Child sex abuse allegations in the US Catholic Church
doubled in 2018
Brinkwire
Child sex abuse allegations in the Catholic Church double in the last year in yet another damning blow for the Vatican, as the U.S. branch of the church was forced to admit it paid out more than $300 million in compensation to victims.
During the period from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018, 1,385 adults came forward with 1,455 allegations of abuse, according to the annual report of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection.
That was up from 693 allegations in the previous year. The report attributed much of the increase to a victim compensation program implemented in five dioceses in New York state.
According to the report, Catholic dioceses and religious orders spent $301.6 million during the reporting period on payments to victims, legal fees and child-protection efforts.
That was up 14 percent from the previous year and double the amount spent in the 2014 fiscal year.
The number of allegations is likely to rise further during the current fiscal year, given that Catholic dioceses in New Jersey and Pennsylvania have started large compensation programs in the wake of a scathing Pennsylvania grand jury report released in August.
The grand jury identified more than 300 priests in six of the state’s dioceses who have been credibly accused of child sexual abuse committed over many decades.
Since then, attorneys general in numerous states have set up abuse hotlines and launched investigations, and a growing number of dioceses and Catholic religious orders have released names of priests accused of abuse.
‘Victims are coming forward now because of real progress by secular authorities,’ said the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. ‘Lawmakers are increasingly getting rid of archaic, predator-friendly laws and 16 attorneys general have launched investigations, so many victims are feeling hopeful.’
The advocacy group urged officials in every diocese to turn over sex abuse records to their state attorney general for investigation. The group also said church staff should be instructed to report suspected abuse to secular law enforcement before filing a report internally.
According to a survey included in the new annual report, more than 90 percent of the alleged abusers were already dead or removed from the ministry. Most of the reported abuse occurred between 1960 and 1990, with a peak in the 1970s.
Compilation of the annual report entails an audit of Catholic dioceses across the U.S. to assess their compliance with a 2002 charter outlining the church’s child-protection policies. Only one diocese, based in Lincoln, Nebraska, was found noncompliant due to lack of transparency in public communications about child sex abuse cases.
Members of the audit team made on-site visits to more than one-third of the 196 U.S. dioceses and found shortcomings in 14 percent of them that will warrant follow-up visits.
Among the problems detected were poor record-keeping of background-check data, and allowing some clergy, staff and volunteers to have contact with children without undergoing training or background checks.
The findings were evidence of ‘complacency and lack of diligence on the part of some dioceses,’ said a letter included in the report from Francesco Cesareo, who chairs a review board created by the bishops in 2002 to monitor sex abuse prevention efforts.
This huge leap in the number of victims coming forward in one year - mostly because of the compensation program in NY State, would appear to be the tip of the iceberg. It will be interesting to see how the programs in New Jersey and Pennsylvania affect the numbers. And then there are only 47 more states to go. Compensation should total in the billions; and that's just in America. Can the Catholic Church survive? Should it?
Rhode Island Bishop Warns Catholics To Avoid
Pride Events Because Of 'Harm To Children'
By Mary Papenfuss, HuffPost US
Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin admonished Catholics in an inflammatory tweet on Saturday not to support or attend any LGBTQ Pride Month commemorations in June, warning that such events promote a “culture” and “activities” that are “especially harmful for children.”
Bishop Thomas Tobin
@ThomasJTobin1
A reminder that Catholics should not support or attend LGBTQ “Pride Month” events held in June. They promote a culture and encourage activities that are contrary to Catholic faith and morals. They are especially harmful for children.
Joe Lazzerini, president of Rhode Island Pride, said in a statement to The Providence Journal that his organization “respectfully calls on Bishop Tobin to do some self-reflection, as the majority of Catholic Rhode Islanders in this state reject the idea that to be Catholic is to be complicit to intolerance, bigotry, and fear.” He pointed out that many Catholics are members of or strongly support the pride community.
Pride Month is particularly significant this year because it marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in Manhattan, which fueled the gay — and soon LGBTQ — rights movement.
Tobin’s particularly harsh warning stunned many, given the many revelations in recent years of the Catholic Church’s history of child sexual abuse. The U.S. Catholic Church revealed Friday that allegations of child sex abuse by clerics more than doubled to 1,455 in its latest 12-month reporting period, and that spending on victim compensation and child protection efforts topped $300 million.
