By Kevin O'Connor
Times Argus
September 27, 2009
http://www.timesargus.com/article/20090927/NEWS01/909270349/1002/NEWS01
A week before last Christmas, Vermont Catholic Bishop Salvatore Matano — stunned by a priest sexual misconduct verdict that raised fines against the state's largest religious denomination to more than $12 million — walked out of court vowing change.
"I apologize to the plaintiff for the harm and the hurt that he endured," said Matano, his voice breaking and eyes brimming with tears. "I express my apologies to the people of this diocese. They have expectations I know I am not meeting. I am just trying to assess how I can bring this to a conclusion."
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So why is the bishop returning to the same court for yet another potentially bankrupting case involving similar child-molestation claims against the same clergyman?
Because suddenly everything else is different.
This week's Chittenden Superior Court trial of former altar boy Michael Keppler v. the statewide Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington may seem to be just another episode in a seven-year saga involving nearly 40 negligence lawsuits. But it features a new judge who's voicing impatience and a new economy that's devaluing assets the diocese may have to tap if the state Supreme Court upholds past verdicts now on appeal.
Judge Helen Toor, who just took over 25 pending civil cases filed as far back as 2005, wants to pick up the pace. Having tried but failed to push lawyers into resolving them through mediation and out-of-court settlements, she's now aiming to limit testimony that, in at least one instance, could hinder the plaintiff.
In a pretrial ruling, the judge has told lawyers they only can tell the jury about the specific priest in the specific case rather than, as in past trials, all other claims against other clergymen.
"Although it may be relevant to punitive damages," Toor wrote, "the probative value of evidence regarding unrelated actions by other priests is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice."
For the diocese, however, the financial threat is growing. The church says it doesn't have cash on hand to pay for costly verdicts and is suing its former insurer for support. In the meantime, the court has placed liens on an increasing number of Catholic properties to assure any and all judgments are paid.
After one jury issued a record $8.7 million verdict in May 2008, the court placed a lien on the diocese's Burlington headquarters, a historic brick building along Lake Champlain. After a second jury issued a nearly $3.6 million verdict in another case last December, the court placed a lien on the surrounding land.
But since then, an appraiser has said the 32-acre complex, assessed by the city at $11 million, is worth only $6 million. As a result, the court is putting liens on four church-owned nursing homes (Burlington's St. Joseph's Home, Derby's Michaud Memorial Manor and Rutland's Loretto Home and St. Joseph Kervick Residence), the former Camp Holy Cross in Colchester and $1.8 million of the diocese's $8.5 million investment portfolio.
For his part, lawyer Jerome O'Neill, representing all the plaintiffs, has filed a lawsuit claiming the diocese unlawfully transferred most of the rest of its assets to other entities so it wouldn't risk losing them in court. Records show the diocese not only has placed its 119 local churches into individual charitable trusts but also moved $7.5 million out of its investment portfolio into a pension fund and other accounts.
Both the bishop and diocesan lawyer Thomas McCormick declined to comment in advance of this week's trial. O'Neill, speaking for the plaintiffs, would only express his frustration with attempts at mediation.
"Every one of our clients would like to put these cases behind them," O'Neill says. "But they want justice. They want to be treated fairly."
The head of BishopAccountability.org, a Massachusetts-based Web site that chronicles priest misconduct, says the Vermont diocese is unusual for allowing so many cases to go to trial.
Terence McKiernan says only about 40 of the estimated 3,000 priest misconduct complaints filed nationally have gone to trial, with five of those in a Vermont court. He says that's because, in part, dioceses or plaintiffs in larger states with hundreds of cases have pushed for group settlements, often tapping insurance or, as seen in seven U.S. dioceses, declaring bankruptcy.
The 118,000-member Vermont diocese has spent at least $2 million to resolve nine previous negligence lawsuits yet still faces 25 more cases involving seven retired or recently deceased priests.
Twenty of those center on the former Rev. Edward Paquette, who worked in Rutland in 1972, Montpelier in 1974 and Burlington in 1976. Two different juries in two different trials last year found the diocese negligent in hiring and supervising Paquette, who church leaders kept transferring without telling anyone he previously had molested boys in Massachusetts and Indiana.
O'Neill is expected to argue the same case for Keppler, a 44-year-old Burlington native who was an altar boy at his hometown Christ the King Church when Paquette allegedly sexually abused him three decades ago.
Although suspended from the priesthood in 1978, Paquette — now 80 and living in Massachusetts — continued to dress like a clergyman for decades, according to two letters filed recently in court.
The Diocese of Springfield, Mass., wrote Paquette after he joined in a first communion Mass in 1999: "Due to the possibility that confusion as to your status may be caused by wearing clerical garb, it is strongly recommended that you not present yourself in public in priestly attire."
And the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., wrote him after learning he still was wearing a clerical collar in 2005: "It is strictly forbidden for you to appear in public dressed in any way as a priest or to conduct blessings as a priest."
The Vatican finally defrocked Paquette last spring.
Contact: kevin.oconnor@rutlandherald.com.
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