By Sam Hemingway
Free Press
December 12, 2008
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20081212/NEWS02/81211034
Bishop Salvatore Matano, in videotaped testimony shown Thursday to the jury in a priest sexual abuse trial in Burlington, acknowledged that the late Bishop John Marshall erred when he hired a priest with a history of molesting boys.
“I think that the actions he took, as time has unfolded, were wrong,” Matano said in a portion of an Oct. 2 interview conducted by Jerome O’Neill, a lawyer who represents 19 former altar boys who have filed lawsuits filed in Chittenden Superior Court alleging they were abused by the Rev. Edward Paquette.
 |
| Bishop Salvatore Matano watches a video of a deposition of himself being shown during a trial in a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington in Chittenden Superior Court on Thursday. |
Matano said he believes Marshall hired Paquette, whom the diocese knew had previously molested boys in Indiana and Massachusetts, as a favor to an Indiana bishop.
Matano said Marshall relied on the advice of church psychologists who thought Paquette’s sexual deviancy had been cured in deciding to employ Paquette. Marshall stepped down as bishop in Vermont in 1992 and died two years later. Matano has been bishop since 2005.
“I believe Bishop Marshall thought that with the direction he was given that ... (Paquette) would not repeat his crime,” Matano said. “I believe ... (Marshall) handled it the best way he could in his mind.”
Marshall banished Paquette from priestly duties in 1978 after parents of several altar boys at Christ the King Church in Burlington complained that Paquette was molesting their sons. Paquette also molested two young men in Rutland earlier in his Vermont tenure, church records show.
The case before the jury this week involves claims by a Takoma Park, Md., man that as an 11-year-old altar boy he was twice molested by Paquette at Christ the King Church in the late 1970s.
The diocese has claimed the case is invalid because the man waited too long to file his lawsuit regarding incidents that took place 30 years ago. Paquette, who is retired and lives in Westfield, Mass., is not a defendant in the case.
The video presentation of Matano’s testimony represented an unusual development in the case. It was the first time he has commented in detail about the Paquette cases. In addition, Matano has attended every day of the trial and could have testified in person.
He didn’t because, under court rules, O’Neill had the option of using the video or having Matano testify live and chose the former.
“It’s the statement he gave previously and we’re using it,” O’Neill said when asked by a reporter why he selected the video over Matano’s live testimony. Matano, asked what he thought of O’Neill’s course of action said, “It’s his choice. It’s the way he decided it.”
At several points during the hourlong video, O’Neill tried to get Matano to say that Marshall engaged in “reckless” conduct by employing a known child molester.
“Reckless means he did not care,” Matano replied at one point. “There was a systematized effort to deal with the problem. If he was reckless, he would have ignored the problem.”
At another point in his testimony, Matano said a bishop has a deeper loyalty to a priest than he would to other diocesan employees, including parochial school teachers.
“The relationship a priest has with a bishop is significantly different than a contractual relationship,” Matano said. “It is like that of a child to a parent. The child may make mistakes, commit errors, maybe even commit a crime, but the child remains part of the family.”
O’Neill, on behalf of his client, rested his case early Thursday afternoon. Later in the day, lawyers for the diocese had Kevin Scully, a former Burlington Police Chief and now the diocese’s director of safe environment, talk about the diocese’s efforts over the years to combat child sexual abuse by church personnel.
Judge Dennis Pearson also ruled late Thursday that he will allow the jury to consider awarding punitive damages and declined to throw out the case on statute-of-limitations grounds. Both rulings were sought by lawyers for the former altar boy and opposed by the diocese.
The trial enters its eighth day today with more testimony about the diocese’s efforts to address priest sexual misconduct issues.
Contact Sam Hemingway at 660-1850 or e-mail at shemingway@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.