Priest sexually abused student more than 100 times decades ago at N.J. Catholic school, suit says
By Anthony G. Attrino | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
The Diocese of Paterson is facing a lawsuit accusing a priest who taught at the now-shuttered Don Bosco Technical High School of sexual abusing a student more than 100 times in the 1970s.
Former priest Sean Rooney abused the student at various locations including the Paterson school from 1973 to 1975 beginning when the victim was 13 years old, according the suit filed Feb. 7 in Superior Court in Bergen County. The victim, identified only by his initials in the suit, is now a Florida resident.
Rooney is not on the list of 188 priests and deacons deemed “credibly accused” of sexual abuses involving children released last year jointly by New Jersey’s Catholic dioceses. The Diocese of Paterson, which did not return messages seeking comment on the suit Monday, had 28 names on that list.
The website bishop-accountability.org, a group that tracks allegations against priest, includes Rooney and notes he was accused in a 2013 lawsuit of a sexually abusing a 14-year-old seminary student at a retreat house in Massachusetts and at a seminary in New York. The Catholic church has been criticized for leaving hundreds of names off its list of credibly accused priests.
Rooney’s last known address is Tempe, Arizona, according to public records. Phone numbers listed for Rooney were disconnected and he could not be reached for comment.
The lawsuit filed by the former Don Bosco Technical High School student is another in the flood of allegations since a two-year window opened on Dec. 1 under a new law signed by Gov. Phil Murphy that vastly expanded the amount of time that victims of sexual assault may bring a lawsuit.
In Australia, 22% of the Selesian Brothers of Don Bosco, were involved in known child sexual abuse incidents. No-one knows how many were involved in non-reported cases.
The then-teenage student accused Rooney of "grooming him and giving him special treatment” soon after he enrolled at the school, according to the suit.
“Shortly after their first meeting, Father Rooney began sexually assaulting and abusing (him),” the suit states. “Plaintiff estimates that he was abused by Father Rooney in excess of 100 times.”
Rooney, a chemistry teacher at the school, gave the student alcohol and showed him pornography, the suit said. The sexual abuse occurred at the school, the suit said. Don Bosco Technical High School closed in 2002.
Rooney was ordained in 1959 and assigned to work in New Jersey multiple times, according to the reference resource “The Official Catholic Directory.”
Rooney worked at Don Bosco Technical High School from 1971 to 1975, before he was transferred to Archbishop Shaw High School in New Orleans, where he worked until 1979. He was then transferred to work as a financial administrator and counselor at Salesian Junior Seminary in Goshen, New York.
In 1981, Rooney was transferred again to New Jersey, where he worked as a counselor for Don Bosco Preparatory High School in Ramsey. Rooney was transferred in 1983 to Alabama, where he remained for two decades. He returned to New York in 2003. In 2008, the Salesians of Don Bosco announced Rooney’s “laicization,” or removal from sacred orders as punishment for transgression.
Robert Fazio, president of Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, said Monday he had no knowledge of Rooney and could not comment on the lawsuit. The lawsuit does not make any allegations about Rooney’s short time at Don Bosco Prep in the early 1980s.
The school over the past decade has made it a priority to investigate all allegations of sexual abuse, Fazio said. “Abuse on any level is unacceptable,” Fazio said, adding that the school has embraced the policies and procedures of the “Protecting God’s Children Program.”
In addition to the Paterson Diocese, lawsuit names the Salesians Society and accuses the diocese and the Catholic Church of engaging in a conspiracy to conceal “credible allegations of child sexual abuse against priests.”
The lawsuit alleges officials with the Catholic church transferred Mooney and other priests accused of abusing children rather than report them to police.
The lawsuit claims the school and the church failed to alert parishioners about Mooney’s prior assignments and that “their children were exposed to a known or suspected child molester.”
Disgraced religious order tried to get abuse victim to lie
Nicole Winfield and Maria Verza ASSOCIATED PRESS
In this picture taken on Friday, Jan. 31, 2020 Yolanda Martinez Garcia cries during an interview with the Associated Press at her home, in Milan. Her son was sexually abused by one of the priests of the Legion of Christ, a disgraced religious order. (Credit: Luca Bruno/AP.)
MILAN - The cardinal’s response was not what Yolanda Martinez expected - or could abide.
