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Priest affiliated with Archdiocese of Chicago schools accused of sex abuse
CHICAGO NEWS by: Andy Koval
Posted: Oct 17, 2020 / 08:36 PM CDT
CHICAGO — A retired priest still affiliated with multiple Archdiocese of Chicago schools has been asked to step aside following a sexual abuse claim at an orphanage approximately 50 years ago.
Cardinal Blase Cupich asked Father Daniel McCarthy to “step aside from ministry” after the archdiocese received an allegation from their Office of Child Abuse Investigations. The allegation stems from when McCarthy was assigned to Angel Guardian Orphanage in Chicago approximately 50 years ago.
McCarthy is currently retired, but serves as the pastor emeritus for Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity School, a K-8 school on the Northwest Side. McCarthy has been asked to “live away” from the parish while the matter is investigated.
According to Notre Dame College Prep’s website, Father McCarthy is the school’s chaplain. On April 27, the school celebrated his 53rd ordination anniversary. McCarthy has also been Resurrection College Prep’s school chaplain. It’s unclear if he still holds the role, but he did as of last year.
Cardinal Blase Cupich issued the following letter to the Saint Elizabeth community.
In it, he said the incident has been reported to the Cook County State’s Attorney and DCFS. Additionally, the victim has been offered services with the archdiocese’s
Dear Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity Parish and School Family,
It is with great difficulty that I write to share news about your pastor emeritus, Father Daniel McCarthy. I have asked Father McCarthy to step aside from ministry following receipt this week by the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Archdiocesan Office for Child Abuse Investigations and Review of an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor approximately 50 years ago while he was assigned to Angel Guardian Orphanage in Chicago. I have asked that Father McCarthy live away from the parish while the matter is investigated.
Allegations are claims that have not been proven as true or false, therefore, guilt or innocence should not be assumed. In keeping with our child protection policies, the allegation was reported to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and the Cook County State’s Attorney. The person making the allegation has been offered the services of our Victim Assistance Ministry and the Archdiocese has begun its investigation of this matter.
In the days and weeks ahead, members of the Archdiocese’s Office for the Protection of Children and Youth will be available to answer any questions you may have and provide you with support during this challenging time.
It is crucial that you know nothing is more important than the welfare of the children entrusted to our care. The Archdiocese of Chicago takes all allegations of sexual misconduct seriously and encourages anyone who feels they have been sexually abused by a priest, deacon, religious or lay employee, to come forward. Complete information about reporting sexual abuse can be found on the Archdiocesan website at www.archchicago.org. Please know that you are in my prayers. We will do our best to keep you informed of developments as they occur.
Catholic Diocese of Richmond paying $6.3 million to 51 victims
sexually abused by clergy
The Richmond Times-Dispatch
12 hrs ago
The Catholic Diocese of Richmond is paying $6.3 million to 51 individuals who as minors experienced sexual abuse by clergy. News of the payments was released Thursday in a report on the diocese’s website.
The report says that of 68 claims initiated, six were found ineligible, two were withdrawn or never completed, nine were denied by the claims administrator, and 51 resulted in offers that were accepted.
The report goes on to say that all who participated in the Independent Reconciliation Program “retain the right to discuss their claim and their abuse. The claims process did not involve confidentiality agreements.” But by accepting payment, individuals waived the right to sue the diocese.
The diocese announced the establishment of this voluntary program in February. It was announced on the diocese website, digital platforms and advertised in nine newspapers across Virginia.
The Richmond diocese includes 142 parishes and nearly a quarter million Catholics from the Eastern Shore to the western tip of the state. Northern Virginia is served by the Catholic Diocese of Arlington.
Richmond-based BrownGreer PLC designed and administered the reconciliation program for the diocese. The news release from the diocese said the firm has handled other complex claims programs including the NFL Concussion Settlement Program, the BP Oil Spill Program and one for victims of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting.
The Richmond diocese’s Independent Reconciliation Program came 1½ years after a Pennsylvania grand jury report found that at least 1,000 children were sexually abused by more than 300 Catholic clergy in that state.
In February 2019, the diocese published a list of more than 40 priests whom Knestout had deemed to have been credibly accused of child abuse. By February of this year, the list had been updated to include 54 names.
According to a 2018 annual report by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on the response to the child sex abuse crisis, dioceses in the U.S. paid out more than $540 million in settlements from 2014 to 2018, spending an additional $145 million in legal fees.
The diocese of Richmond said the reconciliation program was funded through a self-insurance program, a loan and contributions from other religious orders.
“The diocese did not use parish or school assets,” the news release from the diocese said.
Victims of convicted Ontario pedophile priest continue
to search for accountability
BY ADRIAN GHOBRIAL AND JESSICA BRUNO POSTED OCT 18, 2020 AT 4:50 PM EDT
Patrick McMahon (left) and Jerry Boyle.
CAUTION: This story contains graphic content related to allegations of sexual assault and might be upsetting to some readers.
