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	Records Show Egan Evasive, Skeptical about Sex Abuse Claims By Michael P. Mayko News Times December 2, 2009 http://www.newstimes.com/local/article/Records-show-Egan-evasive-skeptical-about-sex-272393.php Edward Egan was defensive, evasive and, at times, argumentative when questioned about his role investigating complaints of sexual misconduct by priests in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport during his tenure as bishop from 1988 to 2000, according to previously secret documents on the abuse cases unsealed Tuesday by court order. The release of nearly 12,600 pages of documents at Waterbury Superior Court came after the U.S. Supreme Court last month ended a legal battle of more than seven years when justices refused to hear diocesan lawyers' appeal to keep them private. While Egan claimed to be proud of "the excellent" written policy he helped establish as Bridgeport's bishop, he also appeared complicit in a policy of disinformation concerning the practice of abruptly reassigning priests accused of sexual abuse. The explanation for a priest's new assignment, if a public one was offered at all, often involved a feigned medical problem. If "anyone were to ask, I would simply say they probably had no business to ask and I would just avoid the answer," Egan said under questioning by the late T. Paul Tremont in a deposition in October 1997. Tremont, who with partner Cindy Robinson, and another local lawyer, Henry Lyon, sued the diocese on behalf of 64 people claiming they had been abused by diocesan priests, won a total of nearly $36 million in settlements for their plaintiffs. In a September 1999 deposition, Egan told the lawyers that if claims of sexual abuse by priests had been reported they would be brought to his attention. "Were any such complaints made in regard to a claim that a priest was abusing, sexually, some of the children of the parish?" "No," Egan replied. When asked why the Rev. Raymond Pcolka, who was accused of abusing children at several Fairfield County parishes, was still being paid by the diocese despite disregarding Egan's order to remain at the Institute of Living in Hartford to undergo a full psychiatric exam, the bishop was elusive. "Where do you send those monies to?" Robinson asked Egan. "I thought I said he's not available to me. ... He doesn't respond to me," Egan said, avoiding a direct answer. The diocese also paid for Pcolka's lawyer, for which Egan said they were obligated. In page after page in the depositions, Egan, who has a doctorate in Catholic canonical law, verbally jousted with the lawyers for the plaintiffs claiming sexual abuse. The documents were unsealed following lawsuits filed by the New York Times, Hartford Courant, Boston Globe and Washington Post. "For virtually eight years, the diocese fought all our efforts to obtain documents and simultaneously sought to seal depositions and documents obtained," Robinson said Tuesday. "In many ways, the diocese tactics re-victimized the abused. They required the victims, their parents, sometimes even their siblings to sit down for lengthy depositions." Egan, who never offered a public apology to the abuse victims while he was Bridgeport bishop, left the diocese in 2000 to become cardinal of the Archdiocese of New York. He retired from that post in April. Robinson said what she found most disturbing in Egan's testimony, however, is how he "never showed pastoral concern or offered counseling to the victims." Take one exchange with Egan in September 1999. She asked him if he kept statistics on the number of claims or lawsuits brought against the Diocese of Bridgeport. His response: "Claims are one thing. One does not take every claim against every human being as a proved misdeed. I'm interested in proved misdeeds. ... Claims are not of interest to me. Realities are." He also told Robinson that incidents of sexual abuse by clergy "happen in such small numbers. It's marvelous when you think of the hundreds and hundreds of priests and how very few have even been accused ... so it is not commonplace by any means at all. It's a unique and unexpected occurrence." In the newly released documents are allegations that a priest ran his hands up the knees and legs of boys he took to a movie theater, that another priest sexually attacked two young men in bed that the diocese classified as a "drunkenness problem" and that another priest was transferred from parish to parish where he repeatedly sexually assaulted young men and women. In his own depositions, Egan's predecessor, the late Bishop Walter W. Curtis, said that it was common practice to reassign a priest accused of sexual misbehavior to another parish