New Hampshire Catholic diocese avoids criminal indictment bypermitting state oversight

Associated Press ... direct wire feed | December 11, 2002 | J.M. HIRSCH

[NYer]

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) _ Faced with the threat of a criminal indictment, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester has avoided charges by allowing state oversight and admitting it failed to protect children from predatory priests.

The move came as one of the priests at the center of a sex scandal in neighboring Massachusetts prepared to be released on bail and pressure continued to mount for the Catholic leader of that state to resign. Under terms of the deal announced Tuesday in New Hampshire, the diocese agreed to the rare step of giving state prosecutors oversight of its policies, including an annual audit. The diocese also must beef up training and education. Priests and other employees must strictly follow the state's mandatory reporting law for suspected child abuse and must immediately report suspicions even if the victim is no longer a minor.

The state was pursuing misdemeanors under its child endangerment law, which experts believed would have been the first criminal charges ever against a U.S. diocese. Violations carry fines of up to $20,000 for institutions. ``The church in New Hampshire fully acknowledges and accepts responsibility for failures in our system that contributed to the endangerment of children,'' Bishop John B. McCormack said. ``We commit ourselves in a public and binding way to address every weakness in our structure.''

Grand juries have indicted individual priests and a grand jury in New York issued a report accusing church officials of sheltering molesters. But the New Hampshire settlement is the only one reached so far under the imminent threat of criminal indictment of a diocese. County prosecutors have been working for months on possible criminal charges against individual priests, but virtually all are barred because many years _ often decades _ have passed since the alleged incidents. Dozens of victims have reached civil settlements totaling about $6 million this year.

The New Hampshire investigation dated to the 1960s and involved more than 50 priests and more than 100 alleged victims. Attorney General Philip McLaughlin said he had confirmed reports of molestation involving more than 40 priests and was prepared to bring charges based on five or six of them, involving about 30 victims. ``We are sincerely sorry for the harm you have endured,'' McCormack said to the victims. ``Our sorrow rises from within the core of our hearts.''

In Boston, a lawyer for the Rev. Paul Shanley told Middlesex County prosecutors that Shanley will post $300,000 cash bail this week, possibly Wednesday, when he was scheduled to appear in court for a pre-trial hearing. Shanley, 71, has been charged with 10 counts of child rape and six counts of indecent assault and battery for allegedly abusing boys at a church in Newton from 1979 to 1989.

Rodney Ford, the father of one of Shanley's alleged victims, said the news has horrified his now-adult son. ``He has a look on his face I haven't seen in years,'' Ford said. ``It's back and it's scary.'' A call Tuesday to Shanley's attorney was not immediately returned.

Cardinal Bernard Law, who has been under fire since the abuse scandal erupted in the Boston area in January, remained at the Vatican for talks a day after 58 Boston-area priests signed a letter calling for his resignation. Voice of the Faithful, a lay group of Catholics, said members planned to vote Wednesday on three separate resolutions calling on Law to resign, asking Pope John Paul II to appoint another bishop, and asking the U.S. Conference of Bishops to follow through on their pledge to hold bishops accountable. ``The damage that's happened in Boston is not just local,'' said Jim Post, president of the group. ``It has affected confidence in bishops everywhere. The question is there now: What secrets are there in our church records?''

Law on Tuesday resigned his post as chairman of the Board of Trustees at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. President Rev. David M. O'Connell said Law had indicated in October that he would not run for a fifth term as chairman.

Also Tuesday:

Jury selection began in the attempted murder trial of a former altar boy charged with shooting a priest he accused of molesting him a decade earlier. A defense attorney for Dontee Stokes said the church must be forced to answer for the events that led Stokes to shoot the Rev. Maurice Blackwell in May. ``There are people who have to be held accountable besides Dontee,'' Brown said. ``The church dropped the ball from the beginning; Maurice Blackwell got the whole thing started _ and now everyone wants to dump the whole thing on Dontee?''

City prosecutor Sylvester Cox had tried but failed to keep Stokes' allegations of sexual abuse out of the trial. Cox argued that the abuse accusations have nothing to do with the shooting. ``The defense is going to try to put up a smoke screen,'' Cox said.

Cardinal William Keeler said after the shooting that he regretted reinstating Blackwell following 1993 abuse allegations by Stokes. Blackwell returned to his post after spending three months undergoing psychiatric evaluations. He has not been charged.

On the Net:

Archdiocese of Boston: http://www.rcab.org

AP-ES-12-11-02 0537EST

[NYer]

But the New Hampshire settlement is the only one reached so far under the imminent threat of criminal indictment of a diocese.

I'm confident that others will follow, through whichever means are necessary.

[Desdemona]

I'm not sure I like the "oversight" precident, though. That's too...it just, um, oversight from the laity is one thing, but the state? No. No dice.

[wideawake]

BTW, McCormack was ordained in Boston and served as an auxiliary bishop to Law.

Also, the Diocese of Manchester is a suffragan see to the Archdiocese of Boston and is therefore under Law's jurisdiction.

[an amused spectator]

Geez, whatever happened to that "wall of separation between church and state"?

I guess that only counts when you're trying to put the smackdown on highschoolers who want to pray in public.

;-)

[JoeFromCA]

This is a small step in the right direction. When an entity, even the holy Roman Catholic church, commits a crime, the state imposes punishment through the judicial system. Hopefully we'll see more of these prosecutions.

[curmudgeonII]

Geez, whatever happened to that "wall of separation between church and state"?