A scathing grand jury report last year said the church covered up decades of sexual abuse of some 1,000 victims by more than 300 priests in Pennsylvania, where Tobin was formerly posted. He served for four years in the 1990s as auxiliary bishop of Pittsburgh, one of six Pennsylvania dioceses covered in the report.
Tobin acknowledged a year ago that he “became aware of incidents of sexual abuse” in Pittsburgh, but said that his responsibilities didn’t include “clergy misconduct,” he told The Providence Journal.
Responding to Tobin’s Saturday tweet, one Twitter user said he would be “much more concerned for the safety of my children in the company of a Pennsylvania priest than with anyone attending LGBTQ Pride Month.”
There were several similar responses to Tobin’s tweet, along with comments from those who believe that love and tolerance are Catholic values.
Being right is no longer sufficient. You have to have some credibility, especially when you attack politically correct ramparts. Bishop Tobin, along with most in the Catholic Church, have failed to realize that the Catholic Church has long lost its moral authority. Humility should be the order of the day for many years to come.
Rhode Island
After 2006 sex abuse lawsuit,
priest served in Indiana for 7 years
Meredith Colias-Pete
Post-Tribune
Months after the Rev. Stephen Muth retired at St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church in Whiting, superiors put him on administrative leave, removing him from the priesthood.
Church leaders had concluded Muth, 69, received a “recent credible accusation of sexual misconduct involving a vulnerable adult (considered a minor under canon law),” according to a statement dated Oct. 22.
The priest denied the allegation to the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Parma, an Eastern rite sect based in Ohio that has churches in several Midwestern states. It is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church. Muth worked for both after he was ordained.
“Though Father Stephen Muth denies the accusation, Bishop Milan Lach, SJ, having heard from the priest, the Review Board, and the Promoter of Justice, has found the accusation to be credible,” according to the statement.
“A finding that the accusation is credible is not an accusation of guilt,” the church’s statement read. “While on administrative leave, Father Stephen Muth is unable to function in any capacity as a priest anywhere.” Lach was installed as bishop in June 2018.
Muth’s last known assignment appears to be in Whiting from November 2010 to late 2017, according to a review of church websites, articles, newspaper obituaries and interviews.
Muth retired as an active priest in January 2018, according to Horizons, a Catholic publication. A single listed phone number for Muth appeared to be disconnected.
Before Whiting, federal court records show Muth faced a 2006 civil lawsuit from a Kansas City man who claimed the priest abused him as a 12-year-old boy and again a decade later as an adult.
The lawsuit was dismissed in 2009. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City had investigated an abuse claim made around 2004 and cleared him, a spokeswoman then told the Associated Press. It was unclear if it involved the same accusation.
Muth was allowed to return as an active priest. Since the lawsuit, he worked at a parish in Missouri, briefly in Texas, before he was transferred to St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church, 2011 Clark St., in Whiting.
“I don’t think anybody knows what happened,” St. Mary’s church council member Rose Baranko, 72, said of the church’s move in October to bar Muth working as a priest. “We knew he was retiring.”
Baranko said she and her husband saw Muth once more when they drove up to Holy Resurrection Monastery in Wisconsin sometime after he left St. Mary’s. They may have dropped off some books he left, then took him out to lunch, she said.
Back at St. Mary’s, Baranko said she was not aware Muth had been sued in 2006. She wasn’t aware if parishioners were told by the church.
“I didn’t know any of that happened in Missouri,” she said. “There might have been rumors. I can’t be for sure. Nobody really spoke of it, put it in writing or anything.”
Muth never spoke of the allegations, Baranko, a lifelong St. Mary’s parishioner said. “Maybe he thought the case was closed and didn’t want to bring it up,” she said.
During the period he was there, St. Mary’s had some young adults, but not a lot of children, she said. It no longer had Eastern Christ Formation (its version of Catholic CCD/youth education).
“Yeah, we would like to know it,” Baranko, a homemaker and mother of 7.
Another priest
James Niehaus, a Byzantine church lawyer said via email he had been unable yet to look into questions if Muth received any allegations in Whiting or where the “credible” abuse happened. There is no record of any criminal charges against Muth in Indiana.
In October, Muth was placed on administrative leave at the same time as the Rev. Basil Hutsko of Merrillville’s St. Michael Byzantine Catholic Church.
Hutsko, 65, a Whiting native, drew national attention in August in a separate case after he claimed he was attacked inside the Merrillville church. Church superiors later said he lied about the attack.
