Category Archives: Archbishop Robert Carlson
Archbishop Says He ‘Didn’t Know’ It Was Criminal To Have Sex With Children.
Archbishop Says He ‘Didn’t Know’ It Was Criminal To Have Sex With Children.
Posted on January 29, 2016
From the Link: https://occupythevatican.com/2016/01/29/archbishop-says-he-didnt-know-it-was-criminal-to-have-sex-with-children/
Pedophile Pimp Archbishop Robert Carlson
The St. Louis archbishop embroiled in a sexual abuse scandal testified that he didn’t know in the 1980s whether it was illegal for priests to have sex with children, according to a released court deposition.
Archbishop Robert Carlson, who was chancellor of the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul at the time, was deposed as part of a lawsuit against the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Diocese of Winona, Minnesota.
In a video released by the St. Paul law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates, the Catholic archbishop is asked whether he had known it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a child.
“I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” Carlson responded. “I understand today it’s a crime.”
When asked when he first realized it was a crime for an adult — including priests — to have sex with a child, Carlson, 69, shook his head.
“I don’t remember,” he testified.
Carlson’s role at the time was to investigate abuse claims. He admitted in his deposition that he never personally went to police, even when a a clergy member admitted to inappropriate behavior.
In last month’s testimony, Carlson responded 193 times that he did not recall abuse-related conversations from the 1980s to mid-1990s.
Anderson provided a report from a previous deposition in 1987 in which now-deceased Bishop Loras Watters said he advised Carlson to answer “I don’t remember” if questioned in court.
Carlson responded last month that he had “no knowledge of the discussion.”
The Archdiocese of St. Louis said in a statement Monday that Carlson had given testimony “several times many years ago” about the same allegations, according to NBC affiliate KSDK.
“In this most recent deposition, while not being able to recall his knowledge of the law exactly as it was many decades ago, the Archbishop did make clear that he knows child sex abuse is a crime today,” the statement said. “The question does not address the Archbishop’s moral stance on the sin of pedophilia, which has been that it is a most egregious offense.”
To ALL the Roman Catholic Pedophile Lovers and Defenders coming to my blog and being PIGS
To ALL the Roman Catholic Pedophile Lovers and Defenders coming to my blog and being PIGS
Catholic outrage at Facebook posts against Catholics. Loses no sleep over priests raping little boys.
Honestly? I could give two flying shits less, what you scumbag, pedophile loving, pew polishing, demonic shit stains on the underwear of humanity of the Unholy Roman Catholic Cult say, or whether YOU like what I am doing here or not. And I am DAMN SURE YOU are not going to like what I am going to say in this posting, but again, I could give two flying shits less if YOU do or not.
Plain and simple, rabid dogs deserve more mercy than any of you shit stain scumbags of this cult of pedophiles. A rabid dog does NOT know what it is doing. But all your disgusting, demonic, scumbag Pedophile Pimps do. All of you do. Each and every one of you low-life, scumbag pedophiles? Each and every one of your Pedophile Pimps? Each and every one of you retarded, brain-dead, brain-washed, pieces of shit pew polishers who defend them?
ARE ALL DESERVING OF DEATH, AND A DEATH THAT WILL INCLUDE YOU SCUMBAGS BEING TORTURED WITH YOUR OWN TOOLS OF YOUR INQUISITIONS, BEFORE WE CUT YOUR FUCKING HEADS OFF, PUT THEM ON PIKES IN FRONT OF YOUR VATICAN AND YOUR CHURCHES WITH THE WARNING THIS IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO ANY OF YOU SCUM WHO MESS WITH OUR CHILDREN.
I agree with your Saint Peter Damian when he said the following all the way back in 1049:
“Saint” Peter Damian
“Listen, you do-nothing superiors of clerics and priests. Listen, and even though you feel sure of yourselves, tremble at the thought that you are partners in the guilt of others; those, I mean, who wink at the sins of their subjects that need correction and who by ill-considered silence allow them license to sin. Listen, I say, and be shrewd enough to understand that all of you alike are deserving of death, that is, not only those who do such things, but also they who approve those who practice them.”
Letter 31, the Book of Gomorrah [Liber Gomorrhianus], containing the most extensive treatment and condemnation by any Church Father of clerical pederasty
YOU ALL CALL YOURSELVES THE ONE TRUE CHURCH OF JESUS, THE ONE HE OFFICIALLY STARTED. YOU CALL YOURSELVES THE HOLY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THEN WITH ALL THAT YOU HAVE DONE TO CHILDREN AND TEENS? RAPING THEM? BRUTALIZING THEM? BEATING THEM? ENSLAVING THEM? USING THEM AS MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS INCLUDING FORCED STERILIZATIONS AND ABORTIONS? AND EVEN MURDERING THEM? THEN YOU GOT THE UNMITIGATED BALLS TO STATE TO ALL OF US HOW YOU ARE THE PROTECTORS AND DEFENDERS OF CHILDREN BECAUSE OF YOUR STANCE AGAINST ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTIVES?
WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TRYING TO FOOL OR CON?
THEN? YOU FUCKING ATTACK US? YOU INSULT US? YOU DENIGRATE US? YOU CALL US THE LIARS, THE GOLD DIGGERS OUT LOOKING FOR A PAYDAY?
OR BECAUSE WE SPEAK OUT AGAINST THE CRIMES…NOT THE SINS….COMMITTED AGAINST US, HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF US? HELL MILLIONS OF US ALL THROUGH THE HISTORY OF YOUR DAMNABLE CULT? YOU DARE CALL US ANTI-CATHOLIC BIGOTS AND HATERS OUT TO DESTROY YOUR CHURCH?
Bill “Pig Face” Donohue, degenerate leader of the Catholic League
OR SHIT STAINS LIKE BILL PIG FACE DONOHUE OF THE CATHOLIC LEAGUE SAYS BECAUSE WE DID NOT PUNCH OUR RAPISTS IN THE FACE, THAT MEANS WE WANTED IT, WE ENJOYED IT AND WE ARE HOMOSEXUALS BECAUSE OF IT?
OR THAT WE SEDUCED OUR RAPISTS?
OR ALL THE OTHER EVIL, DISGUSTING, SHITTY THINGS YOU SAY AGAINST US?
HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!!! HOW FUCKING DARE YOU ATTACK US AND DEFEND YOUR CRIMINALS? HOW FUCKING DARE YOU DO THIS TO US? WHO SUFFERED INCREDIBLE HORRORS, PAIN AND SUFFERING BECAUSE YOUR SHIT STAIN PRIESTS, BROTHERS, NUNS AND SISTERS FUCKED US, RAPED US, TORTURED US, BEAT US, BRUTALIZED US AND MURDERED US!!!!
WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? WHY I KNOW WHO THE FUCK YOU ARE.
YOU ARE SCUM, YOU ARE FUCKING DEMONS IN HUMAN FLESH, YOU ARE THE LOWEST FORM OF HUMAN LIFE ON THE EARTH, YOU DESERVE NO RIGHTS, YOU DESERVE NO MERCY, YOU DESERVE NO COMPASSION, YOU DESERVE NOTHING BUT FUCKING DEATH!!
PLAIN AND SIMPLE, YOU GODDAMN PEDOPHILE PIMPS, YOU POPE FRANCIS, YOU POPE EMERITUS BENEDICT XVI, YOU PEDOPHILE CARDINALS, BISHOPS AND ARCHBISHOPS, YOU PEDOPHILE PRIESTS, BROTHERS, NUNS AND SISTERS AND ALL OF YOU SCUMBAG PEW POLISHERS WHO STAND UP AND DEFEND THEM AND ATTACK US? ARE FUCKING DESERVING OF DEATH, JUST LIKE YOUR SAINT PETER DAMIAN PROCLAIMED IN 1049.
SO FUCK YOU ALL.
OH AND I TRULY WISH YOU ASSHOLE, SCUMBAG, PEDOPHILE LOVING AND DEFENDING SHITSTAIN ROMAN CATHOLIC PEW POLISHERS WHO SPEW YOUR SHIT TO ME, WHO THREATEN ME WITH DEATH? WHO SAY I SHOULD BE RAPED? WHO SAY I AND MY SONS SHOULD BE PUT TO DEATH FOR SPEAKING OUT?
WELL I FUCKING WISH, I REALLY WISH, WITH ALL OF MY HEART AND SOUL, WITH ALL OF MY BEING, YOU WOULD HAVE THE BALLS TO SAY YOUR SHIT TO MY FACE, IN PERSON, BECAUSE FUCKING TRUST ME IF YOU DID?
YOU WOULD FIND OUT IF YOUR GOD AND JESUS ARE REAL, CAUSE I WOULD HAVE NO FUCKING PROBLEM….IN BEATING YOU TO DEATH WITH MY FISTS AND FEET RIGHT ON THE SPOT THE MOMENT YOU OPEN YOUR PEDOPHILE LOVING OUTHOUSE PIEHOLES TO ME.
SO FUCK YOU.
The Catholic Church’s defiance and obstruction on child sex abuse
The Catholic Church’s defiance and obstruction on child sex abuse
From the Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/defiance-and-obstruction-on-child-sex-abuse/2016/04/19/22efc3de-0351-11e6-9d36-33d198ea26c5_story.html
IN THREE years at the helm of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has been a source of inspiration for millions of faithful around the world. In one critical respect, however, he has fallen short of his own promise: to come fully to terms with decades of child sex abuse by clergymen and the institutional cover granted to them by bishops and cardinals.
Francis has pledged “the zealous vigilance of the Church to protect children and the promise of accountability for all.” Yet there has been scant accountability, particularly for bishops. Too often, the church’s stance has been defiance and obstruction.
In his trip to the United States in the fall, Francis told victims that “words cannot fully express my sorrow for the abuse you suffered.” Yet his initiative to establish a Vatican tribunal to judge bishops who enabled or ignored pedophile priests has come to naught. Not a single bishop has been called to account by the tribunal, which itself remains more notional than real.
Meanwhile, church officials have fought bills in state legislatures across the United States that would allow thousands of abuse victims to seek justice in court. The legislation would loosen deadlines limiting when survivors can bring lawsuits against abusers or their superiors who turned a blind eye. Many victims, emotionally damaged by the abuse they have suffered, do not speak until years after they were victimized; by then, in many states, it is too late for them to force priests and other abusers to account in court.
Eight states have lifted such deadlines, known as statutes of limitations, for victims who are sexually abused as minors. Seven states have gone further, enacting measures allowing past victims — not just current and future ones — to file lawsuits in a finite period of time, generally a two- or three-year window.
In many more states, however, the bishops and their staffs have successfully killed such bills, arguing that it would be unfair to subject the church to lawsuits in which memories and evidence are degraded by the passage of time. Quietly, they also say the church, which has suffered an estimated $3 billion hit in settlements and other costs related to clergy sex abuse scandals nationwide, can ill afford further financial exposure.A typical case is Maryland, where bills to extend the statute of limitations until the alleged victim turns 38 have failed even to come to a vote, owing to opposition from House of Delegates Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph F. Vallario Jr. (D-Prince George’s) and the Catholic Church, among others.
In his trip to the United States, Pope Francis praised bishops for what he called their “generous commitment to bring healing to victims” and he expressed sympathy for “how much the pain of recent years has weighed upon you.” Yet by its actions, the church’s “commitment to bring healing” has seemed far from generous. And it seemed perverse to address the bishops’ “pain” when the real suffering has been borne by children.
2 Paths, No Easy Solution on Abusive Priests
2 Paths, No Easy Solution on Abusive Priests
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and JODI WILGOREN
Published: March 3, 2002
From the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/03/us/2-paths-no-easy-solution-on-abusive-priests.html?pagewanted=all
“Father” Leroy Valentine
ST. LOUIS, March 1— It has been 20 years since John Scorfina’s family complained to church officials about the Rev. Leroy Valentine’s sexualized horseplay with him and his two brothers, which they say ended with the priest molesting 11-year-old John.
It has been four years since the Scorfina brothers took $20,000 each from the Archdiocese of St. Louis on the condition they never speak of the settlement, believing that lawyers for the church had promised to remove the priest from parish work.
But when the three men recently learned that Father Valentine, who has denied any wrongdoing, was an assistant pastor at a church attached to a Catholic elementary school, the order not to speak could not contain their outrage.
”I just don’t want any kids to go through what I went through,” John Scorfina said this week.
Across the Mississippi River in Belleville, Ill., the priests who have been accused of sexual abuse no longer work in churches. One performs karaoke on Wednesday nights at the Lincoln Jug restaurant in Belleville and another pumps gas at his mother’s service station in the small town of Columbia.
In the mid-1990’s, the Diocese of Belleville publicly ousted 13 priests accused of inappropriate sexual contact with children, leaving them in an odd limbo — on the church payroll yet without portfolio, called ”Father” but barred from administering sacraments or wearing the collar. ”In the church,” said one, the Rev. Raymond Kownacki, ”you’re guilty until proven innocent.”