Her son had been sexually abused by one of the priests of the Legion of Christ, a disgraced religious order. And now she was calling Cardinal Valasio De Paolis - the Vatican official appointed by the pope to lead the Legion, and to clean it up - to report the settlement the group was offering, and to express her outrage.
The terms: Martinez’s family would receive 15,000 euros from the order. But in return, her son would have to recant the testimony he gave to Milan prosecutors that the priest had repeatedly assaulted him when he was a 12-year-old student at the order’s youth seminary in northern Italy. He would have to lie.
The cardinal did not seem shocked. He did not share her indignation.
Instead, he chuckled. He said she shouldn’t sign the deal, but should try to work out another agreement without attorneys: “Lawyers complicate things. Even Scripture says that among Christians we should find agreement.”
The conversation between the aggrieved mother and Pope Benedict XVI’s personal envoy was wiretapped. The tape - as well as the six-page settlement proposal - are key pieces of evidence in a criminal trial opening next month in Milan. Prosecutors allege that Legion lawyers and priests tried to obstruct justice, and extort Martinez’s family by offering them money to recant testimony to prosecutors in hopes of quashing a criminal investigation into the abusive priest, Father Vladimir Resendiz Gutierrez.
Lawyers for the five suspects declined to comment. The Legion says they have professed innocence. A spokesman said that at the time, the Legion didn’t have in place the uniform child protection policies and guidelines that are now mandatory across the order.
De Paolis is beyond earthly justice - he died in 2017 and there is no evidence he knew of, or approved, the settlement offer before it was made. But the tape and documents seized when police raided the Legion’s headquarters in 2014 show that he had turned a blind eye to superiors who protected pedophiles.
In addition, the evidence shows that when De Paolis first learned about Resendiz’s crimes in 2011, he approved an in-house canonical investigation but didn’t report the priest to police. And when he learned two years later that other Legion priests were apparently trying to impede the criminal investigation into his crimes, the pope’s delegate didn’t report that either.
And a few hours after he spoke with Martinez, De Paolis opened the Legion’s 2014 assembly where he formally ended the mandate given to him by Benedict to reform and purify the religious order. The Legion had been “cured and cleaned,” he said.
In fact, his mission hadn’t really been accomplished.
There is much more on this story on The Crux.
Former Richmond, VA, priest accused of child sex abuse
By: WTVR CBS 6 Web Staff
RICHMOND, Va. -- The Richmond Catholic Diocese has added another clergyman's name to their list of priests accused of sexually abusing a minor.
Diocese officials said Friday the representative of a deceased victim has shared allegations of sexual abuse by Rev. Msgr. Raymond Barton.
A representative of the victim came forward with a report detailing allegations of child sex abuse by Barton. The report claims the abuse happened back in the early 1970s when the victim was a minor.
Church officials say Barton has been a pastor at six catholic churches across Central Virginia and Hampton Roads since 1966.
Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Richmond: associate pastor
St. John Vianney Seminary in Goochland: faculty member
Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Norfolk: pastor
Saint Nicholas Catholic Church in Virginia Beach: pastor
Holy Comforter Catholic Church in Charlottesville: pastor
Church of the Holy Apostles in Virginia Beach: co-pastor
Barton retired in 2011.
Former St. Xavier High School priest faces allegations of psychological sexual abuse in OH
St. Xavier High School in Finneytown. (Photo: The Enquirer/Carrie Cochran)
Another priest involved at St. Xavier High School is facing "established allegations" of psychological sexual abuse against minors, officials announced Friday.
Father Edward L. Pigott, 82, was added to the Midwest Province of Jesuits' growing list of priests and clergy members facing such allegations of abuse. According to his listing, Pigott's alleged abuse occurred between 1992 and 1995.
An "established allegation" is based on the facts and circumstances that establish a "reasonable certainty that the sexual abuse of a minor occurred," according to the Province. An established allegation leads to removal from public ministry and possible criminal prosecution.
The Midwest Jesuits initially published a list of Jesuit priests and clergy members who faced established allegations dating back to 1955 in December 2018. Five local priests were included in that list, including two priests involved at St. Xavier High School.
Officials extended an invitation at that time to any other victims of abuse to inform local authorities, St. Xavier and the Province. Allegations against Pigott came in almost immediately, and Pigott was removed from his duties at the school two days after the original list was published, school officials said.