Following the incident, church leaders reexamined a sex abuse allegation against Hutsko that surfaced in 2004. A woman came forward to allege the priest had abused her as a child between 1979 and 1983. The location is not known.
In 2004, the church investigated her claim and concluded there was not enough evidence to judge whether it happened, Lach told St. Michael’s congregation during a Sunday service last year.
Now, 35 years later, church officials judged it to be “credible,” in the statement announcing Hutsko’s administrative leave.
“The Eparchy of Parma is committed to protecting children and helping to heal victims of abuse,” they said. “We are deeply sorry for the pain suffered by survivors of abuse due to actions of some members of the clergy.”
The lawsuit
A former groundskeeper at St. Luke Byzantine Catholic Church in Sugar Creek, Mo., filed a lawsuit against Muth in 2006, stating the priest had molested him at a swimming pool in Wichita, Kan., as a 12-year-old boy in 1992 and then a decade later as an adult. The man was identified as John Doe in court filings.
According to the lawsuit, Muth and his alleged victim met in 1992, when the boy was taking part in a church-sponsored leadership training program, the Associated Press reported.
In 2002, the suit claims, Muth contacted the alleged victim again. The priest hired him as a maintenance man and groundskeeper at St. Luke’s and Our Lady of Peace Parish, a Kansas City church where the diocese says Muth was assigned some duties from 2002 to 2004.
Muth provided his alleged victim with temporary housing and loans, the suit claims, and would attempt to fondle his employee, then chastise and humiliate him when he was rejected. The priest also allegedly told the plaintiff he was a trained physical therapist and encouraged the plaintiff to take part in massage sessions in which the priest again attempted to molest him, the AP reported.
In the lawsuit, the man alleged he told the local bishop and vicar general after claiming he found Muth in bed with a young boy around summer 2004. The man claimed his hours were cut and he was fired for “budgetary reasons” in July 2005, according to the lawsuit.
The man charged the church “had actual knowledge prior to 1992 of Muth’s propensity for engaging in sexual improprieties with children and otherwise inappropriate behavior,” according to documents filed in federal court.
After the lawsuit was filed, an Eparchy of Parma spokeswoman told the AP it was not aware of any accusations made against Muth. A Diocese of Kansas City spokeswoman said it had investigated a prior complaint against the priest.
The diocese said it placed Muth on administrative leave after abuse was alleged in August 2004. An internal review cleared him, and the diocese granted him permission to return to ministry, the AP reported. The Diocese said it also reported the allegation to the Missouri Division of Family Services, which church officials said found the claims unsubstantiated. The agency declined to comment to the AP, citing state privacy laws.
The lawsuit was thrown out in 2009.
Telling a new parish
If a priest is cleared by the church after an internal investigation, it does not have an automatic obligation to tell the next parish, the Rev. Thomas Loya, of Annunciation Byzantine Catholic Church in Homer Glen, Ill., said.
“If the accusation was considered to be not credible, there’s no reason to say anything about it,” he said. “You are not hiding anything. A lot of times, people are accused.”
“If it is not found out to be true, it’s a closed case,” Loya said.
Loya, who briefed the media last summer on Hutsko, said he was not as familiar with Muth’s case. The church was concerned that a priest’s reputation would be tarnished if they were falsely accused of abusing a child, he said.
When asked if a parent would want to know that information, Loya said their child could also grow up to become a priest. He cautioned against a rush to judgment. The church needed to be very sensitive to potential abuse victims, Loya said. Yet, a false accusation could be very harmful to a priest.
“We create other kinds of victims,” he said. “For a priest, (having a) reputation to be damaged is an abuse in itself.”
Advocate: Church ‘cannot be trusted to police their priests’
“Most, if not all states, now have laws requiring clergy to report suspected child abuse, but otherwise there is nothing to stop churches from making their own decisions regarding their clergy,” said Melanie Sakoda, co-founder of Povro.org, an organization for victims from Catholic and Orthodox churches.
“The primary issue I see with this system is that the Catholic Church — including the Eastern Rite groups — have shown that they can not be trusted to police their priests,” she said via email. “The best system is one where all criminal investigations are left to the professionals in law enforcement.
“If any Church investigation is still required after police and prosecutors are finished, Catholic officials need to be completely transparent about what is being investigated, what the findings of the investigation are, and why the Church reached that conclusion,” Sakoda said. “Too much has been hidden from the faithful, and the public, in the past, to the great detriment of countless children.”