Cardinal Bernard Law
Here in the center of the country, these two dioceses — one, in a major city in which a third of the population is Catholic, the other a sprawling 11,000-square-mile expanse of small farm towns — have taken divergent paths in handling accusations of sexual abuse by clergymen.
While Belleville made headlines by removing priests, St. Louis quietly moved them around. Each diocese has a board to review the cases. In Belleville, a victim’s say-so was often enough for the board to strip priests of their church ministries; in St. Louis, many victims said they were unaware of the board’s existence.
As church officials nationwide rethink their approaches to the issue amid recent scandals, each bank of the river offers lessons about the intractability of the problem.
Belleville’s broad public sweep of priests from the altar may have eased victims’ pain, but it also left some parishioners uneasy that innocent men were being maligned, while others worried about potential pedophiles being released from the rectory, unwatched. The policy in St. Louis, until this week, of keeping nearly all accusations secret as the archdiocese moved the priests into new parishes, retirement, or low-profile posts, angered victims and may have led to further offenses.
The issue of sexual abuse by priests has taken on new urgency in recent months after disclosures that the Boston Archdiocese had known for years about the sexual misconduct of a priest who was accused of molesting some 130 children. That case led to repeated apologies from the leader of the archdiocese, Cardinal Bernard Law, who reversed his policy of keeping the matter within the church and gave state authorities the names of some 80 priests accused of abusing children over 40 years.
Since then, church leaders in New England and Philadelphia have informed parishes of similar accusations against priests, handed priests’ personnel files to prosecutors and relieved some of the accused of their duties. In Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahoney issued a public apology to victims and released a new policy vowing that a priest who had abused a child would never return to active ministry.
Here in St. Louis, an archdiocese of 223 parishes, church officials announced the removal of two pastors today, saying they had ”raised the bar” about who is unfit to serve in a parish post. The standard, since 1996, had been that any priest deemed to pose a future risk would be removed. Since the Boston incidents, they say that any priest with a substantiated accusation against him will be ousted. The two priests received treatment after the accusations, which are 15 and 14 years old, officials said.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan
”As painful as it is, we’re going to keep the trust of our people,” said Bishop Timothy M. Dolan, the vicar for priests. ”We have to be able to say, we have to be able to believe, that there is no priest in a parish against whom there is a credible claim of clerical sexual abuse.”
Accusations about pedophilia have plagued the Roman Catholic Church in the United States since the first major case arose nearly 20 years ago in a Louisiana parish. Experts warn that, like alcoholism, pedophilia is a disease that can be controlled but not cured, and that problem priests should not be reassigned to parishes where they are at risk of abusing again.
David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, who lives in St. Louis, says the experiences of Belleville, while flawed, are a starting point as bishops review policies. St. Louis, he says, is a model of what to avoid.
”In Belleville, like virtually every diocese in America, the survivor who comes forward has a long tough road,” he said. ”But in St. Louis, that road is steep, uphill, and seemingly endless.”
St. Louis
Parishioners Uneasy But Dependent
Father Valentine was the favorite of many children at St. Pius X, a parish and school in Glasgow Village, a community of identical aluminum-sided bungalows in the northern part of St. Louis. The priest took them out for ice cream and cheeseburgers. He lavished affection on children like the Scorfinas, who came from single-parent or troubled families. ”He was like the dad that wasn’t there,” said John Scorfina, who now runs a construction company.
Father Valentine, in an interview on Thursday at the rectory of St. Thomas the Apostle, where he is now an associate pastor, said he was barred by the legal settlement from discussing the case. When told that this was his opportunity to respond to whether there was any truth to the accusations, he looked down and shook his head. The senior pastor, the Rev. Henry Garavaglia, who sat in on the interview, said, ”Emphatically, I would say no.”
Cardinal Roger Mahony
Then Father Valentine looked up and said suddenly, ”At the same time, parents should always be concerned who’s working with their children.”
Others who lived in Father Valentine’s parish said they felt uneasy about him, particularly when he wrestled with groups of boys and slid them over his body in a game he called ”crack your back.”
Tom Joseph, 32, remembers a 1982 trip with Father Valentine to the Illinois River in which he says the priest playfully tackled him, pulled down his pants and spanked him. Mr. Joseph, then 13, did not tell anyone, but says that he never went anywhere with the priest again.
Margie Lewis, a single parent, said that one day she called home and was surprised to learn from her daughter that Father Valentine was there wrestling with her son and his friends. She said that she asked him to come to the phone, but he would not, and that he left suddenly.
The Scorfina brothers were also home alone on the day they say that Father Valentine came over, and initiated a wrestling session. Soon, they say, the priest fondled two of the boys and then took John into a bedroom and sodomized him.
”I remember I had a Pittsburgh Steelers poster on the wall, and he made me name all the players until the deed was done,” John Scorfina said. Asked in his 1998 deposition how long it lasted, Mr. Scorfina said, ”About 10, 15 minutes, maybe, give or take, say, forever, 26 years.”
Katie Chrun, the Scorfinas’ mother, recalled that when she arrived home her youngest son asked: ” ‘Mom, should a priest touch you like that?’ I said, ‘Like what?’ ”
Mrs. Chrun said she contacted the authorities, but was told by pastors and a policeman that it was an internal church matter and to keep quiet and be forgiving.
Then, three months later, Mrs. Chrun, her mother and her sister went to meet with Father Valentine in the rectory. Mrs. Chrun and her sister, Linda Thurman, both say that he apologized and said that if he did something wrong, he must have blacked out.
Asked about the meeting, Father Valentine said, ”It was an apology that they had taken something wrongly.” He said he never said anything about blacking out.
Archbishop Robert Carlson
Within the month, Father Valentine was removed with no explanation to the Scorfinas or the parishioners, and in the next 12 years was reassigned to three parishes, two of them with schools. Not until the Scorfina brothers filed their lawsuit, in 1995, were parishioners at the church where he worked at that time informed that there were accusations of child sexual abuse against him. The Scorfina brothers sued the Archbishop of St. Louis and Father Valentine and the archdiocese settled with the family in 1998.
Though they refused to discuss specific cases, Bishop Dolan, who also handles sexual abuse cases for the archdiocese, as well as the archdiocese’s lawyer and a psychologist who sits on the review board acknowledged that Father Valentine had been evaluated and treated by medical professionals, and that he had been put on sick leave for four years.
In 2000, as Father Valentine was assigned to his current post in Florissant, a St. Louis suburb, the church’s senior pastor sent parishioners a letter informing them about a 1982 accusation of sexual misconduct against Father Valentine. The letter said Father Valentine had ”unambiguously denied the allegation” and that therapists had concluded he posed ”no threat to children.”