If you or someone you know are victims of sexual violence, you can contact Crisis Services Canada, a 24/7 hotline, at 1-833-456-4566 or you can find local support through the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres; The Government of Canada has also compiled a list of sexual misconduct support centres. If you are under 18 and need help, contact the Kid’s Help Phone online or at 1-800-668-6868.
When Jerry Boyle was in high school, he used to walk Windsor’s Ambassador Bridge and drop rocks into the Detroit River. He would count the seconds it took for the stones to hit the water.
“It could end that quick if I wanted it to. Wouldn’t have to look at him again.”
Thirty years later, Patrick McMahon would walk the very same bridge to the very same spot and contemplate the very same thing. Both were sexually assaulted by Father William Hod Marshall, decades apart.
Marshall was a Catholic priest and educator who worked at Catholic high schools across Canada, starting in the 1950s. At the time, the institutions were run or staffed by the Basilian Fathers, a group of priests whose calling is to teach. Their world headquarters is in Toronto.
In a recorded civil deposition, Marshall admitted to sexually assaulting boys at nearly every posting he had.
Marshall pled guilty in 2011 and was convicted of assaulting 17 children at Ontario schools. He was also separately convicted of assaulting two boys in Saskatchewan. Victims and their lawyers believe the actual number of children he preyed on is much higher.
It’s a reality survivors Boyle and McMahon live with each day. Marshall admitted to abusing them both. They were each young teens when they encountered the priest.
“Being the good Catholic, I was praying he’d go away. I was terrified,” says Boyle, who describes his abuse as “hands in every crevice that was on my body.”
To this day, Boyle and his wife sleep in separate beds, because the 79-year-old wakes up swinging punches into the air. Trying to beat back the memory of a priest who still haunts him.
In the Fall of 1954, Boyle entered Grade 10 at Assumption Catholic High School. A Basilian priest, Marshall, coached his high school basketball team.
“He found a victim he thought he could get away with it and he did for two years,” says Boyle, who says he was assaulted in gym showers, empty classrooms, and Marshall’s own bedroom.
“He called it a workout,” says Boyle who also claims other priests at the school walked into Marshall’s bedroom while he was being abused and walked out again.
“I could see it was another priest – I could see the black cassock – I don’t know who it was. [Marshall] said, ‘This room is busy you’ll have to find another one’,” he recalls. Marshall denied this during a 2012 civil trial.
Feeling like he had no one to turn to, the assaults led a young Boyle to contemplate suicide. He would peer over the railing of the Ambassador Bridge, down the street from his high school where he was being abused.
“Who knows how many children had the same experience, in between us and after us.”
In a sign of just how long the abuse went unchecked, Patrick McMahon, the son of one of Boyle’s high school classmates, also fell victim to Marshall.
“Thirty years after Jerry was standing at the river, I was standing at the river doing the exact same thing for the exact same reason. All because of Hod Marshall and the Basilians who enabled him,” McMahon says. “Who knows how many children had the same experience, in between us and after us.”
McMahon was repeatedly assaulted by Marshall starting when he was about 13 years old. It started in his childhood home, where his devout Catholic family considered the priest an uncle and spiritual mentor.
“He abused me in my own bed at home,” says McMahon. He says his parents’ bedroom shared a wall with his own, and he still has difficulty accepting that he didn’t cry for help.
“All I really had to do was knock on my wall and my parents would be coming to my room to see why I’m knocking on my wall and it all would have stopped,” he says. “If you’re not a victim – I don’t know that you can really understand why you’re just lying there. I am a victim and I’m not sure I can understand.”
McMahon says he was also repeatedly assaulted by Marshall when his family visited the priest at his new posting at St. Mary’s Catholic High School, in Sault Ste. Marie, another institution then run by the Basilians.
“Before I had ever even kissed a girl I had a grown man in my bed, pulling my pants down, whispering in my ear, telling me lies,” McMahon told the priest in court through his victim impact statement. “But, after 30 years, how can I separate who I am from who I could have been?”
Searching for accountability
Before Marshall ever met Boyle or McMahon, the Basilians received multiple allegations of sexual assault against the priest. In his deposition, Marshall said that when confronted, he confessed his sins and was just moved to another Basilian school or parish.
“Marshall was their pit bull. They moved him […] to a free reign of new victims, everywhere he went.”
Boyle does not accept the idea that Church elders at the time didn’t understand the harm being caused by priests who abused children.
“It’s like walking into this park with a pit bull and there’s kids playing and you let the pit bull go and it attacks people. And then you pick up the pit bull from there, relocate it to another park and let ’em go,” he says. “Well, Marshall was their pit bull. They moved him […] to a free reign of new victims, everywhere he went.”
CityNews reached out to the order of priests multiple times, asking for an interview with one of the Basilians’ senior priests, Vicar General David Katulski. Our requests were denied. Eventually, we sent a detailed list of questions for an official response.
The Basilians refused to comment on Marshall or his victims, but their lawyer did forward a statement. In it, they admitted that institutions, including their own, historically thought sex abuse “was a moral failing, and could be addressed by deeper spiritual focus and commitment.”