Upon learning of Pigott's allegations, the Province followed protocol and notified the Cincinnati Archdiocese and the Hamilton County Prosecutor. The Province initiated an independent investigation concerning allegations of psychological sexual abuse by Pigott, and those allegations were determined to have been established.
St. Xavier High School sent a letter home to families Friday, stating Pigott had served the school's community from 1969 to 2018.
"We are committed to a culture of safety and protection for the care of all members of our community, especially our precious children, among God's greatest gifts," school officials wrote in the letter. The school said they will be sharing information of Pigott's established allegations with students on Monday.
The school once again extended an invitation for anyone who has felt victimized by a Jesuit or any St. Xavier employee to contact law enforcement, child protection and the school directly at treilly@stxavier.org or ttyrrell@stxavier.org. Victims may also reach out to Marjorie O'Dea, the Province Director of the Office of Safe Environment, at 773-975-6876 or by mail at the USA Midwest Province, 1010 North Hooker Street in Chicago, Illinois 60642.
The following local priests were included in the original list, posted Dec. 17, 2018:
Rev. James A. Condon, S.J. at St. Xavier High School in 1965 (deceased 1993)
Rev. Mark A. Finan, S.J. at St. Xavier High School from 1964 to 1965 (dismissed in 1973)
Rev. Edward J. O'Brien, S.J. at Xavier University in 1958 and 1971 to 1982 (deceased 1983)
Rev. Donald O. Nastold, S.J. at St. Francis Xavier Church from 1999 to 2000 (deceased 2007)
Rev. Robert J. Erpenbeck, S.J. at the Jesuit Novitiate in Milford from 1961 and the Milford Retreat Center in 1964 (deceased 1986)
Mexican bishops back repeal of statute of limitations for sexual abuse cases
Flagpole and the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of Virgin Mary in Mexico City, Mexico.
Credit: Leonid Andronov/Shutterstock
The Mexican bishops do not anticipate that reported abuse cases will be comparable in number to those seen by the Church in the United States, and the Church in Mexico has not seen lawsuits filed on a comparable level.
Speaking to ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish language news partner, Bishop Alfonso Miranda Guardiola, secretary general of the Mexican bishops' conference, said the country's bishops support lawmakers' efforts to eliminate the statute of limitations for the sexual abuse of minors and have been “respectfully proposing to members of the House and Senate to introduce this kind of proposal.”
“These new legislative proposals are a good thing for the nation,” he said, since “they are legal instruments to take actions, correct, eradicate the evil, care for the victims and prosecute the perpetrators,” Miranda said.
They would be even more so if they were retroactive. Shouldn't yesterday's evil be eradicated?
Mexico's House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill Feb. 6. That bill would (??) the Federal Criminal Code to sanction public officials who “cover up” the sexual abuse of minors. Anyone found guilty would be expelled from office and barred from holding public office in the future.
The bill also eliminates the statute of limitations for public officials and has been sent on to the Senate for approval.
Various legislators have also filed bills to eliminate the statute of limitations for pedophilia, including pro-life senator Lilly Téllez, a member of President López Obrador's National Regeneration Movement Party (Morena).
Téllez posted on Twitter that her proposal also seeks to double the sentence for child abusers with a close relationship to the victim.
The senator's bill also states that abusers “lose any legal rights he or she has with the victim” and that “local legislatures would have to adjust their laws to comply with the aims of the initiative.”
Bishop Miranda called the sexual abuse of minors “a cancer worldwide” and said it occurs in the Church as well as “in the family, in one's own home, in education, sports, the arts, and many other environments.”
In every environment where there are children. Where there is honey, there will be flies!
“When an abuser does not face a civil criminal trial, possible new victims are put at risk, inside or outside the Church,” Miranda said.
Noting that a canonical trial can result in the laicization of an abuser priest, Miranda said that, if the statute of limitations prevents civil authorities from acting, the perpetrator “goes free with the possibility of getting into school or work environments etc. and putting new victims at risk.”
“We are very pleased with the progress these bills are making in the legislatures ,” Miranda said, “and reiterated that “those changes will help protect children, avoid abuse by whoever -- a priest or in the family or school environment -- and contribute to the healthy development of children.
But why not make it retroactive? Is that what they promised you to be onside with this bill? Would you support it is it was retroactive?
Flagler Beach, Fla, priest named in Pennsylvania probe into child sex abuse cover-up
Msgr. Michael Servinsky accused of knowing about sex abuse allegations, failing to tell police
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Editorial note: News4Jax wants to warn readers that:
This article contains content that some may find disturbing.