Complaints
Some Settled, Some Unheeded
Interviews and court records suggest Father Valentine’s is not the only St. Louis case where accusations led to transfers — or where victims complained of being ignored by the chancery.
Cardinal Justin Rigali
Church officials refused to say how many priests, before last week, had ever been publicly removed because of sexual abuse. Doug Forsyth, a lawyer who has handled about two dozen cases against the archdiocese — 15 of which he said were settled — and victims’ advocates said the only cases they were aware of in which removal was publicly attributed to pedophilia were ones in which the priests did not deny the accusations in court.
One of those priests, the Rev. James Gummersbach, admitted in a 1994 lawsuit that he had abused boys in several parishes over decades. Further, in a sworn statement, he acknowledged that from his ordination in 1954 through the 1990’s ”the only known action taken by the defendant archdiocese in response to the accusations that defendant Gummersbach had sexual contact with minors was to transfer Gummersbach and instruct him to obtain personal counseling.”
One man who said his complaints about a priest went unheeded was Steven Pona. Court records show Mr. Pona, now 33, wrote to the the vicar general in 1983 contending that that the Rev. Bruce Forman, director of the Young Catholic Musicians orchestra and choir, tried to seduce him at a drive-in screening of ”Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” Mr. Pona said the incident followed at least five occasions in which the priest tried to approach him sexually.
”During the movies he had his arm around me in a funny sort of way, sort of at the waist,” Mr. Pona wrote in a teenager’s cursive. ”I pushed his arm back forcefully and said, ”Don’t, I’m not that type.’
Diocesan directories show that Father Forman, who did not return calls for comment, was moved only once in the last 20 years, in 1986, to the parish where he remains pastor. Mr. Pona’s letter, in a sealed envelope, was placed in the priest’s file, marked, ”To be opened by archbishop only,” according to court records.
Mr. Pona’s lawsuit, filed against Father Forman and the archbishop, was dismissed because of the statute of limitations. But as the issue resurfaced in the news in January, Mr. Pona said, he went to see Bishop Michael J. Sheridan, who at first was compassionate but later phoned to say he had researched the case and found no evidence.
On Friday, Bishop Dolan said Mr. Pona’s recent complaint might have gotten lost because it arrived shortly before Bishop Sheridan left for another assignment. Bishop Sheridan did not return several phone calls on Thursday. In the interview today, Bishop Dolan urged parishioners to ”tell us again” if they were unhappy with how complaints had been handled.
The archdiocese’s new strategy of removing priests based on substantiated accusations rather than assessment of future risk has already spawned criticism. Parishioners at St. Cronan’s Church, where the pastor was removed on Wednesday, gathered that evening to pray for their priest.
”People are feeling that it’s sort of an infringement of our Christian community to have someone taken from us without any consultation and without any explanation,” said Bill Ramsey, a member of St. Cronan’s. ”I don’t think anybody wants sexual abuse anywhere, but it’s a fact of life and there are more constructive ways to deal with it than ordering people away from other people.”
Belleville
Model System Still Falls Short
The church used to shuffle priests accused of sexually abusing children among the 127 parishes in the Belleville diocese, too.
In a 1995 lawsuit against Father Kownacki, one of the ousted priests, and the diocese, Gina Trimble Parks asserted that while she was the priest’s teenage housekeeper, the priest repeatedly raped her over two years and ultimately fed her a quinine potion to bring about an abortion. Court records show Ms. Park’s family made the same assertions to the bishop in 1973, and that Father Kownacki had two previous complaints of sexual abuse against him from other assignments. He was sent for treatment and later returned to a parish.
The lawsuit was dismissed because of the statute of limitations. ”I was too old to fight it,” he said of his ouster in a recent interview, adding that his family and friends ”know the accusations aren’t the truth.”
The Rev. Clyde Grogan, longtime pastor of St. Patrick’s in East St. Louis, said he brought several victims and their families to the chancery to register complaints in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and nothing happened.
”You know how it was handled?” asked Father Grogan, raising his hand and forming a zero with thumb and forefinger. When victims complained, he added, ”The bishop would give lots of assurances. I think the strategy was, what do the people want to hear?”
That changed in 1993, after The Belleville News-Democrat published an article describing how a priest had molested high school boys aboard a houseboat on Carlyle Lake 20 years before. The accused priest was immediately removed and church leaders began rewriting their sexual abuse policy.
Four priests were ousted in the weeks that followed and eight more priests and a deacon were pushed out in the next two years as the diocese investigated a swell of complaints, most of which first appeared in The News-Democrat.One as eventually returned to a parish.
”We were kind of learning as we went,” said Msgr. James E. Margason, Belleville’s vicar general, who helped write the new policy. ”We were damaging someone’s reputation, we didn’t know if the allegation was true. What drove us was to protect children.”
Margie Mensen, a social worker who was the administrator of the Belleville review board from its formation until 1998, said a credible accusation from a victim was enough to remove a priest, often within days of the complaint. Many of the priests never presented their side to the board; only one admitted the abuse. Several refused treatment.
The diocese has since settled at least three of eight lawsuits (one is still pending in federal court) and paid for counseling for 49 people, including victims and their families. Though the state’s attorney subpoenaed all the review board’s records, it filed no charges, because the accusations were years old and lacked corroboration.
But if Belleville has been heralded as a model, many in the community remain dissatisfied with the process.
Father Grogan says the diocese’s 80-some priests are still divided as to whether they believe the abuse accusations. Parishioners at one church wore yellow ribbons to protest their pastor’s removal. Donations dipped for years as people feared the Sunday collection plate would go to defray legal expenses.
Those who say they are victims remain outraged that the priests retain their titles, salaries and pensions.
”That’s kind of a slap in the church’s face, my face, everybody’s face,” said Mary Aholt, whose husband was among those to receive a settlement. ”Everybody that’s paying their salary, and that’s everyone that belongs to the Catholic Church.”
Others worried that the church is not properly supervising the people it had deemed a problem. The Rev. Louis Peterson works in a restaurant in Lebanon, Ill. Father Kownacki collects coins and stamps in a dingy first-floor apartment in Dupo, Ill., where he said he sometimes celebrates Mass for family and friends, against the rules of his administrative leave. The Rev. David Crook has left the area.
”I have a whole new life,” said the lounge singer at the Lincoln Jug Restaurant, Msgr. Joseph R. Schwaegel, who still faces a federal lawsuit, along with the diocese, by a California man who asserts that Father Schwaegel repeatedly touched his genitals and raped him in 1973, when the plaintiff was 8. Father Schwaegel declined to discuss the case.
