Deadline for Applying for Assistance Is Today
By David Yonke
Toledo Blade
May 16, 2008
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080516/NEWS17/805160341/-1/NEWS
The deadline for Ohio victims of clerical sexual abuse to apply for $3 million in counseling funds expires today, and it appears that most of the money will go unused.
"We have had some applicants, but as far as I know we haven't had a huge number," said Carolyn Jurkowitz, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Ohio.
A Toledo diocesan official said several months ago that he was "100 percent positive" no one in the 19-county Toledo diocese had received funding from the program.
The Columbus-based Catholic Conference of Ohio established the Counseling Assistance Fund in November, 2006, with eight Catholic dioceses and one Byzantine eparchy chipping in a total of $3 million.
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| Jurkowitz |
It set a May 16 deadline to apply, after which the unused funds - minus future costs for approved counseling - would be returned to the dioceses.
The stated purpose of the statewide counseling fund, believed to be the only one of its kind, was to help clerical-abuse victims wary of approaching church officials for help.
"This is completely separate from the church," Timothy Luckhaupt, former executive director of the Catholic Conference of Ohio, said when the fund was created.
The money was deposited in a Fifth Third Bank account, claim forms were made available online, and a three-person independent panel was entrusted with deciding whether to approve payments for counseling.
There was no cap on individual awards, but Mr. Luckhaupt said the conference had estimated 250 to 300 people would apply statewide and receive an average of $10,000 to $12,000.
Ms. Jurkowitz said that since the church intentionally distanced itself from the fund to make it easier for abuse victims to apply, she had no data on applicants or funds allotted.
But, she said, creating the program "was the right thing to do no matter what. Whether one person is helped by it or 2,001 people are helped by it, we needed to do something."
At least one abuse victim said he did not apply because he did not want to give up his right to sue the church.
Tom Ferguson, 47, a former Toledoan living in Cleveland, said yesterday that Frank DiLallo, the Toledo diocese's case manager, encouraged him to apply to the counseling fund but he did not because it would have forced him to waive his rights to a lawsuit or settlement.
Mr. Luckhaupt said when the fund was created that victims "have to make a choice" between applying for counseling funds or suing the church.
Mr. Ferguson filed a lawsuit Feb. 12 against Dr. Glen Shrimplin, a dentist and former ordained deacon in the Toledo diocese, in Florida, where the alleged abuse occurred 30 years ago.
He announced the suit in a news conference outside the Toledo diocese's headquarters on Feb. 13, and said Mr. DiLallo contacted him three weeks later to say the Toledo diocese would pay his counseling bills.
Mr. Ferguson said he has since gone to about "15 or 16" therapy sessions and "as far as I know," the bills have been paid.
Dr. Shrimplin, 73, was ordained a deacon in 1974 and voluntarily left the Catholic Church in 1987. The Vatican laicized, or defrocked him, last November. Dr. Shrimplin could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Mr. DiLallo told Mr. Ferguson in a Feb. 4 e-mail that "I am 100 percent positive that the Diocese of Toledo has not had anyone receive funding from the statewide program. My understanding is that there have been very few that have signed up for it, which is surprising because it is a $3 million pot."
Today's application deadline will not be extended, Ms. Jurkowitz said.
Claudia Vercellotti, co-coordinator of the Toledo chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said she is not surprised that abuse victims have not flocked to the fund.
"Even the most wounded victims realize that this is another wolf-in-sheep's-clothing deal," she said. "The Ohio bishops are trying to ensure that any cases that are still out there will never see the light of day in court."
Information on the program is available online at www.counselingassistancefund.org or by calling 1-800-366-0494.
Contact David Yonke at: dyonke@theblade.comor 419-724-6154.
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