After Second Complaint, Bishop Removed Priest

Star-Telegram [Fort Worth TX]
November 29, 2006

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/16121798.htm

[See related articles on the Fort Worth files, and the accused priests Hanlon, Hoover, Howlett, Reilly, and Rentería. See also the documents on which this series is based, with links to assignment records and background information.]

[Note from BishopAccountability.org: We have provided links to the documents quoted and referenced in this article. Our additions are in square brackets. See here for the original article without links to the documents. See also all the released Magaldi documents in batches, and a list of links to selected Magaldi documents.]

The Rev. Philip Anthony Magaldi

Incardinated: Jan. 30, 1995

Assignments: St. Mary, Henrietta; St. John the Apostle, North Richland Hills [See also a more complete list of assignments.]

Philip Anthony Magaldi

Over the Rev. Philip Magaldi's flamboyant career [see Bishop Delaney's use of the same phrase in a 12/23/98 memo], he weathered perjury charges in New England and served time in a halfway house for embezzling $123,400 from his Rhode Island parish.

The diocese kept quiet about the first sexual abuse complaint against him in 1997. But a second, startlingly similar allegation -- and the threat of publicity -- about two years later forced Bishop Delaney to remove the priest from ministry.

Details of one allegation were not revealed until the documents were released Tuesday.

Even as Delaney came to believe that Magaldi was a possible danger to children, he considered returning him to limited duties or helping him find work in another diocese.

Magaldi's last assignment was as associate pastor at St. John the Apostle Catholic Church in North Richland Hills. Church officials there would later learn of additional claims of inappropriate behavior, including his visiting Web chat rooms "looking for minors" and possessing "pedophilic material." [See Thompson's 10/5/01 email.]

There is no record in the files released by the court that the bishop contacted police about the abuse allegations or the material reportedly found on Magaldi's computer.

Jerry Koller, a friend of Magaldi's who said he is the priest's caregiver, said Tuesday that Magaldi was too ill to give interviews. Koller said he believes that Magaldi was falsely accused.

The priest has maintained his innocence.

The first complaint

The first sexual misconduct complaint against Magaldi surfaced in January 1997 when a college student contacted Delaney [see Delaney's 1/3/97 memo] and later the Rev. Robert Wilson, the former chancellor of the diocese [see Wilson's 1/8/97 memo].

Magaldi befriended the man in summer 1995 after he had given his confession at a church, according to the files.

During the summer, Magaldi, then in his 60s, spent time with the man. Magaldi took him to dinner at expensive restaurants. The man said he was concerned that Magaldi never wore his clerical garb.

Magaldi introduced the man as his nephew and encouraged the minor to have beer or wine, according to the files.

The two went swimming at Magaldi's apartment complex, and the man felt that the priest was "getting too friendly," according to Delaney's notes.

At other times, Magaldi would grab the man's buttocks, which the priest explained by saying "we always did that in high school," according to the files [see 1/8/97 Chancery memo].

Magaldi then asked the student for a strange favor: The priest wanted the man to help administer four enemas that Magaldi said his doctor had prescribed.

Magaldi said he wanted to avoid embarrassment by having the man administer them instead of going to his mother. He offered him $25 each time he did it. The man told Magaldi that he didn't want to take part. But Magaldi insisted, and the man eventually agreed, the man told diocese officials.

The man "realized that what happened was unwholesome and is worried that PM [Magaldi] may be doing the same -- or worse -- to other young men," Delaney wrote in his notes. [See Delaney's 1/3/97 memo.]

Magaldi sent him $100 checks every six weeks, the files say.

In fall 1995, Magaldi encountered the man again and kissed him on the lips, the man told diocese officials. Magaldi later wrote him, "explaining away what he did and sending more money," according to Delaney's notes in the files. In a 1999 interview with a church official, Magaldi did not deny the incident but said "this was not a sexual thing." [See the relevant excerpt from this interview, which was conducted on 12/30/98 by an investigator in the Providence diocese. See also the full interview transcript: Parts 1, 2, 3 , and 4.] He also said the kiss was misinterpreted and was on the cheek, not the lips, "as Italians do." [See 1/8/97 Chancery memo for this quote.] Church officials met with Magaldi, who appeared anxious and animated during his interview, the records show. "He had assumed that there would be a major lawsuit involving large sums of settlement money and was told by Father Wilson that this did not appear to be the case." [See 1/8/97 Chancery memo.]

Magaldi denied all wrongdoing.

Magaldi said he befriended the man because he saw him as a potential "vocation." If he ordered wine at dinner, he didn't encourage the student to drink, he told the officials.

Magaldi admitted paying the man to administer enemas.

An unidentified person wrote that Magaldi was "completely without insight regarding his actions and certainly lacking in sound judgment. He assumes no responsibility and sees nothing questionable in his actions." [See 1/8/97 Chancery memo for Magaldi's version.]