after he received professional counseling. A reassignment would "allow him to have a fresh start," Curtis said. Among the priests accused in lawsuits of abusing children in the diocese over the last several decades are: the Revs. Charles Stubbs, Martin Federici, Joseph Gorecki, Alfred Bietighofer, Raymond Pcolka, Richard Grady, Stanley Bonaszek, Henry Albecke, John DeShan, William Donovan, Vincent Veich, Sherman Gray, Albert McGoldrick, Robert Morrissey and W. Phillip Coleman. All of these priests ultimately were suspended by the diocese. None were reinstated. "Now the public can see for themselves what we have been up against," said John Marshall Lee, an official with Voice of the Faithful chapter in the Diocese of Bridgeport, which has called for greater transparency by the church hierarchy and advocates on behalf of people abused by clergy. Diocesan officials said that significant changes have been made since Bishop William E. Lori took the helm. "The diocese removes from ministry any priest who is found to have abused a child," the diocese said in a recent statement. "The Diocese of Bridgeport has one of the most well conceived and thoroughly administered Safe Environment Programs in Connecticut. It has, from its inception, taught against sexual contact outside the bonds of marriage," the statement said. But many church critics, such as Lee, feel that the long fight church officials waged to keep secret the records on child abuse shows that the hierarchy is not as transparent as it claims. "The people have been asked to pay, pray and obey," said Lee. "If you go by the numbers, the Diocese of Bridgeport has 450,000 people and has spent almost $40 million in settlements. Boston, by contrast, has 2.5 million people and spent around $85 million in settlements. Per capita the Catholics sitting in the pews of the Bridgeport diocese have spent more with less information or satisfaction." The Bridgeport sex abuse allegations were among hundreds of abuse claims filed in dioceses across the country. Dioceses in Boston, Los Angeles, Spokane, Wash., Dallas and several other cities ended up settling those claims for hundreds of millions of dollars. And U.S. bishops drafted tough new policies they said would ensure such abuse allegations would be handled effectively and swiftly in the future. The previously sealed documents involve allegations of sexual abuse by clergy that date back to 1964. Curtis testified that he kept a secret file about the accused priests. But, Curtis told lawyers in his depositions, he occasionally destroyed "antiquated" complaints because "it happened so long before, there would be no point in preserving it." Tremont asked Egan in October 1997 if he found such records in the secret file. The Rev. Laurence Brett, who served at St. Cecilia's in Stamford, is cited in complaints dating back to 1964. Diocese officials were aware that Brett had sexually abused an 18-year-old male Sacred Heart University student, including the report that Brett had bitten the student's penis while performing oral sex to prevent the teen from ejaculating. He then told the student to seek confession from another priest, according to the documents. But it was never reported to authorities or parishioners. Instead, Brett was allowed to continue to serve as a priest and continued assaulting teens, particularly Frank Martinelli, who was a member of Brett's Mavericks, a teen organization the priest created. Martinelli claimed in a federal lawsuit that Brett suggested the teen perform oral sex on him as a way of receiving Holy Communion. Still when Egan met with Brett to discuss the 1964 incident some 26 years later, the bishop wrote in a memo, "All things considered, he made a good impression. In the course of our conversation, the particulars of his case came out in detail and with grace." When Brett was sent away for treatment, the late Bishop Curtis suggested in court documents that the diocese claim Brett's absence was caused by hepatitis, which the priest had actually had previously. "So they would hide the complaint of sexual abuse and tell persons that he had hepatitis and that is why he was not around?" asked Tremont. "No I would read it that this man is going away and if anyone asks, say he's not well, he has hepatitis," Egan explained. "That's quite a bit different than saying you are going to hide it." Not all of the documents involved with the abuse cases were released Tuesday. The state Supreme Court this summer ruled that 15 documents could remain confidential and that "in camera" records submitted by the diocese to a trial judge had not been sought by the newspapers so they, too, would be kept sealed.
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