It began one Sunday in September when we noticed an unfamiliar priest celebrating Mass. The monsignor, who introduced himself as the director of priest personnel for the diocese, had bad news. A family in the parish had filed a lawsuit against our pastor, charging inappropriate behavior toward their teenage sons, and against the diocese for negligence. The monsignor hastened to note that no criminal charges were pending: This is purely a suit about money damages. Lawyers for the diocese had concluded that the charges were utterly without foundation, he said. In the meantime, said the monsignor, our pastor had the full support of the diocese, and he would continue at his post while the legal process unfolded. He lamented the injury to a priest’s good name and urged us not to allow baseless rumors to divide the parish.
The family’s case centered on charges that the priest, on separate occasions, had massaged their young sons in an unmistakably erotic manner. In one case, during an overnight trip to his remote vacation cabin, in the presence of other boys, the priest had instructed one of their sons to remove his shirt and lie on the floor, while he straddled him and massaged his back with oil. The family had brought their suit after discovering, contrary to initial denials from the diocese, that this priest had done the same thing to many boys over the years. The leadership team of the parishdeacons, associate priests and youth ministerhad repeatedly warned the pastor against his habit of taking young boys on unsupervised trips to his cabin, or overnights in the rectory, or to motels on trips to amusement parks. As one of them said, He was a regular Pied Piper.
To most of the parish all of this was completely unknown, and many were confused and shaken by the monsignor’s disclosure. The pastor was popular. Under his leadership the parish was thriving. Many parishioners chose to ignore the unseemly controversy. Others loudly questioned the motives of anyone who sought to undermine their pastor. This attitude was of course encouraged by the monsignor’s insistence that the charges had no foundation, that they were, in effect, stimulated by greed, and that our duty as Catholics was simply to rise above the rumors and pray for healing.
Parish leaders seemed genuinely anguished, but their main effort was directed to avoiding public airing of the issue. When questions were raised before the parish council or in other groups, they were met with a constant refrain: We must not discuss this subject. Meanwhile the pastor was at Mass each Sunday, hugging parishioners and thanking them for their continued support. The parish limped on, clouded by fears and concerns that we were not allowed to acknowledge.
Quite unwillingly, my own family found itself drawn into the affair. As guests at the pastor’s cabin, soon after we had joined the parish, my wife and eight-year-old son had witnessed behavior consistent with the allegations in the lawsuit: the discovery in plain sight of a book on The Art of Sensual Massage; the sight of our pastor massaging a 12-year-old boy clad in a bathing suitan expression of dreamy concentration on his face. Though disturbed, we had not reported these observations. Why? Perhaps we convinced ourselves of what we wanted to believethat surely this could not be as bad as it seemed; that we did not want to tarnish a priest’s reputation on the basis of an isolated incident. Now, however, since the monsignor’s disclosure at church, we regretted our silence.
But surely the monsignor would be interested in our story. Surely he would be sorry for having declared, before conducting any wider investigation, that the suit was without foundation. Surely he would also regret the article in the diocesan newspaper stating that no other allegations of this nature had ever been made. If only the monsignor knew the whole story.
So we called and wrote the monsignor several times. Within a matter of days, after talking with other parishioners, we compiled a long chronological account documenting incidents of improper behavior by the pastor going back 25 years. This account included the story of the brother of a close friend in the parish, who said that on an overnight camping trip, the pastor had crawled into his tent in the middle of the night and tried to pull down his pajama bottoms. The child had screamed and fought him off. Now, 25 years later, the memory still burned. He had never again attended church.
The monsignor was sorry to hear our news. Very sorry. Oh dear, oh dear, this is serious, he said. It pained him more than he could say to have to hear these things. But it did not take long before we discovered that much of this was already known to him. An associate priest in the parish had earlier submitted his own account of improprieties in the rectory and had begged the diocese to investigate. The monsignor himself had been involved in resolving a previous situation, after another 13-year-old boy said the pastor had gotten him drunk in his cabin and then straddled him and massaged him with oil.
As months passed, it appeared that nothing was going to change in our parish. The pastor remained in charge, celebrating Mass each Sundaythough we could no longer bring ourselves to see him there. Publicly he took the position, on the advice of counsel, that he could not comment on the allegations and was thus, sadly, powerless to defend himself. To parishioners who approached him with their concerns and questions he denied everything.
To priests in neighboring parishes the pastor provided his own version of the facts, which they willingly circulated: It never happened. There was nothing sexual about it. It was all misunderstood. These are very troubled boys. Their parents are jealous of me. The 11-year-old boy with the pajama bottoms? To the boy’s brother the pastor said he had no recollection of this incident. But to a priest friend he recalled the incident clearly: we had to get up early to catch a train. The boy wouldn’t wake up, and then he struggled when I tried to get him dressed.
Again and again from priests in the area, including two monsignors supposedly monitoring the case, I heard various versions of the same impulse: to minimize the problem, to shift the issue to the sad injury to a priest’s reputation. He may have been foolish, but he hasn’t broken any laws. Those boys look like strapping fellows; it’s hard for me to believe that they suffered any real harm. He has this thing about massagehe’s a very touchy-feely person. Sure, he doesn’t walk on water; but we are all broken, we are all sinners....
