Suit Seattle U Prez Kept Quiet about Priest Abuse, KOMO, January 14, 2009

Suit: Seattle U Prez Kept Quiet about Priest Abuse

KOMO
January 14, 2009

http://www.komonews.com/news/37613109.html

[with video]

SEATTLE — Twenty eight Jesuit priests accused of sexual abuse were sent to remote villages in Alaska where they lived, unmonitored, and continued to abuse victims for decades, according to a lawsuit filed against the Jesuit order this week.

Jesuit institutions named as defendants include the Society of Jesus in Rome; the Oregon Province of the Catholic order, which serves five Northwest states including Washington and Alaska. The suit alleges troubled priests from four different countries were sent to Alaska in order to hide them from the public eye.

Flo Kenney, 74, is seen holding pictures of her family members and village leaders who she said were ousted from positions of power when the Jesuits arrived.

According to the suit, Jesuit leaders, including the current president of Seattle University, kept secret files called "hell files" about these priests, and these personnel files detailed special information that was "not good" and not to be made public.

"The Jesuits knew, had to have known, could not possibly have not known what was going on in Alaska. Turned a blind eye to it," said Ken Roosa, the victims' attorney.

Individual defendants are the Rev. Adolfo Nicolas, the order's superior general; the Rev. Stephen V. Sundborg, provincial, or head of the Jesuit province, from 1990-96 and president of Seattle University since July 1997; an aging Jesuit priest, the Rev. Henry G. Hargreaves; Anton Smario and 100 people whose names are unknown to plaintiffs.

Elsie Boudreau said she was also abused by a priest as a child while growing up in the small Alaska town that could only be reached by plane.

"I believe Alaska became the ideal place for perpetrators, because of the isolation," she said "And the way the Native people were looked upon as being 'ignorant.'"

Alfonsus Abouchek is one of 43 Alaska natives who claim Jesuit priests sexually abused them between the 1950s and the 1990s. He said a priest assaulted him numerous times.

"(In) exchange for like 50 cents 75 cents, because my family was very very poor at the time," he said. "I tried to commit suicide over this a number of times in the 80s, then I turned to alcohol and drugs to kill the pain."

Roosa said Sundborg, current president of Seattle University, was among those who turned that blind eye. Sundborg was the regional head of the Jesuits during the time a victim claims to have been raped by Fr. Henry Hargreaves.

"This young boy was horribly abused," Roosa said.

The suit claims Hargreaves "hell file" of abuse allegations went back to 1960.

"Despite that, Fr. Sundborg allowed Fr. Hargreaves to remain in ministry," said Roosa.

Sundborg and the Very Rev. Patrick J. Lee, head of the Oregon province, denied that they knew of sexual wrongdoing or were involved in covering up wrongdoing by priests in Alaska, although the order has paid millions of dollars in recent years to settle sexual abuse claims in Alaska.

Faced with rising abuse lawsuits, the Fairbanks diocese filed for bankruptcy protection in March.

Responding to the lawsuit, Sundborg posted the following statement on the university's Web site:

"The allegations brought against me are false. I firmly deny them. I want the victims and the entire community to know that. The complaint filed by the plaintiffs' lawyers represents an unprincipled and irresponsible attack on my reputation. Let me be clear—my commitment to justice and reconciliation for all victims remains steadfast.

"The sexual abuse by Catholic priests is one of the most shameful episodes in the history of our church. I will continue to work toward the goal of bringing healing to all victims."

Boudreau doesn't buy Sundborg's words. She said the priests ruled the villages and as a result, she could not talk to anyone about the abuse she endured for nine years.

"They had so much power in the village. Their word was God," she said.

Boudreau said had anyone in the hierarchy come forward, she would have been spared the abuse she suffered.

"They knew long before I was even born that Fr. (James) Poole had a problem with young girls, and they did nothing," she said.

Operating in impoverished hamlets far from police agencies and reachable only by small aircraft, dog sleds and in some cases boats, and in a diocese where the bishop also was a Jesuit, those priests were the ultimate local authority, Roosa said.

"It was a pedophile's paradise," he said.

"We all knew but we all kept quiet because we were just so threatened," said victim Rena Abouchek, who said six of her cousins committed suicide as youngsters after being abused.

Rena Abouchuk fought back tears as she read a letter to Smario, who Roosa said now lives in Concord, Calif., accusing him of touching her and other girls "in ways that I will never forget" and of other abuse starting when she was 7 in 1975.

"You made us touch you," she continued. "You did so many evil things to children ... and lived your life like you did nothing wrong."

Another victim, Flo Kenney, just ended her decades of silence last month when she finally told her husband what she had endured as a teenager.

"I'm 74 years old, and I've kept silent for 60 years," she said. "And I'm here to speak for all the ones who couldn't speak, all the abused children that are dead, have committed suicide, are homeless, are drug addicts. Nobody believed them."

Kenney said she was abused for four years after a teacher sent her to a priest for counseling.

"All of that counseling and comforting turned into sexual abuse," she said. "I'm speaking now, because there's always a time, an end to silence, an end to secrets. And this is the time."

Lawsuits are also being prepared on behalf of 60 other men and women accusing Jesuits in remote northern Alaska outposts of abusing those people when they were children and teenagers from the late 1940s through 2001, Roosa said.

Last year the Oregon Province agreed to pay $4.8 million to 16 Native Americans who were abused years ago on the Colville Indian Reservation near Omak.

In this case the victim's attorneys are not after Sundborg's money - the priest has taken a vow of poverty; the attorneys said they want to highlight what they claim is his lack of action.