August 2008
Monthly Archive
BELLEVILLE –
For the first time since the early 1990s when priest misconduct began to be widely reported, a civil court jury will be asked to decide whether Belleville Diocese officials conducted a coverup.
If a jury rules that the diocese engaged in “fraudulent concealment” of sex abuse by the Rev. Raymond Kownacki, 73, then statute of limitation concerns will be overcome. That would allow a full trial in a lawsuit brought by James Wisniewski, of Champaign, to go forward, according to a 15-page ruling filed Friday by St. Clair County Circuit Judge Lloyd Cueto. The lawsuit claims psychological damage and names Kownacki and the diocese.
If jurors decide there was no concealment, the jury’s job will be over. Trial is set for Aug. 18.
Former Belleville Bishop Wilton Gregory failed to turn over all reports about Kownacki to a civilian review board in 1994 investigating priest misconduct, according to the ruling’s summary of deposition testimony by board administrator Margie Mensen. Gregory, now the archbishop of Atlanta, did not respond to a request for comment.
Cueto’s ruling stated that if the allegations of a coverup are true, the diocese protected priests at the expense of children.
“If true, the Diocese of Belleville was a willing participant in the culture of shielding a predator priest and ignoring victims’ complaints,” Cueto wrote. “This resulted in more innocent children being victimized and experiencing the pain, anger and confusion of being sexually molested by a person of trust who was thought to represent Christ.”
Cueto’s ruling is based on sworn deposition testimony from Wisniewski; from diocese officials, including Monsignor James Margason, the former vicar general; and on diocese reports about Kownacki that go back 35 years. Margason was Gregory’s representative to the review board in 1994, but failed to reveal full information about Kownacki, the ruling states. Margason, the pastor of Corpus Christi Church in Shiloh, said he cannot comment on a pending legal matter.
Kownacki, who was removed from active ministry in 1995, could not be reached. He is accused of molesting Wisniewski from 1973 to 1978, beginning when Wisniewski was a 13-year-old altar boy at St. Theresa’s Parish in Salem. According to court documents, Wisniewski did not become aware that he had been psychologically damaged by the abuse until he read news reports about widespread priest sex abuse of minors in Boston.
Cueto wrote in his ruling that Margason’s testimony shows that despite repeated complaints against Kownacki, including that he used his hands in an attempt to induce an abortion in a teenage girl he had gotten pregnant, the priest was reassigned to other parishes with no warning to parishioners. When he was sent for treatment, it was for alcohol and not because of sex abuse allegations.
Cueto’s court order also referred to deposition testimony of Mensen, the administrator of the civilian review board set up to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct by priests and to offer counseling to victims.
Mensen testified in July that Gregory did not turn over all reports held by the diocese concerning Kownacki as required by review board rules. The ruling states that Gregory turned over two letters from Kownacki to the girl he allegedly impregnated.
“I’m getting new information here,” Mensen said during her July 2 deposition, according to a transcript.
Reports about Kownacki’s alleged abuse of other boys at St. Theresa’s contained a reference of abuse to Wisniewski. But because the review board never received the report, its members did not know about Wisniewski and could not offer him counseling, according to a summary of Mensen’s testimony in the Cueto ruling.
“This will be the closest thing we’ve ever had in Belleville to a trial on sex abuse by a priest,” said Dave Clohessy, executive director of the St. Louis-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.
original story here
A pedophile priest has been sentenced to prison for abusing three Tucson teenagers.
Gary Edward Underwood, 53, was suspended from the priesthood and is free on bail. He pleaded guilty in May to six counts of sexual abuse of a minor.
The victims testified that Underwood manipulated them, got them drunk, showed them pornography and molested them.
In a presentence report, Underwood said he was sorry for his actions.
“I wish my victims would know how truly sorry I am and how none of what happened was their fault.”
In court before sentencing Monday, 15 supporters voiced doubts about his guilt, but Underwood apologized to his victims and asked for their forgiveness.