Wilson noted in a January 1997 report that a committee "believes that PM [Magaldi] is guilty of sexual exploitation." [See Wilson's 1/12/97 executive summary.]

Records show that Magaldi remained at St. John the Apostle under the supervision of another priest for at least eight months.

The records show that Wilson told Magaldi's accuser that the priest "would not be in contact with youth in the parish, and had been taken off the altar server duty." [See Wilson's 2/13/97 memo. See also Delaney's earlier 1/17/97 memo describing his conversation with Magaldi announcing these arrangements; Magaldi complained and met with Delaney.]

[BA.org note: Magaldi was, however, sent to Providence to talk with the diocesan investigator there on 12/30/98 (see the full transcript of that interview 1, 2, 3 , and 4) and to take a polygraph test. Then he was sent for an evaluation beginning 1/3/99. The evaluation facility's name is redacted in the committee's 12/19/98 interview transcript (PDF pp. 13, 16-18) and in a 12/23/98 memo by Delaney to the facility. Perhaps it was the Institute of Living, which is in Hartford CT. See also the interesting attachment to Delaney's 12/23/98 memo, containing a description by Delaney of Magaldi's involvement in the von Bulow trial and his embezzlement conviction.]

[BA.org note: See Delaney's 2/19/99 note for that quote and the following one. This important memo also reveals that the evaluation facility recommended Magaldi "return for extended therapy," and that Delaney postponed a decision on the recommendation until he had the polygraph results. Those results are also discussed in the memo, as is the news that the accuser has "retained an attorney."]

Still, Delaney told Magaldi that "I could try to assist him to find a place in ministry in another diocese, or that he could retire."

In March, shortly before Magaldi was removed, Delaney witnessed firsthand what he described as an inappropriate gesture: Magaldi held his cheek against an altar boy's and tied the boy's cincture. [See Delaney's 3/11/99 memo describing this gesture.] Then, in April, Delaney learned of reports that Magaldi was allowing a 13- or 14-year-old boy to stay with him during the day. [See Schumacher's 4/7/99 email to Delaney.]

In mid-April [1999], Delaney removed Magaldi from ministry.

[BA.org note: See Delaney's 4/16/99 memo referring to the 4/9/99 threat of a lawsuit and describing the committee's approval of the decision to retire Magaldi; see also Delaney's 4/19/99 memo describing a meeting that Magaldi had with sympathetic parishioners about his retirement. In a 4/29/99 follow-up letter to the diocesan lawyer, the Worcester accuser's attorney revealed that he had learned about the earlier 1997 Fort Worth allegation. The importance of this revelation is indicated by double exclamation points in the margin of the diocesan copy of the letter. In a 5/21/99 letter to Magaldi, Delaney confirmed Magaldi's 4/25/99 retirement and restrictions. But in a 4/29/99 memo, Delaney reports that the Fort Worth accuser had called him, saying that he'd heard Magaldi's retirement was temporary. Delaney replied that it was permanent. The accuser offered to go public "if it were needed to bolster the case for keeping PM out of ministry. I told him I didn't think that would be necessary." Yet when the Worcester accuser filed a federal suit in July 1999, the Fort Worth diocese issued a press release on 7/22/99, stating that "if Fr. Magaldi is exonerated [in the Worcester case], his status will be reevaluated."

A 4/18/00 email from Schumacher to Delaney states that Magaldi's faculties "had been taken away for a second time, just within the past week." This indicates that sometime between April 1999 and April 2000, Magaldi's faculties had indeed been restored. Perhaps they were restored as a result of Magaldi's 3/21/00 request, enclosing the notice that the Worcester accuser's suit had been dismissed, albeit without prejudice. Then why were Magaldi's faculties again removed within the month? A handwritten note apparently in Wilson's hand on the copy of the notice might be relevant: "3-23-00 J. Crumley [diocesan attorney] called to emphasize the 'without prejudice'." Also, the Worcester accuser refiled his suit in April 2000.]

[BA.org note: Magaldi failed his first test on 1/2/99, and then passed a 2/21/99 test arranged by his own lawyer. The results of the failed test and a second opinion on the first test seem to have been withheld from this document release (perhaps they are in the pp. 602 to 612 block of withheld pages). But the results of the test that Magaldi passed were released. The results of the Worcester accuser's 4/3/99 polygraph are included twice (1 2). The results of Magaldi's tests are described in Delaney's 2/24/99 memo and his earlier 2/19/99 memo.]

[BA.org note: Magaldi appealed Delaney's decision to the Vatican, which on 3/16/02 raised the issue again with Delaney, who replied on 4/11/02. In a 1/11/03 letter, Magaldi asked the Fort Worth diocese for a copy of his personnel file, on the advice of Msgr. William Varvaro, his canon lawyer.]