The Diocese of St. Augustine has worked since 1989 to reform their reporting policies for sexual abuse hoping to avoid the pain that other dioceses across the country have experienced as lists of credibly accused priests have become available.
But church records show the Diocese of St. Augustine has also welcomed a priest accused of covering up some of the very same abuses, News 6 sister station WJXT reports.
Msgr. Michael Servinsky was ordained in 1970. He spent most of his service to the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown in Pennsylvania as a member of the Bishop’s Office. He began as a notary and eventually acted in the capacity as tribunal judge. He was appointed the Judicial Vicar in 1989 and later became Vicar General. He’s now a priest in residence at Santa Maria Del Mar Catholic Church in Flagler Beach.
In 2016, the Attorney General of Pennsylvania released a report detailing how more than 50 priests allegedly molested and raped kids within the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. The accounts date back as far as the 1950s and stretch into the 90s.
Servinsky is not accused of raping or molesting anybody, but the report does allege he, the then Bishop Joseph Ademec and others working in the bishop’s office knew about priests raping and molesting children in the church and neglected to report it to police.
The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s investigation stated Servinsky was involved in “numerous sex abuse investigations” in the Altoona Diocese.
Msgr. Michael Servinsky (WJXT)
According to the report, in 2001, a victim told Servinsky and another priest that Father Martin McCamley would touch his genitals when spending the night at the victim’s home. This happened in 1997 and at the time the victim was 13 years old.
In 2002, investigators said Servinsky and another church leader interviewed accused priest Father Joseph Strittmatter. According to the attorney general’s report, Servinsky and the other church leader listened as Strittmatter admitted to molesting an 8-year-old girl.
According to the report, in that interview, Fr. Strittmatter told them “In her mind, she might think it was appropriate” and “I can’t remember the exact acts. But I was trying to learn about sex.”
Investigators say neither Servinsky nor the other church leader called police.
Father Strittmatter was accused of masturbating to a female parishioner while in confessional between 1987 and 1992, according to the report. The parishioner reported that she became unable to go to confessional and contacted Msgr. Flinn and Servinsky after the alleged incident. The report details after that Fr. Strittmatter went on “medical leave.”
According to the report, in September 2015, Servinsky was relieved of his duty as vicar general. In December 2015, when Servinsky was asked to testify about his role in the alleged scheme to cover-up sexual abuse, Servinsky pled the fifth, meaning he asserted his Fifth Amendment rights against providing testimony that might incriminate himself.
Ultimately, because of the short statute of limitations – prosecutors say they were unable to charge anyone named in the grand jury report -- including Servinsky -- with any crime.
“He knew the problems of the diocese, and whether it was his job or whatever, he helped cover it up,” Claar told the I-TEAM. “You're just as guilty as the person who did it.”
“Well, you know, he (Servinsky), he’s older now and I think he is thinking he pled the fifth so he doesn’t have to answer to nobody and I’m sure he will live out his days with nothing happening to him,” added Schenck.
But he will have to answer for his evil in a higher court!
Survivors of sexual abuse
Investigators detail in the 2016 Pennsylvania Grand Jury report how hundreds of young boys and girls were sexually abused by priests in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese in Pennsylvania.
While in Pennsylvania, the I-TEAM spoke to Paul Claar and Stanley Schenck – two survivors who say as children, they were both sexually abused by priests.
“I was 13 years old,” Claar said. “We were very dedicated to our religion. Our Catholic faith was the core value of our being.”
Paul Claar
Claar explained he was an altar boy in 1978, and that’s when the abuse started.
“He was the one that got me involved with cutting the grass. He knew that cutting the grass was is something I loved to do,” he said about an associate pastor of his Parish. “That was sort of like a set-up. He knew that he could get me down to the church and no one else would be around.”
Claar said his abuse went on for four years, starting gradually before escalating.
“It was just like a, ‘come over here and sit with me for a while in the rectory,’” he said about the when the abuse started. “Everyone in the parish is thinking here, we have this new priest in the parish, new energy, and I’m thinking, this is odd. I know it was wrong – even then.”
“He would do fondling, kiss. I don’t want to kiss a guy. I’m a kid and stuff like this is happening.”