Here are some excerpts from Katulski's letter. It is quite revealing of the attitudes of the times, attitudes that were quite convenient for paedophiles. The full letter and more on this story can be found at City News:
Windsor, Ont
Sex abuse royal commission finds Catholic church failed to act against Brisbane Marist Brother over abuse complaints
By Emilie Gramenz
Brother Patrick worked at Marist Brothers College Ashgrove until his retirement in 2001,
despite multiple complaints against him. (Flickr: Bert Knot)
Protocols at a Brisbane private school put in place after several complaints against a Marist brother in the 1990s were "inadequate and ineffective", the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has found.
Thomas Butler, known as Brother Patrick, had been teaching at Brisbane's Marist College Ashgrove for three years — after decades teaching in various schools in New South Wales — when Catholic church authorities were made aware of historical sexual abuse complaints against him.
A long-awaited report from the royal commission concluded that the man who heard the allegations — Provincial of the Marist Brothers Sydney Province, Brother Alexis Turton — should have known Brother Patrick needed to be removed from the school, but failed to act.
In evidence to the royal commission, Brother Turton said he contacted the headmaster at Ashgrove after the first historical complaint in 1991 and was assured that Brother Patrick did not have unsupervised contact with children.
Brother Turton said he also discussed the complaints with priests in the Archdiocese of Sydney who dealt with allegations of criminal sexual conduct.
He said he was advised that as Brother Patrick was an old man with no other complaints against him, and that he was being adequately supervised, there was no need for further action.
In 1992, Brother Turton received another historical complaint about Brother Patrick.
Then in September that year, two young teenagers at the Marist College Ashgrove left their classroom and were found in nearby bushland because Brother Patrick "was a bit close to them, was patting their bottom and sometimes squeezing their bottom".
The royal commission's report said the only action Brother Turton took in response to all three complaints was to direct the principal and counsellor at the Ashgrove school to exercise a system of "supervision" and "vigilance".
"It ought to have been obvious to Brother Turton that the arrangements were inadequate and ineffective", the report said. "At least by the time Brother Turton received the report regarding the two boys at Ashgrove, he should have appreciated the need to remove Brother Patrick from a school environment immediately.
"In failing to do so, he did not have due regard to the safety and welfare of the students at Ashgrove, who were left at ongoing risk."
More allegations in 1993
The royal commission was told Brother Turton heard two more historical complaints against Brother Patrick in 1993. One of them was reported to NSW Police, but a criminal matter did not proceed.
The royal commission said there was no evidence to suggest the adequacy of the supervision arrangements at Ashgrove was reconsidered "in light of this more serious complaint".
"We are satisfied it was unreasonable for Brother Turton to conclude that Brother Patrick was not a danger to children," the royal commission concluded.
It was also satisfied that Brother Turton did not tell the principal or the Superior of the Ashgrove community the whole story regarding the complaint reported to police, and found this was "plainly inadequate".
The royal commission's report acknowledged that any advice Brother Turton received while reporting under church protocol was significant, but also said there was no evidence that those giving him the advice knew of all the complaints.
In 1994, Brother Patrick attended a "spiritual renewal" program that offered counselling, and then returned to a tutoring position at Ashgrove, a job he retained until his retirement in 2001.
In 2001, a boarding student at Ashgrove made a complaint against Brother Patrick to Queensland Police. He was committed to stand trial, but the case was dismissed when the judge ordered there was no case to answer.
Brother Patrick died in 2006.
'Should have been removed'
In 1995, Brother Michael Hill took over Brother Turton's job.
Brother Hill also appeared before the royal commission.
He said he knew about the supervision arrangements in place at Ashgrove when he took over as Provincial, and that it was "abundantly clear" to him Brother Patrick should not have had unsupervised contact with children.
Brother Hill interviewed Brother Patrick on an annual basis and recorded in his notes that Brother Patrick spoke about teaching some boys to read and was tutoring boarders in mathematics in the evenings.
The royal commission found Brother Michael Hill should have recognised Brother Patrick was potentially a danger.
Brother Hill told the royal commission he was not aware of any arrangements in place to ensure the staff understood the need for Brother Patrick to be supervised.
The report concluded that Brother Hill ought to have recognised that Brother Patrick was potentially a danger and that Brother Patrick should have been removed from the school environment altogether.
"Brother Hill's failure to take appropriate action meant that children at Ashgrove, including particularly vulnerable children, were at risk of being sexually abused by Brother Patrick," the report said.
The royal commission was also critical of the handover process between Brother Turton and Brother Hill. It said complaints were, on occasion, not documented adequately — or at all.
The current Provincial of the Marist Brothers in Australia, Brother Peter Carroll, delivered an apology at the royal commission's public hearing. "Our responses were naive, uninformed, even callous at times ... what happened in the past should not have occurred," Brother Carroll said.
The report, which focused on allegations against Marist Brothers, was made public yesterday after years of redactions and delays while relevant criminal cases were concluded.
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