The Rev. Robert Vonnahmen, a former camp director who faced at least three lawsuits accusing him of luring boys to his cabin for massages that led to molestations, runs a Catholic retreat center and a $3-million-a-year tax-exempt tour company, formerly owned by the church, which leads Catholic ”pilgrimages” to dozens of destinations. (Two of the lawsuits were dismissed because of the statute of limitations, a third was settled out of court.)
At his office the other day, Father Vonnahmen wore a short-sleeved black shirt with Roman collar, button open, defying the church’s sanction. He has denied all accusations against him, twice petitioned the Belleville review board to reinstate him and has now appealed his case to the Vatican. ”I’m not going to give up on the Lord or the church, either one,” he said. ”I know these things happen occasionally. I can’t imagine the large number of people in Belleville. There was a rush to judgment.”
No Belleville priests have been removed since 1997. Monsignor Margason said the 800-number set up to receive abuse complaints has been silent for a year.
Archdiocese Sued Over Alleged Abuse by Church of the Immacolata Priest Leroy Valentine
Archdiocese Sued Over Alleged Abuse by Church of the Immacolata Priest Leroy Valentine
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
By Sarah Fenske
“Father” Leroy Valentine
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis was sued Friday over sex abuse allegedly suffered by a young boy who attended school at the Church of the Immacolata in Richmond Heights.
The suit, filed by a pair of anonymous parents on behalf of their son, alleges that Fr. Leroy Valentine began abusing the boy when he was eleven — eventually sodomizing him in the rectory. The abuse allegedly continued for four years, from 1977 to 1981.
Valentine was a priest within the Archdiocese from 1977 to 2002, when he was removed from active duty, according to the lawsuit. But, the suit alleges, “although his church privileges were permanently removed in 2002, he was never laicized” — that is, officially defrocked.
In 2013, Archbishop Robert Carlson found allegations of sexual abuse against Valentine, then 71, to be substantiated.
The suit was filed by attorney Kenneth Chackes of Chackes, Carlson and Gorovsky, who frequently handles such chases against the Archdiocese. In a statement released by Chackes, the unnamed plaintiff said, ““I approached the Archdiocese multiple times for help and tried to get assistance without getting lawyers involved. Filing a lawsuit was my last resort and due to their inaction.”
Archbishop Robert Carlson
The Post-Dispatch has previously written about Valentine’s misconduct. One story describes his removal; another provides more context. According to one of the stories,
In 1995, three adult brothers sued the archdiocese accusing Valentine of molesting them in 1982. The brothers had been members at St. Pius X Catholic Church in the Glasgow Village area and attended the school there. Valentine denied the charges, and then-Archbishop Justin Rigali backed him up in court.
He put Valentine on administrative leave, and for a time Valentine entered a Catholic facility for troubled priests in eastern Franklin County. Subsequently his address was listed as a St. Louis apartment building. In 1998, the archdiocese paid each of the brothers $20,000 settlements, and the following year Rigali assigned Valentine to a new parish.
Those incidents — and the transfer — would have come after the conduct alleged in this lawsuit. However, the lawsuit does not allege that anyone filed an official complaint about Valentine’s abuse of the Immocalata student at the time it was happening.
Cardinal Justin Rigali
In 2002, when priest abuse scandals became big national news, Valentine’s conduct at St. Pius X was featured in a front-page story in the New York Times. Numerous Pius X parishioners told the paper they had been uncomfortable with the priest’s activities, and that he was subsequently moved to another parish. In the next 12 years, the paper reported, he was assigned to three different parishes — two of them with schools.
We welcome tips and feedback. Email the author at sarah.fenske@riverfronttimes.com
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story misspelled the name of the church where Valentine served during the allegations in the lawsuit. We regret the error.
Long road toward priest’s removal traces church’s abuse journey
Long road toward priest’s removal traces church’s abuse journey
“Father” Leroy Valentine
The St. Louis Archdiocese had what Archbishop Robert Carlson called sad news about clergy sexual abuse.
On May 1, the archdiocese posted a statement from Carlson on its website saying he had permanently removed the Rev. Leroy Valentine, 71, from ministry. An internal, lay investigatory board had determined that “incidents” taking place “in the 1970s” which had been “only recently brought to our attention” were credible, Carlson said.
The archdiocese also published an article in its weekly newspaper, the St. Louis Review, about Valentine’s removal saying the “allegation of abuse occurred in the 1970s.”
A closer look at Valentine’s story reflects a 30-year journey that neatly embodies the Roman Catholic church’s struggle to deal with its sexual abuse troubles over that time.
It’s a sad story — Carlson is right — about a priest who has been repeatedly accused of abuse, and yet neither the law nor the church can prove it. So the archdiocese, despite proclaiming again and again through the years that no allegation against Valentine has been found credible, says he’s “been monitored and supervised continuously since 1999.” He is not guilty. He is not innocent.
In 1995, three adult brothers sued the archdiocese accusing Valentine of molesting them in 1982. The brothers had been members at St. Piux X Catholic Church in the Glasgow Village area and attended the school there.
Archbishop Robert Carlson
Valentine denied the charges, and then-Archbishop Justin Rigali backed him up in court. He put Valentine on administrative leave, and for a time Valentine entered a Catholic facility for troubled priests in eastern Franklin County. Subsequently his address was listed as a St. Louis apartment building.
In 1998, the archdiocese paid each of the brothers $20,000 settlements, and the following year Rigali assigned Valentine to a new parish.
In its story this week, the Review said that Valentine had “repeatedly stated” that the brothers’ allegations was untrue, and “was not found to be credible by civil authorities, and he was returned to active ministry.”
Rigali assigned Valentine to be associate pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle in Florissant in October 1999. In a letter to parishioners, the church’s pastor said “the conclusion of the therapists who evaluated Father Valentine is clear that he poses no threat to children. Additionally, the allegation has been resolved with no finding of guilt or liability on the part of Father Valentine.”
But a little more than two years later, the clergy abuse crisis had rocked the Catholic church back on its heels, and Valentine became the subject of a front-page New York Times story and multiple stories in the Post-Dispatch.
As the crisis expanded during the first months of 2002, the St. Louis archdiocese tightened its abuse policy saying no priest with a substantiated allegation of child sexual abuse would be allowed to work in a pastoral setting or a position that provided access to children.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan
After two priests accused of abuse resigned under the new policy, the archdiocese was under pressure to answer questions about any of its priests who had been accused of abuse in the past. Then-auxiliary Bishop Timothy Dolan (now a cardinal and archbishop of New York) said allegations against Valentine and two other priests who had been sued in civil court were unsubstantiated. The archdiocese had no plans to remove them or to review previous complaints, he said.