Pima County Superior Court Judge Richard Nichols sentenced Underwood to 10 years in prison and lifetime probation as a registered sex offender.
One victim said it has been a long ordeal.
“I’m hoping we can get this behind us.”
Underwood, who was ordained in 1980, served at St. Odilia Catholic Church from 1983 through 1986, said Tucson diocese spokesman Fred Allison.
After serving for several months in 1987 in Casa Grande, Underwood volunteered for the Archdiocese of the Military at the end of 1987, Allison said.
original story here
Four former students at Salesianum High School in Wilmington have filed lawsuits in Delaware accusing a Catholic priest of sexual abuse at the school three decades ago.
The priest, Father Dennis Killion, later served as an assistant principal at Father Judge High School in Philadelphia and is now at a high school in Florida.
He had been scheduled to take a new job at Saint Bede the Venerable Parish in Holland, Bucks County, on August 18, but the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, upon learning of the allegations, withdrew permission for Killion to serve anywhere in their territory.
John C. Manly, the attorney for the four students, said that they came forward separately and detailed sexual abuse perpetrated by Killion, the school’s activities director, in the 1980s. Two of the victims allegedly reported the abuse to school officials, who told the boys “to be quiet, he would be transferred,” Manly said.
Killion later served as an assistant principal at Father Judge High School in Philadelphia in the 1990s, Manly said. From Philadelphia, he went to Florida was the activities director at Bishop Verot High School in Fort Meyers, until earlier this summer, Manly said.
Manly, a California attorney, appeared at a news conference today with leaders of a support group called the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. He said the publicity was needed because the church hierarchy has failed to protect children.
A change in Delaware law generated four child sex-abuse lawsuits that ended a pedophile priest’s “unfettered access to children” in three states, Manly said.
original story here
A Maryland man, now living in Delaware claims he was sexually abused by a priest. Joesph Curry is suing the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, accusing the church leadership of failing to intervene when complaints were first made about the Reverend Edward Carley, whose now dead. Curry is also suing Saint Dennis’ Church in Galena, Maryland. The plantiff trained there as an alter boy, and claims that’s where the abuse began.
original story here
A Tyler pastor has been arrested for allegedly molesting a relative at an Austin motel.
Austin police issued a warrant earlier today for Billie Lewis Minson.
Minson is the pastor at the First Baptist Church of Swan, just North of Tyler.
Smith County judicial records say Minson is being held on a 60-thousand dollar bond in the county jail.
original story here
Former bishop Eugene LaRocque told the Cornwall Public Inquiry Thursday he would have had “to be God” to have known all the goings-on in his diocese — including the way his own delegate was handling a 1992 sexual abuse complaint against a local priest.
LaRocque, 81, was trying to explain why it seemed the Alexandria-Cornwall Roman Catholic Diocese wasn’t following its draft sexual abuse protocol after David Silmser accused Rev. Charles MacDonald of assaulting him decades earlier.
“If it’s not being followed, it’s not my responsibility. It’s the delegate’s,” said LaRocque, who headed the diocese from 1975 until 2002.
“I can’t comment one way or another, except that it should be followed.”
Thursday was LaRocque’s third day on the stand at the inquiry, which is probing how institutions like the church reacted when faced with allegations of historical sexual abuse.
In December 1992, Silmser went to the diocese alleging MacDonald, a former priest at St. Columban’s Church in Cornwall, had abused him when he was an altar boy in the 1960s and 1970s.
At the time Silmser came forward, the diocese had what LaRocque called “serious guidelines” in place to handle allegations against priests.
One guideline was that the bishop would assign a delegate — in this case, Msgr. Donald McDougald — to strike a committee to look into the complaint.
The committee’s duties includes keeping notes of any meetings with the complainant or the accused, turning the allegation over to the Children’s Aid Society if it was warranted, and if it wasn’t, telling the complainant why not.