“When he knew that I was feeling uncomfortable, and I didn’t want to do this, it was like, ‘Well Paul, I need love too,’ and he also put in at times, ‘Hey if anybody finds out about this you don’t know what they will do to me.’”
“See, what they are trying to do is make the victim the cause of what is happening. Then it’s my fault that this was happening when in actuality, it wasn’t my fault. It was his fault. He’s the adult. I’m the juvenile.”
“In his car…,” Claar started to say before fighting tears. “Yeah, but in the cars was usually the worst.”
“The thing is, when you’re a kid, the fear is if you went and told somebody and they didn’t believe you, it makes it that much worse. ‘You’re making it up.’ ‘That’s the priest.’ You’re a liar.’”
“Everybody loved him because we had this new priest. Young, fun to be around, the kids liked him,” he said. “Come to find out later, I wasn’t the only victim. But at the time, I didn’t know that. The big question was, what did I do to deserve that?”
Stanley Schenck
Stanley Schenck said even though decades have passed since he was abused, he could never forget what happened.
“It was terrible. You would go numb.”
“It was a molester’s heaven here.”
“It changed a lot of lives in town. Kids, families moved out of town because of it. Some kids’ lives were ruined, destroyed. Suicides.”
“It just boggles your mind when you think about how many years it went on that it never came out or the diocese never talked about it.”
There is much more on this story at Click Orlando.
One year on from Papal summit on sex abuse, Australian survivors say little has been achieved
Chrissie Foster says there's been little progress in the last year. Source: SBS News
BY GREG DYETT, SARAH CONTE
Twelve months ago, 190 bishops from across the world gathered at the Vatican for a four-day summit to discuss the Roman Catholic church's response to the sexual abuse of children by members of the clergy.
When Pope Francis convened the summit many hoped he'd promise a zero-tolerance approach to paedophile priests. Instead he said the church would spare no effort and promised to act decisively to protect children from "ravenous wolves".
Even before the summit got underway, Australian advocate for survivors of sexual abuse, Chrissie Foster, felt little would be achieved given the Pope's words on the eve of the meeting.
"The night before that summit, he publicly announced that those who constantly criticise the Catholic church are friends, relatives and cousins of the devil.
"So what does that say about the results we're going to get from the summit? We're going to get nothing basically," she told SBS News.
Ms Foster and her late husband Anthony raised three daughters in the Melbourne suburb of Oakleigh. Two of them were abused by notorious paedophile, Father Kevin O'Donnell.
O'Donnell abused children over a 50-year period and was moved from parish to parish by church hierarchy.
But if you complain about it, you must be of the devil!!! How do you get to be head of the Catholic church and still be so utterly naive?
Another sceptic was abuse survivor Peter Gogarty from New South Wales.
Mr Gogarty grew up in a devout Catholic family and was abused in the 1970s.
"I spent most of my young years and then into my adult years being very confused about who I was and, for a long time, while I was still a Catholic, I thought I was going to Hell," he said.
"We've seen precious little change from the Catholic church. The bishops, the cardinals and those people in the higher positions in the church are very much the same people who let this problem happen in the first place."
Australia's child abuse royal commission heard it can sometimes take survivors many years before they are emotionally ready to confront their abusers.
Head of the abuse law practice at Shine Lawyers, Lisa Flynn, said even since the royal commission she had come across cases where the Catholic church tried to obstruct claims.
"So we are seeing continued examples of the church defending and denying these claims. They delay them as well and that can be incredibly re-traumatising for survivors of abuse," she said.
Catholic church representatives though maintain there has been some change in the last 12 months.
Catholic Professional Standards Limited was set up after the child abuse royal commission with the aim of fostering a culture of safety and care for children and vulnerable adults by developing and implementing what are called the National Catholic Safeguarding Standards.
The standards were introduced in May last year and are designed to be implemented in all Catholic entities, ministries and organisations across Australia.
Chief executive Sheree Limbrick said the organisation carries out compliance audits. "Those who have been audited have been putting in considerable effort over a number of years to change their practices and we've seen really strong engagement with those we've audited," she told SBS News.
In the last year, Ms Limbrick said more than 1,000 people had taken part in training so they are aware of their responsibilities.
"That includes bishops and leaders of religious entities and people in parishes coming to our training and learning what their responsibilities are and how they can practically put the child safe standards into practice."
But what are you doing to eliminate paedophiles from the priesthood? It's still a magnet for perverts.
