at least some of the priest's activities, both in regards to matters having to do with abuse and otherwise. For instance, the first offering reads like this: "6/27/21 Born. 1946 Ordained within the Archdiocese of Denver ... 7/16/93 Archdiocese notified by reporter that unidentified lawyer from Colorado Springs had written Vatican alleging that he was abused by Father Abercrombie when he was a minor twenty years earlier ... 10/24/94 Dies...." Further, of the 126 summaries, 46 make no mention of any accusations against the priests in question or of abuse they allegedly committed, leaving the reader wondering as to the strength of accusations against the priests. The when and where of the accusations is left up to guess; the reader only knows that Father So-And-So has presumably been accused (otherwise he would not be listed); but he cannot determine whether the accusation or accusations are believable or not. Such summaries are no better than the simple list of names the archdiocese offered in its 2004 "Report."
But even where an accusation is listed, the addendum often sheds little light on it. I had the unpleasant experience of recognizing a name in this rogues' gallery of priests. I read through the rather long listing of events recorded, starting from the priest's 1914 birth date, to his 1941 ordination, through his various assignments and activities. Only at the end did I see that, in a telephone message in 2002, an adult male had accused the priest of molesting him 40 years earlier. Am I, or anyone else, to assume the priest indeed was guilty? (He died last year.) Whether yes or no, the summary places a doubt in the mind which it does nothing to confirm or assuage.
Then there may be summaries where no accusation is listed but where accu sations of the priests are known. An example is Jesuit priest Jerold Lindner, of whom the summary merely states that in 1995 he was "assigned to Loyola High School, Los Angeles." But at least ten men and women (including members of Lindner's family) have accused the priest of molesting them from the 1950s to the 1980s. Accusations against Lindner first surfaced in 1992, and the Jesuits sent him for psychiatric evaluation which, it was claimed, showed that the accusations were not credible. In 1997, two brothers claimed Lindner had molested them in 1975. The Jesuits removed Lindner from teaching at Loyola and, without informing law enforcement authorities of the charges, negotiated a secret $650,000 settlement with the brothers. Are there more summaries like Lindner's? And if so, how many? The reader cannot possibly know.
Said Mary Grant, "in this report, it seems the Church is trying to focus on some bad apple priests, and it continues to cover up the barrel of bad, complicit bishops." While some summaries will leave the reader with the opinion that Church leaders were indeed complicit in a cover-up, others leave one scratching his head. An example is that of Father Michael Buckley. In 1959, according to the summary, a father "of two minor boys" informed the archdiocese "of indecent exposure involving Fr. Buckley." The summary does not say who in the chancery office received the accusation, whether the then-archbishop, Cardinal McIntyre, knew of it, how it was handled, or whether chancery officials deemed it believable or not. We do learn that the priest was "assigned as assistant" at St. Charles church in North Hollywood a month later. In about 1983, a phone message for the chancellor indicated "that Fr. Buckley engages in inappropriate sexual conduct with children." Again, we do not learn from the summary who received the message, whether it was reported to the chancellor or the archbishop, at that time Timothy Manning, or what they thought about it. It seems Buckley continued in his assignment at Immaculate Conception, New Cuyama, and we learn that in 1986 (under Archbishop Mahony) Buckley was made pastor of St. Catherine parish in Avalon and then, again, at New Cuyama a year later. The archdiocese received three more accusations against Buckley in 1991 and 1994. Finally, in 1994, the archdiocese suspended Buckley's faculties and removed him from Immaculate Conception.
Similiar questions arise from a reading of the summary of Father Lynn Caffoe. In 1986, "a nun reported a boundary violation," says the summary, which does not shed any light on the nature of this "boundary violation" or its victim. Nor does it say who in the chancery office received the report or how the situation was dealt with -- except that Caffoe was assigned to be an associate pastor at St. James in Redondo Beach four months later. In 1989, Caffoe was accused by an anonymous woman of "inappropriate behavior in two incidents involving two separate boys." But what is "inappropriate behavior"? Who received the report? And why did Caffoe continue at St. James? In 1991, a pastor and school principle reported to the vicar of clergy "various boundary violations by Fr. Caffoe;" and two days after this report, says the summary, "three families report to a deacon at St. James that Fr. Caffoe was overly familiar with their teenage sons." Following these last reports, Caffoe saw a therapist, who filed a "suspected child abuse report." After signing an agreement with the archdiocese to restrict his ministry, Caffoe entered St. Luke's Institute in Maryland. In 1992, the archdiocese placed Caffoe on inactive leave.
Having read the summaries, I wondered what archdiocesan priests thought of it. One priest, Father Samuels (not his real name; he requested anonymity), said he greeted the "Addendum" with the same doubts he had had for the original "Report." "My first reaction," said Samuels, "was that the summaries provided all sorts of gratuitous information about priests who have been or have not been charged with a criminal offense. They actually could be considered, at the very least, detraction, if not slander, because I don't know all the ins and outs of those particular cases."