I'm as sickened by the Roman Catholic hierarchy's continuing attempts to cover up and make I feel your pain statements as anybody. [Sounds a lot like Bill Clinton, doesn't it?] But do we really want any governmental entity overseeing the activituy of any church?

[drjoe]

... ... I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the New Hampshire oversight board,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

LOL

[Cicero]

I hope there will be some sunset arrangement on this agreement, if they perform satisfactorily for a certain number of years.

In a country that values the separation of Church and State, it's a very dangerous precedent to have the state overseeing the Church. Liberal politicians could make hay with it.

[Notwithstanding]

My first inclination is that this agreement looks like "excessive entanglement in the practice of religion" by the government.

I am not sure how/if the quid-pro-quo voluntariness of the entanglement renders this constitutional under the 1st Amendment.

If there are different rules/treament/stringency for clergy and chruches or a particular church then we have dicrimination against religion and/or discrimination among religions.

I realize this is all very cold and legal and that people have been victimized and church leaders have been seemingly negligent in their duties. I do not mean to minimize that.

But the right to free exercise and prohibition of establishment are imporatnat things that cannot be tossed aside due to our natural outrage.

A priest and a church cannot legally be held to any higher standard. (Morally, of course, they are rightly held to a higher standard.) Thus a law or state action that targets or specifies any different treatment for clergy or a church is highly suspect of being unconstitutional.

The point is, I don't believe the diocese in question can waive the 1st amendment for everyone in its diocese or for its clergy. I do not even think it can waive the first amendment for itself.

[crystalk]

But did the CHURCH commit the crime, or just its individual employees? If these wrongs had been done by employees of Wal-Mart or General Electric, could those companies be sued?

[Domestic Church]

The state has a right to impose punishment but oversight is a very, very bad precedent that brings to mind the KGB infiltration of the Russian Orthodox Church under communism and the patriot catholic church in China. Can you picture this set up under the possibility of a Hillary Clinton Whitehouse?! Think about the Sacrament of Penance in areas being possibly mutated into a socialist tool.

[Arthur McGowan]

The government has no business exercising this kind of supervision over the operation of a diocese. Ergo, the Diocese HAS NO RIGHT to make a deal of this kind. In other words, the diocese, the bishop, IS OBLIGATED TO ACCEPT BEING INDICTED. Being indicted for an actual crime, and being punished, even having a bishop sentenced to prison, does NOT violate the rights of the Church.

In other words, this diocese and this bishop have sold out the rights of the Church in order to save their own personal skin! We have thus been treated to a new low: We now know that a Catholic bishop will not only pay huge sums of money to save his own skin, but will betray his diocese into the supervisory hands of the state in order to save his own skin.

[curmudgeonII]

the New Hampshire oversight board,

Seems to me that the term shortsighted might be more applicable.

[Notwithstanding]

What do you think?

[patent]

My first inclination is that this agreement looks like "excessive entanglement in the practice of religion" by the government.

Probably.

I am not sure how/if the quid-pro-quo voluntariness of the entanglement renders this constitutional under the 1st Amendment.

You can waive your rights generally. I don’t see a problem there.

If there are different rules/treament/stringency for clergy and chruches or a particular church then we have dicrimination against religion and/or discrimination among religions.

Yeah, but it would have to go to court before that would be resolved. I think we can rest assured that no other Church is going to sue and complain that they aren’t getting the same oversight the Catholics are.

Until there is a new Bishop, I doubt the Catholics will try to get back out of this deal either.

The point is, I don't believe the diocese in question can waive the 1st amendment for everyone in its diocese or for its clergy. I do not even think it can waive the first amendment for itself.

I don’t think they can waive for the clergy or laity. At the same time, they can suspend or defrock priests who won’t go along. I’m sure the Vatican could then step in (if the priest appealed, which he likely would) and squash that.

patent  +AMDG

[patent]

BTW, McCormack was ordained in Boston and served as an auxiliary bishop to Law.

Of course he did. It seems like the Bishops in this country come from Law, Bernardin, or Mahoney. Not a pretty picture, IMHO. All Law’s Bishops seem just like him. Somewhat orthodox in a modernist sort of way, and way to dense to handle the job they’ve been given.

[wideawake]

There seems to be a disturbing pattern.

Proteges of a certain cabal seem to be highly placed all over the US Church, while the graduates of the most conservative seminaries from the most traditional dioceses seem to be toiling in obscurity with very few being raised to bishop.

[Notwithstanding]

Well, my understanding is that if I am treated differently because the govt singles the religous out for special treatment (pos. or neg.), then this is discrimination against religion and therefore as a priest I can sue as an individual (assuming I am a priest).

The courts also can't make religious decisions. Current SCOTUS holding is that the court can't hold a minister to any ministerial standard (to do so would mean that the govt is telling the minister what his religious job is - especially here since confession is a religious act and this determination would entangle govt in the sacrament). The govt can hold the minister to a general standard, but not to one that applies only to the religious (religion-based laws are only allowed to the extent that they are enacted to alleviate govt intrusion into religious practice - thus tax exemption is ok, as is exemption from certain employment dicrimination laws). If a minister is counseling people as a minister, then the govt can't tell him how to counsel, etc.

The only solution if the govt wants to make the priests report is for the govt to pass a law that makes all adults responsible for reporting any reports of child abuse, or all employers responsible for reporting any abuse by employees.

[Salvation]

The Church submitting to the state. Not a healthy precedent. Where is the law of separation here? This was the original reason for that amendment when the government of England controlled the Church of England!

Alarm Alert!