St. Jude's, Immaculate Conception named in lawsuit for 1970s child sexual abuse
A lawsuit centered on child molestation by Fr. David Holley named two Alamogordo Catholic parishes and several dioceses as defendants.
The suit, filed in the 2nd Judicial District Court in Bernalillo County, alleged the Servants of Paraclete, the Catholic Diocese of El Paso, Diocese of Worcester, Dioces of Las Cruces, the Immaculate Conception Parish and St. Jude Parish allowed Holley to prey on boys within the Alamogordo parishes during his time in New Mexico in the 1970s.
The suit was filed by "John Doe" and demanded a jury trial and restitution. The complaint alleged negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, vicarious liability, public nuisance and racketeering.
Immaculate Conception Catholic Church offered no comment on the suit.
The suit places most of the blame on Holley's home diocese: the Diocese of Worcester, located in Massachusetts.
It gives a history of child sexual offenses that Holley was alleged to have perpetrated in Massachusetts prior to transfer to the Servants of the Paraclete in New Mexico.
The Servants of the Paraclete operated a rehabilitation center initially for priests with substance abuse issues before it admitted priests with psycho-sexual disorder, which was what Holley had, according to the complaint.
They were accused of sexually abusing children, now they're the priest next door
(Photo: Illustration by Andrea Brunty/USA TODAY Network; and Getty Images)
According to the complaint, the home in which Holley lived was located across the street from a school in Alamogordo. The house was owned by the Diocese of El Paso and the St. Jude and Immaculate Conception parishes.
At the time, St. Jude Catholic Church was a mission parish under Immaculate Conception Catholic Church.
Alamogordo was a part of the Diocese of El Paso up until the Diocese of Las Cruces was established in 1982.
St. Jude Parish in Alamogordo (Photo: Nicole Maxwell/Alamogordo Daily News)
According to the complaint, Holley and another priest, Fr. Wilfred Diamond, who also lived in the house, showed the plaintiff and other boys pornography before what the complaint terms as "sexual crimes," were committed.
Other allegations are that Holley took pornographic photos of boys and sexually assaulted them weekly for about three years. The complaint does not indicate the number of victims beyond "John Doe."
The authorities were not notified of the alleged abuse at the time, the complaint states. Holley died in 2008.
"Plaintiff is only now discovering and realizing the nature of Fr. Holley's abuse, the effect it had on him and the fact that he sustained severe psychological injury and a result of Fr. Holley's childhood sexual abuse," the complaint states.
Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Alamogordo (Photo: Nicole Maxwell/Alamogordo Daily News)
The complaint blames the defendants for not warning the community that pedophiles were in their midst.
The complaint also alleged that St. Jude Parish, Immaculate Conception Catholic Church and the Diocese of El Paso committed fraud when funds collected during mass were used to pay for the priests' house in Alamogordo.
Allegations include assault and battery as well as sexual assault and child pornography.
Damages to cover the alleged pain and suffering from Holley's acts as an agent of the named Catholic dioceses, full compensatory damages, three times the actual damages and court costs were requested in the suit.
No requested monetary amounts were listed. No court dates for this case were set.
The hidden findings on George Pell are now clear: he could have protected children from abuse. He didn't!
David Marr
For two and a half years the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse’s verdict on Pell has been like buried ordnance, exploding only now
George Pell after his release from prison. The royal commission’s findings on the cardinal have now been published, two and a half years after the final report was produced. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP
This is the portrait of a deceitful man. We have waited over two and a half years but now we can read the unflinching verdict reached by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Cardinal George Pell.
With its last findings made public, it’s clear that no senior figure in any church who gave evidence to the commission has emerged as damaged as Pell.
Tolling through those hitherto secret pages is the underlying verdict of the commission: that Pell might have, but did not, take action to protect the children of the Catholic community he served as a priest in Ballarat and bishop in Melbourne.
Pell’s excuses for doing so little are dissected forensically and rejected one by one. The commissioners condemn key claims in the cardinal’s evidence as implausible, inconceivable, untenable and unacceptable.
The clamour around the royal commission has long died down. It’s two and a half years since it produced its final report in a stack of volumes. The findings against Pell were hidden in there like a buried ordnance, exploding only now.
We always knew this was going to be bad for the cardinal. A clean bill of health might have seen the light of day at any time. But these findings were redacted so as not to poison the minds of jurors in the criminal trials he faced in Melbourne.