Samuels told me he thinks "there are a number of these charges [against priests] that are bogus." He said he knows "of a very fine priest who had an accusation made against him a number of years ago, and there was no basis for it whatsoever. It was totally discounted by the archdiocese. Nevertheless, when that first 'Report' came out, the priest was listed there. And also a letter had to be read at the parish where he is now pastor emeritus."
A number of priests, said Samuels, "have felt very unprotected and extremely vulnerable," given how the archdiocese has handled accusations against priests. "I remember when the archdiocese first initiated that toll-free line [to report accusations of sexual abuse], for example -- it could happen that someone, if they really wanted to do you harm, could easily do so. And that's it. You have an accusation, it goes before some sort of board which is composed largely of lay people, and then someone determines whether the accusations are credible or not; and whether they're credible or not, you're name is put on a list and your reputation is besmirched forever."
Mary Grant, however, thinks the publishing of the names of all the accused a necessary step in ridding the Church of its predilection for cover-up. Though some innocent priests might, initially at least, have to suffer with the guilty, "it's much easier to repair a reputation," she said, than to repair "a child who has been raped and sodomized." According to Grant, a represen tative of the Los Angeles Police Department told a Voice of the Faithful meeting "two or three years ago ... that they'd received over 200 reports of abuse in the archdiocese, and that they believed only two were not true. One of the main attor neys for the Church out of New York has handled over 500 cases of clergy sex abuse, and even the Church's own attorneys have said they believed only five were not true. So, there's the possi bility of false allegations, but if you weigh that out, the truth far outweighs protecting the reputation of one or two."
Church leaders, said Grant, cannot be trusted to handle abuse cases involving molesting clergy. Without full disclosure of every allegation, the guilty will too easily escape. "The priest who abused me," said Grant, "was arrested and let go after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the criminal statute of limitations. This is a public safety crisis, and the public should not be under a false sense of security that if a molester is not convicted, the crime did not occur. There are many molesters who are not convicted because of time technicalities that have nothing to do with whether the crime occurred or not or have nothing to do with their being less of a risk to kids."
And as for the priests accused in the current spate of civil cases against the archdiocese, "they will have their day in court," said Grant. "These civil lawsuits," she continued, "are so important because they will bring the truth out. You will have the disclosure, the discovery, and the files. The people that are accused, they'll be able to go through the process."
But they will not necessarily go through the process if the cases do not go to trial but are settled out of court, as they have been in other dioceses. Is Grant then not in favor of settlements? "From talking with hundreds of victims," she said, "I don't think that any of the victims are in favor of settling this without full disclosure and the documents being released."
Another archdiocesan priest, Father Canisius (not his real name), said he is in favor of disclosure. "I've always been of the opinion that [the archdiocese] needs to open it up," he said. "They need to do what every other diocese has done across the country. And that's eventually what will happen, and all that we're doing is extending the inevitable. It's coming out in drips and drabs, and of course it makes it worse because the L.A. Times loves this, because they can do more and more front page articles about it, which make it look much worse than it was, as bad as it was. Whereas it would be better if we came clean and said, 'here it is, it's not pretty, it's ugly, this is where we've gone wrong, this where we've cleaned up our act, and this is why it will never happen again."
But should the archdiocese release the names of priests who been accused without proof? "No," said Canisius, "because if a man has just been accused of something, and there's no proof of anything, [by releasing his name] you destroy that man's reputation. That's a matter of justice. It would be slanderous. But in the cases where, yes, this has been proven, accusations are there, lawsuits filed, everything that is in the public record should be out."
Father Canisius thinks that the archdiocesan leadership is not taking the hit like it should. "The names of priests are out there," he said, but "the names of the priests who transferred these people are not. That's all been very protected -- who were the bishops, who did what when, who moved so-and-so where, when they knew." It is all "very hypocritical," said Father Canisius.
A LOOK AT THE NUMBERS
The priest personnel file summaries released by the archdiocese of Los Angeles allow one some insights into the culture of the priest abuse scandal in the archdiocese.
For instance, most victims appear to be male. Removing the 46 priests for whom no details of alleged molestation are given, out of the 76 remaining names, 46 have been accused of molesting males and 25 of molesting females (some priests are accused of molesting both males and females). The sex of some, at least, of the alleged victims of 23 priests cannot be determined from the record.
The number of priests reassigned after accusations of abuse numbers 20. Only eight priests (as far as one can tell from the summaries) were removed directly after the archdiocese learned of abuse allegations. The summaries note that the archdiocese deemed at least four accusations against priests unfounded.
The summaries do not give the ordination dates of all the accused priests. But of those whose ordination dates are listed, 52 were ordained in the 41-year period between 1922 and 1963 (1.3 per year), while 45 were ordained in the 13-year period from1963 to 1986 (4.4 per year).
As to when the alleged molestations occurred -- from 1930 to 1963, the summaries give 16 incidents involving males; 11, involving females (27 altogether in 43 years, or .6 a year). The years 1964 to 1999 witnessed 23 incidents involving males, according to the summaries, and eight involving females (31 altogether in 35 years, or .9 a year).