Again and again I found it necessary to point out to these priests that the pastor’s particular form of brokenness took the form of victimizing the most innocent and defenseless members of his flock. The pattern of these stories suggested a compulsive erotic attraction to young boys, which he was unable or unwilling to curb. He used his parishioners’ trust in him as a priest and as a family friend in order to gain access to their male children and to take them on unsupervised overnight trips, where he acted out his attraction and abused their trust. After Mass on the Sunday following the visit of my wife and son to his cabin, the pastor leaned over to my son and whispered, Next time you come alone, and we’ll leave Mom behind.
Again and again I found it necessary to answer the claim that nobody was hurt by the pastor’s behavior. The fact that he had intended no harm was irrelevant. There are certain adults a child has every right to trust. One of these is surely a priest. Who could assess the consequences when such trust was betrayed? Who could doubt the shame and confusion planted in the minds of the children he touched? Who could calculate the damage that such behavior did to the whole body of Christ and to the reputation of many innocent priests?
Perhaps I was naïve; perhaps it reflected my residual faith in the priesthood. But what offended me most was not whatever deviant weakness caused our pastor’s actions, but that when confronted he could accept no responsibilitythat he lied, and that he used his brother priests to circulate his lies.
Diocesan officials did nothing with the accumulating body of evidence. What seemed increasingly clear was that their hands were tied by the pending lawsuit. Any evidence supporting the pastor’s guilt could reflect on the diocese’s own culpability. So they spread the church’s mantle of authority around this priest and his secrets and lies, hoping that if only a knowing few were scandalized or alienated from the church this would be an acceptable price. Surely the parish, and the victims, would recover in time.
It is the same logic, repeated over many years and in many dioceses around the country, that has led today to a crisis, and a scandal, of unprecedented proportions.
Five years have passed since that Sunday in September. The priest finished out the remaining two years of his term as pastor. The diocese placed him, after an extended trip abroad, in another parishthough only on an interim basis. The lawsuit has dragged on in Dickensian fashion. One of the depositions, by a decorated police officer, stated that 30 years ago, when he was an 11-year-old altar boy, the priest regularly massaged him in the rectory. On the last of these occasions the priest had placed his hand inside the boy’s underpants while moving the boy’s hand over his own crotch, in a state of arousal.
The monsignor never returned to address our former parish. He went on to become chancellor of the diocese.
My wife and I continue to think of ourselves as Catholics. But we have not belonged to another parish since then.
I cannot speak for the other members of the “leadership team,” but as the only deacon in the parish at the time I can state that I did not repeatedly warn the pastor against anything. In fact, my wife and I were present on many occasions when he had boys at the cabin, usually to help him to do work around the place.
I probably know as much if not more about all the allegations and innuendos that appear in the article than anyone. I was his deacon and I am his friend, and our home, is only twenty minutes from his lake house. I have been at his house at times when some of the alleged abuse is supposed to have taken place. I certainly know more about the whole situation than Anonymous, who bases his entire indictment on the testimony of his wife, who spent one day at the cabin, and his eight-year old son. Anonymous may have spoken with other people who have made allegations against the priest, but he has no first hand knowledge about anything. In fact, I was at the cabin the same day his wife was there and my recollection of that day was much different from hers.
But as I began to refute each allegation one by one, I realized that there was nothing that I could say that would convince Anonymous or his wife or anyone who wants to believe the worst about this priest, that he is not a child abuser. As a lawyer I know how difficult it is to prove one’s innocence. That is why our legal standard is proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But the standard is different in the court of public opinion. All you need are enough allegations, without a shred of evidence to support them, to negate 31 years of service to the People of God and destroy a man’s career. And all a noted Catholic author, such as Anonymous, has to do in order to get a respected publication like America to publish his well-written attack, is to claim that he has “provided full documentation to the appropriate authorities.” Perhaps some of his “documentation” includes the vicious, slanderous anonymous letters that have been sent to some of the priest’s parishioners over the past few years. The fact is that he has no “documentation” other than unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct. Of all the talk of trips to the lake house, back massages, unsupervised overnights, there is only one single allegation of possible sexual abuse, made thirty years after the alleged incident in a deposition. To my knowledge, the man who made that allegation has never been asked to give details about the alleged abuse by anyone other than the attorney for the family that sued the priest.
If anyone were to look at all the evidence of the case dispassionately and without prejudging, I think they would find that the priest is not the sexual predator that he has been made out to be. He may have been incredibly naïve and stupid. If he did, in fact, give teenage boys back massages, it was terribly inappropriate. But it is not sexual abuse. I have seen no evidence, in America or anywhere else, that he is done anything to warrant the public lynching that he has received – in three major metropolitan daily newspapers, two large suburban newspapers, the country newspaper published near his lake house, and now in the foremost national Catholic weekly.