There is a moral obligation to inform parishioners if a new priest has any allegations in their past, which the church has largely failed to do, Sakoda said.
“The Church should absolutely be required to inform parishioners if their priest has been accused,” Sakoda said. “The families in the parish cannot make informed decisions concerning the safety of their children without having that information.
“Clergymen are automatically in a position of trust. If there is a suspicion that they might not be worthy of the trust, it should be shared with the people who will be most affected,” she said.
Unhappy Buffalo Catholics are giving less in wake of clergy sex abuse scandal
More money going out to CSA victims - Less money coming in
- spells Disaster for Catholic Church
Robert Hoatson, right, from Road to Recovery Inc., and James Faluszczak protest the bishop and the diocese to release names of sexually abusive priests on March 18, 2018. (John Hickey/Buffalo News)
By Jay Tokasz| Buffalo News
The clergy sex abuse scandal is costing the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo more than the $17.5 million paid to childhood victims of abuse through a special compensation program.
Giving at area Catholic parishes is down since last August and is likely to result in a budget shortfall at the diocese and cuts to ministries and services, according to the Rev. Peter J. Karalus, the diocese’s chief operating officer.
“The abuse scandal has had consequences on the financial condition of the diocese beyond the cost of settling claims,” said Karalus, vicar general and moderator of the curia, in a preface to the diocese’s 2018 financial report.
Karalus also warned of “significant financial challenges” facing the diocese, including clergy abuse lawsuits allowed under the Child Victims Act.
A spokeswoman for the diocese said Friday it was too soon for the diocese to discuss bankruptcy protection.
“It is impossible to determine the impact of the cases filed under the CVA until we actually review the filings,” Kathy Spangler, the spokeswoman, said in an email response to several questions from The Buffalo News. “A number of other dioceses have sought the protection of the bankruptcy statutes but it is too early for us to make that determination.”
Under the Child Victims Act, a one-year window opens Aug. 14 for childhood victims of alleged abuse to file lawsuits that previously were barred by time limitations.
Spangler declined to answer if the diocese has been in contact with bankruptcy attorneys or if the diocese has plans to cut programs, services or staff beyond the elimination last August of its Daybreak TV operations.
The diocese, she said, “continues to evaluate its operating budget to ensure effective and vital ministry across Western New York.”
Diocese officials learned last fall that collections were down calendar year-to-year by an average of 7.5% at a variety of parishes surveyed, although the survey did not weigh the size of the parishes, according to two local pastors.
The decrease in giving isn’t apparent in the financial statement released this week by the diocese, along with a report on the compensation program. That’s mainly because the diocese’s 2017-18 fiscal year ran from Sept. 1 through Aug. 31 and the priest abuse scandal didn’t begin unfolding publicly until more than halfway through the fiscal calendar, when the Rev. Norbert Orsolits in late February 2018 admitted to The Buffalo News that he had molested “probably dozens” of boys in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
The scandal continued to escalate later in 2018, with accusations of abuse against dozens more priests, calls for Bishop Richard J. Malone to resign, an investigation by the state Attorney General’s Office and a federal probe featuring multiple subpoenas and FBI field interviews of dozens of potential witnesses.
In the 2018 financial statement, the diocese listed among its liabilities $18 million as a provision for Independent Reconciliation Compensation Program. The new liability was the main reason total net assets fell to $29.2 million, the lowest level since 2003, after the stock market crash of 2002 hurt the diocese’s investment portfolio.
Buffalo Diocese net assets plummet
The Buffalo Diocese's net assets have decreased by 28 percent since 2012, when Richard J. Malone was installed as bishop. Most of the drop was due to $17.5 million paid to settle clergy sexual abuse claims in 2018.
The financial report shows diocese revenue from assessments on parishes stayed at $6.2 million in 2018, roughly the same as in 2017. Assessments are the best indicator of overall parish offertory giving, because the diocese “taxes” all 161 parishes, taking a percentage of their annual collections based on a formula. Parishes that don't operate schools also pay an additional assessment to help fund Catholic elementary education throughout Western New York. Total education assessments fell by 12%, from $4.2 million in 2017 to $3.7 million in 2018.
Despite investment earnings of $1.7 million, the diocese's central administrative offices were $1.8 million in the red in 2018 even before factoring in the compensation program payouts.
Some area pastors said there’s no question the scandal has driven away some worshippers and discouraged giving.