There he was in the box reproaching the commissioners for non sequiturs, circular reasoning and – his favourite – unstated premises. He was game in so many ways, batting on with his improbable testimony. And here is the commissioners’ reply over several dozen open pages: these are the truths you were keeping from us.
Pell claimed he never knew, he was too distracted, he was kept out of the loop, it was a different age back then, he didn’t have the authority he needed and he was deceived by officials, even bishops, while – Pell was forced to admit – priests and brothers in Ballarat and Melbourne were abusing children.
Most were not historic crimes. They were happening around Pell as he began his long climb to the top via the archdioceses of Melbourne and Sydney, an ascent made, it seems, without ever once embarrassing Rome.
Mighty ecclesiastical careers aren’t often made by men with slipshod memories who don’t know what’s going on around them. But that was the picture of himself Pell painted to the commission: a priest who didn’t gossip and didn’t keep his ear to the ground, and a bishop who didn’t ask hard questions and compel investigation.
I think that's called 'ostrich syndrome!'
The commissioners find that even on his own evidence he knew enough about the mad priest Peter Searson to know he had to be removed from his parish. “As Auxiliary Bishop to the Archbishop, Bishop Pell had the capacity and opportunity to urge the Archbishop to take action against Father Searson in order to protect the children of the parish and the Catholic community of his region.”
Pell knew enough about the brutally abusive Brother Edward Dowlan at St Patrick’s College to have, in the words of the report, “ensured that the matter was properly treated”. He didn’t and Dowlan went on abusing Christian Brothers students for more than 20 years before being jailed for dozens of offences against boys.
But above all the commissioners found – in direct contradiction to Pell’s evidence – that he must have known why Gerald Ridsdale was being moved from parish to parish in Ballarat: sex with children. Pell insisted he had heard no scuttlebutt about Ridsdale, though his crimes were common knowledge in a number of parishes and were known to the bishop and to most of the “consultors” on parish appointments with whom Pell sat in the 1970s.
I just didn’t know, insisted Pell. But the royal commission found: “It is inconceivable that the consultors did not know by this time, given the usual practice and the general knowledge in the community.” And the consultors and the bishop just moved the paedophile on.
Ridsdale would abuse children on an extraordinary scale for another 15 years. Pell walked him to court when he first faced charges in Melbourne. He’s now been convicted for child sex offences hundreds of times. He will die in jail.
For those who have been following the Pell saga for years, the royal commission’s verdict announced so late in the day is welcome but unsurprising. The cardinal’s failures have been canvassed in the parishes and the press, in documentaries and over years in the witness box of the commission. His denials were always wretched. Now the commission has said so too, officially.
This man did not do what he might to protect children. He was not straight with the royal commission. He has been acquitted of terrible crimes by the high court but the verdict of the commission on his conduct as a priest and bishop is terrible.
Pell has put a statement in his own defence. But how, I wonder, will his cheer squad cope with the commission’s findings? What dark plots will be hinted at here? What collusion between lawyers and journalists will be discovered to explain this grim result? Is the ABC about to cop it all over again?
Maybe, just maybe, his spruikers will now recognise that Pell is a human being, a pretty ordinary human being, who has fallen from grace and must now live with his reputation. Pity isn’t called for. What has been delivered here is something great royal commissions achieve: clarity.
It seems truth was never really that important to Cardinal Pell. Ignoring the truth by burying your head in the sand is no better than outright lying. And we know who the father of lies is.
Clergy abuse survivor draws support for
petition to defrock Pell
ABC South West Vic / By Matt Neal
Paul Levey, right, hugs a fellow clergy abuse survivor in Rome following a visit to the Vatican in 2016.
(AAP: Lloyd Jones)
It's at 35,000 as of this writing. You can sign the petition here.
Paul Levey, who was abused by convicted paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, began the Change.org petition on Friday and said he was surprised by the response.
"The first night I went to bed and it was at 600 and I thought that was fantastic. Now, I think it's around 32,000 signatures," Mr Levey said.
Mr Levey was 13 when he was sent to live with Ridsdale in the presbytery in Mortlake, in south-west Victoria, where he was abused daily for six months.
He said the release of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse's previously redacted findings into Cardinal Pell inspired him to start the petition.
The Royal Commission found that Cardinal Pell was told at a meeting in 1982 that Ridsdale was being moved from Mortlake because of his alleged sexual abuse of children, although it made no finding that Cardinal Pell was aware of specific cases of abuses.