Diocese of Brooklyn sued for nun’s alleged
sexual abuse of boy
Shant ShahrigianNEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
St. Michael's Academy in Flushing. (Google)
Charles Pellegrino was just in second grade when he allegedly suffered physical and sexual abuse at the hands of his Catholic school teacher in Queens.
“He was really savagely beaten by this Sister Mary Jeremy — kicked in his groin and otherwise really injured,” his attorney Diane Paolicelli told the Daily News. “He had to leave the school.”
Earlier this week, he became the latest New Yorker to sue the Catholic Church thanks to the Child Victims Act, which opened a one-year window for survivors to seek justice even if the statute of limitations had already expired.
Pellegrino, 66, is suing the Diocese of Brooklyn and its Flushing-based St. Michael’s Catholic Academy in Queens Supreme Court for enabling Jeremy to savagely attack him.
“This poor child went through hell,” Paolicelli said of her client’s time at the academy, which came during the 1959-1960 school year. “It was just brutal. He was just singled out. To him, it was just horrendous,” she added, saying Jeremy would hit Pellegrino in the head and groin in front of his classmates.
“The acts forced upon Plaintiff by Sister Mary Jeremy were aggressive and violent and were done for the purpose of degrading or abusing Plaintiff, and/or gratifying her own sexual desire,” the lawsuit states.
Pellegrino’s parents pulled him out of the school after a series of incidents. He’s “been able to move on with his life,” Paolicelli said, though the suit notes he “continues to suffer great physical and mental pain and anguish” and "loss of spirituality.”
Jeremy, who was a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph order, died in 2018, according to the Diocese.
“This is the first time a claim against this person, at this school, has been made known to the Diocese of Brooklyn. We will investigate the allegations,” the Diocese said in a statement.
Last year, Albany passed a law lengthening the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse cases and creating a “look-back” period for victims to sue. Under the old status quo, victims only had until their 23rd birthday to seek justice.
Paolicelli estimates “scores” of victims have sued the Diocese since the one-year window opened on Aug. 14. “It’s just a horrible, horrible situation that has kind of been shoved under the rug for many years just because these victims were unable to sue,” the lawyer said.
Harrisburg Catholic Diocese Files for Bankruptcy amid New Sex Abuse Lawsuits
By MAIREAD MCARDLE
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
“The diocese was in need of right-sizing,” said an attorney for the diocese, Matthew Haverstick. “Bankruptcy is really the responsible way to do it, so it can continue to do all the things it does, spiritually and charitably.”
Is that really what we should want? Has it done as much good spiritually as it has done evil?
The diocese estimated its assets are between $1 million and $10 million while its financial liabilities are as much as $50 million to $100 million, according to the diocese’s bankruptcy petition. Since 2004, at least 20 Catholic dioceses have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as they reel from abuse lawsuits.
Pennsylvania inspired a rash of state investigations across the nation after state attorney general Josh Shapiro launched a grand jury inquiry into six Catholic dioceses in the state. The final grand jury report found that 301 priests were accused of sexual abuse in Pennsylvania over the last several decades while the Church worked to cover up the scandal.
Study identifies 16 child sex abuse rings in
Victorian Catholic Church
By Debbie Cuthbertson, The AgeA three-year research project into paedophile Catholic clerics in Victoria has identified 16 child sex abuse networks operating over six decades involving 99 priests and Christian Brothers.
The investigation found that clergy paedophile rings shared patterns of behaviour with criminal gangs, the Mafia, terrorist cells, corrupt police, drug dealers, money launderers and price-fixing cartels.
The research showed their abuse was facilitated and reinforced by church hierarchy, including five successive archbishops of Melbourne from Daniel Mannix, appointed in 1917, through to George Pell (himself appealing against a conviction for child sex abuse) in 2001.
The researcher, Sally Muytjens, spent more than three years investigating "dark networks" of paedophile clergy in Victorian dioceses. She published the research late last year, receiving a doctorate from Queensland University of Technology.
Muytjens’ research found the largest and most active dark networks were at schools including St Alipius in Ballarat and Salesian College, Rupertswood, and orphanages including St Vincent de Paul’s in South Melbourne and St Augustine’s in Geelong.
One of the worst offenders, convicted paedophile and former Christian Brother Edward "Ted" Dowlan, was active in five of the 16 dark networks, she found.