“People are just angry, and they’ll express their anger by a decrease in their contributions,” said Monsignor Robert E. Zapfel, pastor of St. Leo the Great Church in Amherst.
Collections at St. Leo dropped by about 3.4% in the survey period – enough for the parish trustees to discuss their concern about finances with fellow parishioners, who have responded well, said Zapfel.
The parish was not at the point of having to make drastic cuts, “although our budget is very tight, and we’re watching it all the time, and we’re being extra, extra careful with our expenses and trying to save where we can,” he said.
Several pastors said at least some of the drop-off in giving was attributable to an ongoing slide in the number of practicing Catholics in Western New York. In addition, the diocese’s capital campaign, “Upon this Rock,” which required a commitment to donate over a period of five years, sapped some contributions that otherwise would have come to parishes through offertory collections.
A small number of suburban parishes were having trouble paying their assessments, and diocese officials have agreed to a 10% reduction in the tax levies, said Zapfel. Other parishes have made large cuts in staff or increased tuition for their schools.
Buffalo Diocese takes more from parishes
The Buffalo Diocese in 2018 took 11 percent more of the money worshipers donated in offertory collections to their parishes than it did in 2012, when Richard J. Malone became bishop.
A dramatic decrease in weekly collections at St. Mary Church in Swormville earlier this year prompted a plea from the Rev. Robert W. Zilliox Jr. for members not to take out their frustrations on the parish community.
“I absolutely understand your righteous anger and I share it,” Zilliox, the pastor, said in a letter in the church bulletin. “After speaking with a number of parishioners and other pastors, I have heard that the people are withholding donations to their parish, ours included, as a protest against the diocese. Unfortunately, this hurts only our parish and our ability to engage in the ministries so dear to us, not the diocese.”
The parish of 2,800 families will have “to consider cutbacks in ministries that we hold dear” if the downward giving trend continues, he said.
In a year-end financial report to members of St. Joseph University Church, the Rev. Jacob C. Ledwon acknowledged that some parishioners were so offended by the cover-up of clergy abuse that they withdrew financial support from any diocesan programs, including pledges to the “Upon This Rock” capital campaign, Catholic Charities donation and giving to the parish.
“For many the only voice they feel they have is to vote with either their feet and/or their wallet,” Ledwon said. “If you feel compelled to take such a stand, please use your wallet rather than your feet. The church can survive without your dollars, but it cannot survive without your presence.”
In written comments about the 2018 financial statement, Malone called it “an unprecedented year” and reiterated that the IRCP was financed through diocesan reserves, insurance reserves and the sale of the longtime bishop’s residence at 77 Oakland Place, which sold for $1.5 million.
“Funds from current parish collections, 'Upon This Rock,' Catholic Charities or other collections were not utilized to fund this program,” he said.
Contributions to the annual Catholic Charities appeal historically were split between the human services agency and the diocese, with about $35 of every $100 gift going to a fund controlled by the bishop.
But in a nod to parishioners’ discontent over the abuse scandal, the appeal this year included an option for donors to choose for their gift to go only to Catholic Charities, and not to the Bishop’s Fund for the Faith. About 45% of donors so far chose that option – potentially cutting deeply into another main revenue stream of the diocese.
The appeal in 2018 accounted for 20% of all revenues into the diocese’s central administrative offices.
3 California Priests Among 50 Credibly Accused of Sexual Misconduct With Minors on First List Released by Franciscans
Polly Stryker, KQED
An Oakland-based Catholic order has released a list of priests credibly accused of sexual misconduct with minors for the first time. (RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)
An Oakland-based Catholic order for the first time on Friday released its own list of clergy with credible accusations of child sex abuse.
The Franciscans of the Province of St. Barbara's list contains 50 names involving 122 victims. Some of the accused have been previously reported by advocates or are included in court documents, but at least one has never been reported.
The majority of the abuse occurred between the 1960s and 1980s. Father David Gaa, the order's leader, said of the 50 names on the list, 27 men have died and 19 have left the Franciscans. Some of those may have died, but Gaa says he does not track brothers who leave the order.
Of the four living credibly accused priests, three are living in California, including Dennis Duffy, whose abuse Gaa says has never been reported until now. Gaa says Duffy, Stephen Kain and Josef Prochnow are living in an elder care facility in California. Gerald Chumik is in a similar facility in Missouri.
Gaa says the accused priests are subject to a "safety plan" or restrictions administered by the Franciscans. Gaa says the safety plans are developed by the Province Review Board in collaboration with his office and may include restrictions on technology and travel, access by visitors and more. Each accused priest is assigned a designated supervisor within the Franciscan Order.