“There is nobody we are worried about in the ministry,” Dolan said.
He told the New York Times that, “we have to be able to say, we have to be able to believe, that there is no priest in a parish against whom there is a credible claim of clerical sexual abuse.”
Three days later, the archdiocese issued a statement specifically about Valentine, saying it “continues to support Father Valentine in his ministry to the people of St. Thomas the Apostle Parish.”
But then, a few weeks later, a former altar boy came forward. He was 32, and told the Post-Dispatch that he was 8 at the time Valentine had molested him, in 1978 at Immacolata Church in Richmond Heights. Valentine allegedly put the boy on his lap while hearing his confession, then put his hands in the boy’s pants.
“I was molested during the first sacrament I ever received,” the man said.
Cardinal Justin Rigali
The archdiocese said then that it was investigating new accusations against Valentine “from many years ago.” The alleged misconduct dated to the 1980s, the archdiocese says now.
Valentine resigned from St. Thomas during that investigation but maintained his innocence, saying his departure was “in the best interest of our parish family, of the archdiocese and for my own personal well-being.”
But eventually, the allegations leading to Valentine’s resignation were also found to be unsubstantiated by the archdiocese’s advisory board.
And yet despite being cleared by the archdiocese, Valentine never returned to public ministry.
From his resignation in 2002 until 2005, Valentine lived in a private residence, according to the statement. Since then, he’s been living “in a retirement home.” Public records indicate that is Regina Cleri, the archdiocese’s retirement home for priests on its campus headquarters in Shrewsbury. A request to speak with Valentine went unreturned.
The archdiocese did not distribute a release about Valentine to the secular press. It declined to directly answer questions provided by the Post-Dispatch for this column. It also declined to make anyone available for an interview. Instead, it issued a statement from Phil Hengen, director of its Child and Youth Protection office, who said the recent, credible allegation took place in 1978.
The allegation involved “inappropriate touching of a minor” and the archdiocese learned of it last summer, Hengen said in the statement.
Archdiocese spokeswoman Angela Shelton said the recent allegation involves a single person who says Valentine abused him “on more than one occasion.”
Archdiocese officials investigated, and the process concluded with Carlson’s announcement May 1.
“Father Valentine,” according to Hengen, “will continue to live in a monitored, secure environment.”
THESE ARE CRIMES, NOT SINS, GET IT RIGHT ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH!!!
THESE ARE CRIMES, NOT SINS, GET IT RIGHT ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH!!!
By Frank J LaFerriere
Dear Roman Catholic Church,
When YOU assholes call what you all did to us? When YOU call crimes such as child abuse, child rape, child slavery and yes, child murder just sins? YOU lessen the impact of these crimes.
Get it through your sick and twisted disgusting heads right now.
1. Raping children is a CRIME.
2. Covering up the rapes of children is a CRIME.
3. Enslaving children in your Magdalene Laundries is a CRIME.
4. Murdering children and victims, by their suicides, is a CRIME.
5. Gang raping and gang beating children, like you all did in your Industrial Homes, like the one at Artane, is a CRIME.
6. Standing up and defending these kinds of CRIMES makes YOU an accomplice.
Asking for victims of your crimes to forgive you is WRONG!!! We did absolutely nothing wrong, YOU DID. Why should we even accept YOUR FAKE APOLOGIES when YOU STILL blame US and attack US for your crimes against US? Why do YOU feel we should forgive YOU when you continue to do the following against us:
1. DENYING US JUSTICE FOR THE CRIMES YOU COMMITTED AGAINST US.
2. BLAMING US FOR THE CRIMES THAT WERE COMMITTED AGAINST US.3. ATTACKING US AS THE EVIL ONES FOR STANDING UP AND CRYING OUT ABOUT THE CRIMES YOU COMMITTED AGAINST US.
4. DECLARING US THE EVIL ONES FOR SPEAKING OUT AGAINST THE CRIMES COMMTTED AGAINST US BY YOUR PSYCHOTIC PEDOPHILE PIMPS, YOUR PSYCHOTIC PEDOPHILE AND ABUSIVE PRIESTS, YOUR PSYCHOTIC PEDOPHILE AND ABUSIVE NUNS.
5. USING YOUR SCUMBAGS PSYCHOS LIKE BILL DONOHUE OF THE CATHOLIC LEAGUE TO INSULT AND DENIGRATE US.
You all deserve to be arrested for your crimes against us. You all deserve to pay for your crimes against us, including the murder of us. For when ANY victim of your pedohiles have committed suicide, that is murder and YOU should be charged for it.
YOU DO NOT DESERVE TO BE CALLED HOLY MEN OF GOD. YOU DO NOT DESERVE DIGNITY AND RESPECT. YOU DO NOT DESERVE ANYTHING LESS THAN TO BE CALLED FOR WHO AND WHAT YOU ARE….
YOU ARE DISGUSTING CHILD RAPISTS. YOU ARE DISGUSTING PEDOPHILES. YOU ARE DISGUSTING PEDOPHILE PIMPS. YOU ARE DISGUSTING CHILD MURDERERS.
YOU HAVE RAPED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN. YOU HAVE ENSLAVED THOUSANDS MORE IN YOUR LAUNDRIES. YOU HAVE BEATEN AND TORTURED AND BRUTALIZED THEM. YOU HAVE DESTROYED THEIR LIVES. YOU DO NOT DESERVE PRAISE AND WORSHIP FOR THIS, YOU DESERVE CONDEMNATION AND OSTRASIZATION FOR THIS. YOU DESERVE TO BE ARRESTED AND TRIED AND UPON CONVICTION FOR YOUR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY AND THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD, EXECUTED FOR YOUR CRIMES. NO GREATER CALL FOR A DEATH PENALTY PUNISHMENT THAN THE BRUTAL RAPES, BEATINGS, ENSLAVEMENT AND MURDER OF CHILDREN THAT YOU ALL HAVE DONE AND ARE GUILTY FOR SHOULD BE CALLED FOR. YOU DESERVE TO BE EXECUTED ACTUALLY, IN MY OPINION USING THE VERY TOOLS OF THE INQUISITIONS THAT YOU USED TO EXECUTE OTHERS!!!
The Popes Pear
The Judas Chair
Each and every one of the following named individuals, have overwhelming, convincing and clear evidence against, that they were in fact, Pedophile pimps, in that they moved dangerous pedophile priests, from one parish to another, covering up for the rapes and abuses of children by these disgusting pedophiles and then they raped and abused even more children.