What really galls me is that Anonymous (I am quite sure that I know who he is) is a well-respected Catholic writer who doesn’t have the courage to even identif
He had been one of those teenage boys who went to the cabin to "work". He witnessed, and was given, massages that made him uncomfortable. He was also asked to give this priest massages that made him feel uncomfortable.
My wife recalls our son saying something at the time, but not enough to set off red flags. We were naive and trusting. This priest was a friend and treated our son well. We considered him a role model for our son. Years later, he even officiated at our son's wedding.
I now feel that this man, at the least, acted imprudently and inappropriately. If, in fact, he had been counseled to not take boys to his cabin unsupervised he certainly showed a lack of wisdom and an unconcern for what others thought. In other venues this would be called denial - "I don't have a problem". The pattern described in the article fits. And the Church has shown itself to be an "enabler". Both aspects are a sign of "a family disease".
According to our system of justice a person is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I would not want anyone's reputation to be sullied by false accusations or a "rush to judgement". But to a victim the scars remain. And this has certainly impacted our family.
I only hope that the publicity helps Archdiocesan officials to more adequately pay attention to the people who complain. I personally believe that priests are not above the law - neither civil nor Church. Allegations need to be thoroughly investigated and appropriate action taken. Criminal acts need to be prosecuted. Inappropriate, if not criminal, behavior must be censured and the person adequately supervised.
Editor's note: with the consent of the author of this letter, we removed references to names and locations.
I cannot speak for the other members of the “leadership team,” but as the only deacon in the parish at the time I can state that I did not repeatedly warn the pastor against anything. In fact, my wife and I were present on many occasions when he had boys at the cabin, usually to help him to do work around the place.
I probably know as much if not more about all the allegations and innuendos that appear in the article than anyone. I was his deacon and I am his friend, and our home, is only twenty minutes from his lake house. I have been at his house at times when some of the alleged abuse is supposed to have taken place. I certainly know more about the whole situation than Anonymous, who bases his entire indictment on the testimony of his wife, who spent one day at the cabin, and his eight-year old son. Anonymous may have spoken with other people who have made allegations against the priest, but he has no first hand knowledge about anything. In fact, I was at the cabin the same day his wife was there and my recollection of that day was much different from hers.
But as I began to refute each allegation one by one, I realized that there was nothing that I could say that would convince Anonymous or his wife or anyone who wants to believe the worst about this priest, that he is not a child abuser. As a lawyer I know how difficult it is to prove one’s innocence. That is why our legal standard is proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But the standard is different in the court of public opinion. All you need are enough allegations, without a shred of evidence to support them, to negate 31 years of service to the People of God and destroy a man’s career. And all a noted Catholic author, such as Anonymous, has to do in order to get a respected publication like America to publish his well-written attack, is to claim that he has “provided full documentation to the appropriate authorities.” Perhaps some of his “documentation” includes the vicious, slanderous anonymous letters that have been sent to some of the priest’s parishioners over the past few years. The fact is that he has no “documentation” other than unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct. Of all the talk of trips to the lake house, back massages, unsupervised overnights, there is only one single allegation of possible sexual abuse, made thirty years after the alleged incident in a deposition. To my knowledge, the man who made that allegation has never been asked to give details about the alleged abuse by anyone other than the attorney for the family that sued the priest.
If anyone were to look at all the evidence of the case dispassionately and without prejudging, I think they would find that the priest is not the sexual predator that he has been made out to be. He may have been incredibly naïve and stupid. If he did, in fact, give teenage boys back massages, it was terribly inappropriate. But it is not sexual abuse. I have seen no evidence, in America or anywhere else, that he is done anything to warrant the public lynching that he has received – in three major metropolitan daily newspapers, two large suburban newspapers, the country newspaper published near his lake house, and now in the foremost national Catholic weekly.
What really galls me is that Anonymous (I am quite sure that I know who he is) is a well-respected Catholic writer who doesn’t have the courage to even identif
He had been one of those teenage boys who went to the cabin to "work". He witnessed, and was given, massages that made him uncomfortable. He was also asked to give this priest massages that made him feel uncomfortable.
My wife recalls our son saying something at the time, but not enough to set off red flags. We were naive and trusting. This priest was a friend and treated our son well. We considered him a role model for our son. Years later, he even officiated at our son's wedding.
I now feel that this man, at the least, acted imprudently and inappropriately. If, in fact, he had been counseled to not take boys to his cabin unsupervised he certainly showed a lack of wisdom and an unconcern for what others thought. In other venues this would be called denial - "I don't have a problem". The pattern described in the article fits. And the Church has shown itself to be an "enabler". Both aspects are a sign of "a family disease".
According to our system of justice a person is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I would not want anyone's reputation to be sullied by false accusations or a "rush to judgement". But to a victim the scars remain. And this has certainly impacted our family.
I only hope that the publicity helps Archdiocesan officials to more adequately pay attention to the people who complain. I personally believe that priests are not above the law - neither civil nor Church. Allegations need to be thoroughly investigated and appropriate action taken. Criminal acts need to be prosecuted. Inappropriate, if not criminal, behavior must be censured and the person adequately supervised.
Editor's note: with the consent of the author of this letter, we removed references to names and locations.