Gaa says as heinous as the crime of sexual abuse of a minor is, the four accused brothers “are still human beings” and that the Franciscan Order is committed to caring for them. Regarding the victims, he says he is “aware that lost innocence can never be regained.”
Those who, in the guise of being a man of God, stole that innocence from so many children, do not deserve to be treated like human beings. They did not treat their victims like human beings.
“A lot of this abuse happened before I was a friar," Gaa says. "It’s very sad and very depressing.”
The Franciscan Friars of the Province of Saint Barbara operate in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington state. There are 136 brothers total in this province.
The order's website encourages anyone wishing to report allegations of sexual misconduct by a friar should contact the Victims Assistance Coordinator and local police or sheriff’s departments.
Catholic sex abuse: NZ Brothers say
priest 'crushed my soul and spirit'
JOHN WEEKES AND MANDY TE
Two brothers have returned to a Catholic church where they experienced harrowing child abuse at the hands of a priest.
Mike Ledingham launched his book The Catholic Boys on the church steps at Our Lady of the Assumption in Auckland's Onehunga on Saturday.
Huddled under umbrellas, the former SAS soldier, 68, and his brother Chris spoke to friends, family and a Māori healer who came to cleanse the clergy house.
Mike Ledingham said he, his brothers Gerry and Chris, and potentially many more Auckland children were victims of the late Father Francis "Frank" Green.
Chris Ledingham, 66, said he used to struggle even driving down the road past the church.
Brothers Chris Ledingham and Mike Ledingham outside of Our Lady of the Assumption, Onehunga,
where a priest repeatedly abused them. CHRIS MCKEEN/STUFF
"This criminal offender had not only violated my body but crushed my soul and spirit as well," he said of Green.
He said he could not get closure but Saturday's presbytery cleansing ceremony, which tohunga Rehua Ote Rangi Kereama led, was a "process of release".
For decades, the Ledinghams never spoke about the abuse. "Guys were having nightmares and flashbacks. You never get closure," Mike Ledingham said.
He started writing in the mid-1990s about incidents described in The Catholic Boys and the church's hold over his Irish Catholic community.
"We were conditioned from an early age that the religious were infallible," he wrote in the new book. "It was still a shock to discover Mum would rather believe them than her children when we were accused of something."
After the book launch, the group was led to the presbytery where a cleansing took place.
CHRIS MCKEEN/STUFF
In the book, which Rotorua-based BMS Wordsmiths is publishing, Ledingham said Father Green pretended to be a family friend and found ways to have boys accompany him on activities and then molest them.
In 2002, the brothers went public with their account of Green's child molestation.
The Catholic Church made a financial settlement with the Ledinghams in the early 2000s but the brothers have ongoing concerns about the church's attitude to child sexual abuse.
Mike Ledingham said the church should do more to acknowledge past abuse and prevent future abuses. "Really, they should be penitent."
If they actually believed what they preach.
The former soldier said the 2018 scandal involving Adelaide archbishop Philip Wilson, who resigned after being convicted for covering up child abuse, was among recent events motivating him to finally publish The Catholic Boys.
He said initial reports of Green's abuse were ignored, then Bishop of Auckland Patrick Dunn attempted to "shut down" their complaints.
Mike Ledingham launched his book The Catholic Boys on the steps of the Our lady of the Assumption Catholic Church. CHRIS MCKEEN/STUFF
In a statement, the Catholic Church said it was "deeply saddened to again hear about the abuse" inflicted on the Ledinghams. "We are concerned that they feel the process following their complaint was not satisfactory."
The NZ Catholic Bishops conference said its National Office of Professional Standards director Virginia Noonan would be happy to meet with the Ledingham brothers "to better understand what happened and if there anything further we can do".
The church said it referred complaints to Noonan's office, which arranged for independent investigations into alleged offending. "We also advise all complainants to report the abuse to the police," the church added.
Dr Murray Heasley, spokesman for Survivors of Abuse in Faith-based Institutions, said The Catholic Boys was a courageous work.
He said he had concerns with the church's attitude to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions. The Royal Commission is expected to start public hearings late this year.
Heasley said the church established a group called Te Rōpū Tautokoto to ostensibly "support the Royal Commission" but clergy, not lay people, dominated that group. The church continued to "trivialise" the problem of child abuse, he said.