THERE IS OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE AGAINST EACH AND EVERY FOLLOWING NAMED INDIVIDUAL, THEY PLACED THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, ITS PEDOPHILE PRIESTS AND NUNS, IT’S PSYCHOTIC, ABUSIVE PRIESTS AND NUNS, BEFORE THE SAFETY AND PROTECTION OF CHILDREN.
There is clean and convincing evidence, against each and every following named individual, that they are part of the larger organization, The Roman Catholic Church and that worldwide, have committed atrocities and crimes against the children of the world and humanity that are overwhelming provable:
About 35,000 children and teenagers who were orphans, petty thieves, truants, unmarried mothers or from dysfunctional families were sent to Ireland’s network of 250 Church-run industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages and hostels from the 1930s up until the early 1990s. For six decades, priests and nuns terrorised boys and girls in the workhouse-style schools with sexual, physical and mental abuse.
This does NOT include the crimes against children and humanity, where ever these Roman Catholic Churches institutions were found, from Belgium, France, Italy, Australia, New South Wales, Germany, United States, Canada, and the world over.
EACH AND EVER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING PEDOPHILE PIMPS SHOULD BE ARRESTED AND TRIED FOR THEIR
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY AND THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD!!!
Pope Emeritus Benedict
Cardinals: Adam Maida, Agostino Vallini, Angelo Scola, Angelo Sodano, Anthony Bevilacqua, Bernard Law, Dominik Duka, Donald Wuerl, Franc Rode, Francis George, Francisco Javier Errazurtz Ossa, George Pell, Godfried Danneels, Hans Groer, Humberto Mederios, John Cody, John Krol, Joseph Bernardin, Juan Cipriani, Justin Rigali, Keith O’Brien, Leonardo Sandri, Ludwig Mueller, Marc Ouellet, Norberto Rivera, Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga, Partick O’Malley, Peter Turkson, Raymond Burke, Richard Cushing, Roger Mahony, Sean Brady, Silvio Oddi, Tarcisio Bertone, Thomas Winning, Timothy Dolan, Vinko Puljic, Wilfred Fox Napier, William Levada.
Archbishops: Andre Richard, Anthony Sablan, Charles J Chaput, Denis Hart, Diarmuid Martin, Ernest Leger, Frank Little, Gerhard Ludwig Muller, Harry Flynn, Jerome Hanus, Jerome Listecki, John Charles McQuaid, John Clay Neinstedt, John Meyers, John Roach, Jose Horacio Gomez, Josef Wesolowski, Luciano Storero, Mario Conti, Peter Gerety, Peter Sartain, Pio Laghi, Rembert Weakland, Ricardo Ezzati Andrello, Robert Carlson, Silvano Tomasi, Theodore McCarrick, Valery Vienneau, William Cousins, Ricardo Ezzati Andrello.
Bishops: Peter Anthony Libasci, A.J. Quinn, Andrew Cozzens, Anthony O’Connell, Antonio Sarto, Bill Wright, Carl Mengeling, Christopher Foster, David M O’Connell, David Zubik, Donald Kettler, Edward Cullen, Eugene Laroque, Gabino Miranda, George H. Guilfoyle, George Leo Thomas, Gerard Frey, Henry Kennedy, Howard Hubbard, James Garland, James Hoeppner, James Kavanagh, James Murray, James Timlin, John B McCormack, John Doerfler, John Magee, Joseph Cistone, Joseph Devine, Joseph Imesch, Joseph V Adamec, Kieran Thomas Conry, Kenneth Povish, Laurence Glenn, Leo Clarke, Louis E. Gelineau, Marco Antonio Ordenes, Michael Bransfield, Michael Jarrell, Michael John Browne, Michael Malone, Patrick Cooney, Patrick Cotter, Peter Conners, Raphael Michael Fliss, Raymond Lahey, Richard Sklba, Robert C. Evans, Robert E. Mulvee, Robert Finn, Robert Rose, Roger Vangheluwe, Rogello Livieres, Seamus Hegarty, Thomas Curry, Thomas Daily, Thomas J. Tobin, Vincent Leonard, William Lynn, Wilton Gregory, Wojeciech Polak, Maurice Schexnayder.
Bill Donohue of the Catholic League again shoves his foot so far down his throat, he can wiggle his toes out his bunghole to say hi
Bill Donohue of the Catholic League again shoves his foot so far down his throat, he can wiggle his toes out his bunghole to say hi
Bill “Pig Face” Donohue, degenerate leader of the Catholic League
Why yes, Billy Bob sure does love defending the indefensible, shoving his foot so far down his throat this time, that he can wiggle his toes out of his bunghole and say hi….and also proves once again, by his posting
ARCHBISHOP CARLSON HAS BEEN FRAMED
Catalyst July/August Issue 2014
According to attorney Jeffrey Anderson, Commonweal, and other media outlets, the transcript of the exchange between Anderson and Archbishop Carlson revealed that the archbishop did not know it was a crime for an adult to have sex with a child. They are all wrong.
Prior to the controversial exchange (which began with a question regarding mandatory reporting laws—see pp. 108-09 of the transcript), Anderson asked Carlson several questions about Tom Adamson (a homosexual priest who had sex with teenage males). Carlson said, “I remember he was accused of sexual abuse. That’s the trial I participated in.” (See p. 34.) Having said as much, it is simply impossible to believe that Carlson did not know it was against the law for an adult to have sex with a minor.
Anderson also asked, “And you also knew when first degree criminal sexual conduct is written and recorded, that is the most serious of the sex crimes against a child. You know that?” To which Carlson said, “Correct.” (See pp. 98-99.) This is further proof that Carlson knew what the law was; this was also said prior to the controversial exchange.
After the exchange in question, Anderson asked Carlson, “But you knew a priest touching the genitals of a kid to be a crime; did you not?” Carlson answered, “Yes.” (See p. 145.)
Further exculpatory proof can be found on pp. 17, 23, 34, 74, 113, 114, 115, and 132. On eight different occasions Carlson restated to Anderson that he told relatives of the victims to go to the police. He wouldn’t have done so unless he knew a crime may have been committed.
From Bill’s own piehole:
“Having said as much, it is simply impossible to believe that Carlson did not know it was against the law for an adult to have sex with a minor.”
But Billy Bob…that is exactly what he said you douchebag:
Pedophile Pimp, Cardinal George Pell
Anderson: “Archbishop, you knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a kid.”
Carlson: “I’m not sure I knew whether it was a crime or not. I understand today it’s a crime.”