Her study also identified Christian Brother Rex Francis Elmer as a member of two paedophile networks. The Sunday Age last week revealed that Elmer taught at Catholic schools in regional Victoria and Africa for decades after his order first knew he had abused children at a Melbourne orphanage.
In her thesis, Muytjens used a research method called social network analysis, which can reveal hidden patterns and ties between members of groups and provide insights into how they operate.
Using SNA enabled her to identify connections between clergy perpetrators and specific locations in Victoria from 1939 until 2000, unearthing what she described as a pervasive “sexual underworld” that had the potential to destroy Victorian dioceses.
Elsewhere, SNA has been used to map links between terror cells involved in the September 11, 2001, attacks and 2005 London bombings, and to track child sex trafficking networks in Britain, Italian money-laundering rackets and an Australian amphetamine trafficking ring.
It has also been employed to track the spread of contagious diseases, as well as population displacement after natural disasters.
Muytjens also drew on material from the Victorian parliamentary inquiry and the Commonwealth Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, victims’ advocacy group Broken Rites and media coverage of criminal trials involving clergy, to map links between clergy child sex abusers in Victoria over six decades.
Her thesis examined the responses of the Catholic Church to such criminal activity, describing the institution as a "grey network" that repeatedly facilitated abuse.
“One of these patterns was promoting known clergy perpetrators of child sex abuse to senior positions which not only provided further access to victims but also placed them in positions where they were better able to protect the dark network from exposure,” she wrote.
The code of silence among Catholic clergy in Victoria mirrored patterns of behaviour exhibited by groups including crooked police and the Mafia, Muytjens added, and that “extended to a refusal to give evidence to the police". "Similar methods were utilised by clergy perpetrator networks within the Victorian Catholic Church to maintain silence.”
Documented clusters of paedophile clergy, including at St Alipius Boys’ School in Ballarat in the 1970s, showed they were “conducting illicit activity in an organised and co-operative way”, Muytjens wrote.
Dowlan and notorious paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale both had multiple convictions for sexually abusing children, including at St Alipius. Another four clergymen were each part of least two different clusters of abusers at different times, Muytjens found.
“Some [clergy] committed child sex abuse at institutions where they were the only known dark network actor … [but] they were also transferred to parishes where there were clusters of other known clergy perpetrators.
“These perpetrators were part of multiple clusters at different times … As [Ridsdale and Dowlan] were prolific perpetrators, it can be reasonably argued that [they] were transferred out of clusters when subject to complaints of child sex abuse but were returned to clusters where they could be better supported and protected through stronger ties.
“Fr Ridsdale and Br Dowlan’s movement between clusters ... [and] the number of convictions for these two clergy perpetrators demonstrates the unfettered access they had to child victims.”
The church’s pattern of response to complaints of child sex abuse by its clerics functioned as a resource for the paedophile rings, Muytjens found.
“Members of the sexual underworld support one another in seeking positions of responsibility by praising one another and condemning any critics … this sexual underworld is so pervasive that acknowledging and addressing this may destroy a Diocese,” she wrote.
Drawing on research from around the world into child sex abuse by Catholic clerics, she said the data showed that "clergy perpetrators ... were placed in roles of recruiting boys to the priesthood”.
Muytjens’ thesis was completed around the same time as an investigation by The Age revealed that clusters of paedophile priests in Victoria worked together to sexually abuse children, including at Melbourne’s Corpus Christi seminary.
Her research was supervised by UTQ School of Justice criminologists Dr Jodi Death and Associate Professor Mark Lauchs. Lauchs’ research has focused on organised crime and corruption, while Death has also mapped paedophile networks of Catholic clergy, including among the Christian Brothers in Western Australia.
Associate Professor David Bright, a criminologist and clinical psychologist who has worked with convicted sex offenders, has used social network analysis extensively in his research, mainly in relation to drug trafficking and terrorism.
He said SNA was an effective tool for displaying links between overlapping abusers in the church: "The clustering that Sally found, it’s quite persuasive in that what it's suggesting is that there were clusters of offenders in institutions and that this is the case more so in some than others.
"It strikes me that either these individuals were incredibly good at manipulating the system to be at the same facility ... or the system was just so negligent about this and turned such a blind eye and was so convinced that these things weren’t going on that it just allowed it to continue."
If you or anyone you know needs support, you can contact the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), Lifeline 131 114, or beyondblue 1300 224 636.
No comments:
Post a Comment