Mr Levey said he plans to send the petition to Pope Francis, Melbourne Archbishop Peter Comensoli, and Ballarat Bishop Paul Bird.
"Hopefully it'll show them there's a lot of people out there that aren't happy with the way things are done with the Catholic Church," he said.
"Whether Pope Francis takes any notice of it, or just dismisses it, it shows the community of survivors that there's 32,000 people behind us now. We're not out there on our own."
The Royal Commission found that Cardinal Pell was told Gerald Ridsdale was being moved from Mortlake because of his alleged sexual abuse of children.(AAP: Joel Carrett, File Photo)
"He is especially surprised by the statements in the report about the earlier transfers of Gerald Ridsdale discussed by the Ballarat Diocesan Consultors in 1977 and 82," the statement said.
"The Consultors who gave evidence on the meetings in 1977 and 1982 either said they did not learn of Ridsdale's offending against children until much later or they had no recollection of what was discussed. None said they were made aware of Ridsdale's offending at these meetings."
Mortlake, Victoria
Woman sexually abused by 'monster' older girls in a convent aged 6, says she now realises they too were victims of the nuns who 'ritually' terrorised and beat them
Marie Hargreaves, from Oldham, shared her story in brave book 'The Convent'
A woman who was abused in a convent as a little girl has written a book revealing the true horrors of her childhood.
Marie Hargreaves, 66, from Oldham, waived her right to anonymity to speak about the physical and emotional abuse she says she suffered at the hands of Sister Isobel O'Brien at Greenfield House Convent, St Helens in the late 1950s.
O'Brien was previously named as a suspect by police, who say other complaints were made against her, but she died before she could face justice.
No; she has faced Justice, in a higher court.
The Roman Catholic Church confirmed they were aware of the complaint and have since apologised to Marie.
Marie, who says she was also sexually abused by other girls at the convent, hopes that by finally sharing her secret - over sixty years after the abuse began - she can reach out to others.
Marie, pictured with her brother Fred on the day of her first holy communion, stayed at the Greenfield House Convent, St Helens between 1959 and 1962
She lived at the convent between 1959 and 1962, and says that the nuns refused to call her by her name.
And now, the mother-of-three has written a book, The Convent, which will be released this week.
Recalling her childhood, Marie said: 'What happened to me when I was a child was evil, brutal.
'By telling my story, I feel all the shame and blame has been taken away from me.'
Marie was one of ten children, living in poverty in Oldham, and her parents could not cope, so were sadly forced to give her and her brother up.
She says: 'One day, a car came to collect me and my brother, Fred, and it was the first time I had ever been in a car, so I was really thrilled. I asked my dad where we were going and he said: 'You're going on your holidays.'
Marie's book The Convent is published this week by Mirror Books
'I believed him. I had never been on holiday in my life and I was actually excited to go – not realising I was going into care and I would not see my home again for years.'
When Marie, six, arrived at the convent, she and Fred, seven, were separated.
She says: 'There were nuns everywhere and the atmosphere was very strict and I felt the first sense of unease.'
Marie was stripped for a bath and her long hair was clipped brutally short above her ears.
She says: 'We were made to pray on our knees every day. We had to mop floors and shine shoes, even though I was only six. I was the youngest child in the convent.
'My surname was 'Kibblewhite' and so they called me 'Kibby'. I didn't hear my own name for years and I actually started to believe that Kibby was my name. It was dehumanising.
'The nuns would tell me I was an orphan and I had no family. I used to lie in bed and wonder whether I even had parents, whether it had all been a dream.
'I had to be up at 6am and do all my chores before we were taken to school, which was near the convent. I loved being at school because it was an escape.'
She remembered: 'One day, a little boy in the playground told me that he loved me and said: 'I'll always come to find you, even if you go to Africa.'
'It was just one of those things kids say, but it made me cry, because it was the only show of affection I'd had for years.'
Remembering the physical beatings she endured, she continued: 'Each time I spoke up for myself, at the convent, I was beaten. Even when I was crying, they would hit me until I stopped.
'I heard stories of kids who had tried to run away, but the nuns would bring them back and tie them to the bed, so that scared me too.
'One day, I was dragged from the dining table, into a small room, and Sister Isobel was shouting at the bigger girls to hit me with wooden coat hangers.
'Once, I left some boiled egg inside the shell, and she ordered me to be beaten.
'It was ritual abuse; she would find any little excuse she could to have me beaten.'
Marie also says she was sexually abused by the older girls at the convent.
There is much more to this horrible story, please find it at the Mirror.
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