Lead commission counsel Peter Engelmann suggested that not only were those duties neglected, but that McDougald sought to set up a meeting between Silmser and MacDonald — something the draft guidelines specifically prohibited.
LaRocque said it was the delegate’s responsibility — not the bishop’s — to follow the protocol. The only way he could remain “objective” was by not involving himself in the committee’s work, he added.
“And who’s the head of the diocese?” asked inquiry commissioner Normand Glaude.
“I am,” said LaRocque.
“And is it not the ultimate responsibility of the head of the diocese to (make sure) the protocol is followed?” asked Glaude.
LaRocque said it would have been “absolutely impossible” to oversee everything that happened in the diocese, including McDougald’s committee. “I’d have to be God to be able to do all that,” he said.
McDougald has not yet testified at the inquiry.
The diocese and MacDonald would strike a $32,000 settlement with Silmser in September 1993. That payout included an illegal clause that kept Silmser from pursuing criminal charges against MacDonald. MacDonald was eventually charged in 1996 with sex crimes involving a number of youths. The charges were stayed in 2002 after a judge ruled his right to a timely trial had been violated.
The same year MacDonald was charged, the diocese approved another policy stating that any priest facing sexual abuse allegations would have his legal fees covered.
While the diocese would immediately remove any priest suspected of abusing children from his parish, the policy also ensured that priest would receive his full salary, along with a car allowance and benefits, until the end of his legal battles - including appeals.
Engelmann suggested the protocol would afford priests “many benefits” in exchange for denying abuse allegations.
read more here
EASTBOURNE victims of a former vicar named in a church sex abuse scandal have spoken out this week.
Two men, who as boys were abused by Father Roy Cotton, a former incumbent at St Andrew’s, Seaside, believe there may be a number of other victims in the Eastbourne area who have not come forward.
Cotton was at St Andrew’s in the 1970s and 80s and sexually abused young boys along with another priest, Colin Pritchard.
read more here
Reviewed by Thomas Doyle
A number of books have been written about sexual abuse by Catholic clerics. Some are the gut-wrenching stories of victims themselves, told in their own words or through another. Some are polemical in that they confront the official Church for its hypocritical response while demanding both recognition and action to help solve the problem. Still others are scholarly ventures into the mysterious depths of this unique socio-cultural phenomenon by academics from a variety of disciplines. All are seeking answers as to “why.” The answers are much more complex and elusive than simply saying “celibate priests are sexually dysfunctional” or “bishops only want to protect their turf.” Both are true statements but there are many more “whys.”
Joe Rigert is an investigative journalist with an uncanny ability to ask the right questions and a tireless capacity to find the answers. With An Irish Tragedy he has moved into territory not yet explored by those seeking answers, namely the ethnic component to clergy abuse. The Irish clergy are natural subject of inquiry. I must admit that I underestimated and undervalued the causal relationship between the Irish Catholic culture and the fact that a significant number of clergy abusers in the U.S. are either Irish immigrants or of Irish descent. The author did much more than simply provide a well documented exposition of sexual abuse by Irish priests in the U.S. He went to Ireland to look at the roots and in doing so he became immersed in the Irish expression of Catholicism, especially the rather bizarre brand of sexual morality.
An Irish Tragedy is an apt title for this book because it describes precisely the end result of the continuum of excessive and superstitious piety, toxic clerical control and a twisted sexual morality which has all converged into too many cases of sexual abuse of minors and deceitful cover-up by bishops.
read more here
SIOUX FALLS - A federal lawsuit filed by a Native American man who accused a Mormon missionary of sexually abusing him in the 1960s has been resolved before going to trial.
original story here
The mother of an 8-year-old girl who police said was sexually assaulted by a church youth minister is enraged and is praying for justice for her child.
Terrence Jenkins, 36, of 4318 Walnut Ave., Alorton, was charged July 23 with criminal predatory sexual assault and is being held in the St. Clair County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail. He was a youth minister with the Faith United Baptist Church in O’Fallon.
read more here
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