Anderson: “When did you first discern it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a kid?”
Carlson: “I don’t remember.”
Anderson: “When did you first discern that it was a crime for a priest to engage in sex with a kid who he had under his control?”
Carlson: “I don’t remember that either.”
Anderson: “Do you have any doubt in your mind that you knew that in the ’70s?”
Carlson: “I don’t remember if I did or didn’t.”
Anderson: “In 1984, you are a bishop, an auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. You knew it was a crime then, right?”
Carlson: “I’m not sure if I did or didn’t.”
AGAIN BILLY BOB, THANK YOU FOR PROVING WHAT A COMPLETE AND UTTER DOUCHEBAG YOU ARE AND PROVING THE FACTS THAT ARCHBISHOP ROBERT CARLSON IS A FREAKING TWO FACED LIAR AND A PEDOPHILE PIMP FOR COVERING UP THE RAPISTS OF CHILDREN.
Kenneth LaVan, accused priest, kept working for archdiocese until 2014
Kenneth LaVan, accused priest, kept working for archdiocese until 2014
Father Kenneth LaVan, sexually disordered priest and pedophile.
As a bishop, Robert Carlson was responsible for sniffing out sexual misconduct. It was February 1985, and he’d just gotten through interviewing Father Kenneth LaVan and a married woman who’d slept with the priest after his repeated and aggressive advances.
She was scared, she said, because he’d begun appearing outside her home and crashed a family trip to the beach. The woman’s husband confronted LaVan, and he responded by giving a sermon the following Sunday about those who would not forgive.
In private, he was more direct. As Carlson would later write, LaVan had “mentioned a threat about possibly burning down the house” and murdering her husband. But he was quoted as adding, “I am not that kind of person.”
Next came Carlson’s recommendation to Archbishop John Roach: “[W]e accept Father LaVan’s resignation from the parish, find a suitable cover story and get him into a in-patient treatment program.” He urged the archdiocese to act quickly, “so this thing does not blow up.”
But blow up, it did. Three decades later, LaVan’s personnel file — more than 1,400 pages in length — is now in the public domain. It comes to us as part of a lawsuit filed by attorney Jeff Anderson and his minions, who allege that the archdiocese (with the help of the Diocese of Winona) has protected sexual predators.
In a statement, Bishop Andrew Cozzens apologized “for the harm caused by some of our priests.” He argued that a lot has changed in recent years, including the church’s understanding of mental health and the way it reacts to abuse: “Under today’s standards and protocols, if we were to receive similar allegations regarding a priest, police would immediately be notified.”
LaVan has been accused of molesting several women (including one who suffered from a brain injury) and at least three girls (including one who had been studying to become a nun). One of those girls reported that the priest cornered her and felt her up and down while kissing madly. Another described for Gary Schoener, a psychologist hired by the archdiocese, the way LaVan pinned her to the floor, held her mouth shut, and raped her.
Pedophile Pimp, Cardinal George Pell
Although Schoener warned, as far back as 1988, that putting LaVan back into ministry was “very risky,” that’s exactly what the clergy did. After two stints in treatment and two lawsuits, LaVan retired in 1997 but continued to pick up services for vacationing priests.
In 2005, then Vicar General Kevin McDonough wrote to his superior, Archbishop Harry Flynn, seeking advice on what to do with the old boy. There were two options: ask LaVan to leave gracefully or reopen the investigation. Rules implemented in the wake of the Boston sex abuse scandal made it clear that any priest with a single act on his record needed to go.
Flynn came back with a third option: leave it alone. “I do not think we should reopen this case again since it seems to have been closed to the satisfaction of everyone involved,” he wrote.
Archbishop John Nienstedt finally stripped LaVan of responsibilities in January 2014, one month after the release of the archdiocese’s list of “credibly accused” priests. LaVan was added to that list in March.
Bishop in charge of Twin Cities abuse investigations: I didn’t know child sex was crime
Bishop in charge of Twin Cities abuse investigations: I didn’t know child sex was crime [VIDEO]
Archbishop Robert Carlson
Before he became archbishop in St. Louis, Robert Carlson was an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis during the 1980s.
One of his jobs in that role was to handle sex abuse allegations made against Twin Cities priests. So it strains credulity to hear him say during a recent deposition that he didn’t know having sex with children was a crime back then.
Here’s video of what Carlson said under questioning by Twin Cities attorney Jeff Anderson down in St. Louis during last month’s deposition, followed by a transcript:
Anderson: “Archbishop, you knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a kid.”
Carlson: “I’m not sure I knew whether it was a crime or not. I understand today it’s a crime.”
Anderson: “When did you first discern it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a kid?”
Carlson: “I don’t remember.”
Anderson: “When did you first discern that it was a crime for a priest to engage in sex with a kid who he had under his control?”
Carlson: “I don’t remember that either.”
Anderson: “Do you have any doubt in your mind that you knew that in the ’70s?”
Carlson: “I don’t remember if I did or didn’t.”
Anderson: “In 1984, you are a bishop, an auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. You knew it was a crime then, right?”
Carlson: “I’m not sure if I did or didn’t.”
While Carlson’s comments are implausible when taken at face value, they’re even harder to believe when compared to this 1984 letter written to then-archbishop John Roach in which Carlson discusses a specific sexual abuse allegation against a priest and the statute of limitations (it was recently released publicly by Anderson):
Carlsons letter
Reached for comment today, Anderson describes Carlson’s duties while he was in the Twin Cities as consisting of “investigating and taking [sex abuse allegation] reports, and then basically keeping those reports quiet, appeasing the victims, suppressing the information, removing or transferring the priests and protecting them, to the peril of many obviously.”
Anderson says he’s conducted 15 depositions with Carlson over the years, during which he’s said “I don’t remember” in response to nearly 200 questions.
“Obviously you’re sitting there with the priest, and he admits criminal sexual conduct to you but you say in the memo that the statute of limitations is two-and-a-half years for criminal prosecution and you write that memo to your superior, and then you say you don’t remember?” Anderson says. “Come on. It’s clearly a perjury in the true legal sense, but do people get prosecuted for lying under oath in depositions? Rarely does that happen. It hasn’t happened in my three decades of taking depositions.”
“I’ve taken his deposition 15 times, and it’s always the same,” Anderson continues. “He doesn’t remember anything. If it’s in writing, then he doesn’t remember writing it.”
Anderson says Carlson incriminating deposition will be used as evidence in two Catholic Church abuse scandal trials he has coming up, one next month in St. Louis and another this fall in St. Paul.
rapevictimsofthecatholicchurch 