The Church told Stuff Te Rōpū Tautokoto had a lay member as chair, and the group collectively represented senior Church leadership.
Heasley said recent incidents including Pope Francis' remarks in February that people accusing the church of wrongdoing were "relatives of the devil" showed the church did not appreciate the need for reform.
Certainly not 'penitent', or even humble for that matter.
He cited reports Dunn, Bishop Emeritus Dennis Browne and former Bishop of Rarotonga Stuart O'Connell attended the funeral of abusive priest Father Thomas "Tom" Laffey in Ponsonby earlier this year.
Heasley said lay people should play a greater role in running the church. "The Catholic Church is not the bishops and the clerics. The Catholic Church is the lay believers.
"We're not going to close the Catholic Church down. We just want to make it better."
That should be easy, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort.
'They have not changed':
Anger at Catholic Church's legal tactics
Litigation tactics decry Catholic rhetoric
By Tammy Mills and Andrew Thomson, The Age
Australia: A Catholic priest has labelled the church's legal tactics against a clerical sex abuse victim as "gobsmacking" after a landmark judgment was handed down in a Victorian court.
The firm Judy Courtin Legal is suing the Diocese of Ballarat for negligence on behalf of a survivor of serial paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale.
Ridsdale raped him in a confession box in Mortlake in 1982 when he was nine years old.
Ridsdale, who is in prison, is one of the country’s most notorious paedophile priests, having been sentenced five times since 1983.
Church leaders including former bishop of Ballarat Ronald Mulkearns moved Ridsdale on from a number of south-west Victorian parishes in a bid to protect the church’s reputation.
In a searing pre-trial judgment, Supreme Court judge Michael McDonald last week ruled that the victim could sue the institution itself rather than individual clergy.
The judgment exposed the church's hardline legal tactics, including a refusal to acknowledge Bishop Mulkearns knew Ridsdale was a repeat offender.
Justice McDonald said it could be argued that the church's relationship with Ridsdale was like that of a dangerous dog and its owner. “The presence of Ridsdale is analogous to the presence of a dangerous guard dog left on premises by an occupier,” the judge said.
Outspoken priest and victims' advocate Father Kevin Dillon, who was ordained by Bishop Mulkearns 50 years ago on Saturday, said the tactics were “gobsmacking” given the widespread criticism of the Catholic Church during the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse over its use of such strategies.
“Why in the world are people still being put through this sort of legal wringer?" Father Dillon asked. "These appallingly wounded people belong to us. There is every evidence that people who should have known better let it continue, there is no way in which you can deny that."
Though the case is still to go to a trial expected to start in August, lawyers say the judgment is significant. It is believed to be the first decision in Victoria to solidify the 2018 legislation that revoked the Ellis defence, which once prevented victims from suing the church.
Gerald Ridsdale outside of court, 1994.
Plaintiff lawyer Grace Wilson, of Rightside Legal, described the difference between the church's public rhetoric and the way it actually treats abuse survivors in litigation as "staggering”.
In the Ridsdale case, the church’s QC, Dr Ian Freckelton, and its solicitors from the firm Colin Biggers & Paisley, denied church knowledge of Ridsdale’s repeat offending before he went to Mortlake in the early 1980s, save for a “one-off” incident at Inglewood in 1975.
The church’s representatives from its Truth, Justice and Healing Committee acknowledged during the royal commission that Bishop Mulkearns was “inexcusably wrong” in appointing Ridsdale to other parishes after Inglewood.
Former Ballarat bishop James O’Collins was also warned about Ridsdale's offending in 1963 after Ridsdale admitted to molesting a boy in North Ballarat, information the church admitted in the royal commission.
In the current case, Justice McDonald questioned the inconsistencies and invited the victim and the church to file submissions on whether legal obligations had been breached.
Another of Ridsdale's victims said the church had learnt nothing from the royal commission. “This is proof,” he said. "People have been saying for years they are adversarial. They have not changed."
Money paid out by institutions in civil suits since the royal commission has reached into the millions.
The NSW Supreme Court awarded the victim of abuse at a school run by the De La Salle Brothers, a Catholic order, $1.5 million in October last year.
A Christian Brothers abuse victim settled for $1 million in Western Australia last August, while a former Geelong Grammar student received $1.1 million in October.
Justice McDonald's judgment came days before Cardinal George Pell's appeal against his conviction for sexually abusing two choir boys, due to be heard from Wednesday.
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