By Christian Schiavone
Patriot Ledger
January 20, 2011
http://www.patriotledger.com/features/x1390758164/Lawyer-posts-new-list-of-clergy-accused-of-abuse
 |
| Mitchell Garabedian, lawyer for numerous Boston-area clergy sex abuse victims, speaks at a news conference in Boston on Jan. 19, 2011, where he released a new list of Roman Catholic priests, laymen and members of religious orders accused of abusing parishioners. |
The Boston archdiocese is defending its decision not to publicize the names of deceased priests accused of abusing children after the names were made public by a lawyer who represented their alleged victims.
On Wednesday, Boston lawyer Mitchell Garabedian made public 19 names – 11 parish priests, a Catholic deacon and seven members of Catholic religious orders – saying they had been accused of sexual abuse but had never before been identified publicly that way.
In a statement, Kelly Lynch, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese, confirmed that the church had settled claims against the 11 priests and the deacon named Wednesday. She said all 12 are dead. The 11 priests were dead when they were first accused. The deacon from the South Shore was accused when he was still alive but he has since died, Lynch said.
“In cases when an accused priest is deceased, it is nearly impossible to conduct a thorough and fair investigation into a claim,” Lynch said in an e-mail. “Since all of the new names are deceased men, clearly no child was put at risk because these names were not in the public domain.”
Garabedian, who specializes in representing victims of clergy sex abuse, posted on his website the names of 117 parish priests, members of religious orders and Catholic lay people. Ninety-eight of the names had already been made public.
The 98 included 19 clergy members who were assigned to South Shore parishes at some point.
One of the steady complaints throughout the abuse tumult has been that Catholic bishops shuffled suspected priests from parish to parish without notifying police of the accusations.
The Patriot Ledger is not publishing the 19 names that had not already been made public. Three of those people – a priest, a deacon and a Jesuit associated with Boston College High School – had connections to the South Shore. Garabedian offered no information on what they had allegedly done, when and to whom. The Associated Press reported that all but three of the 19 are dead.
Garabedian, who said he has represented more than 750 victims of clergy sex abuse, said he posted the names of priests accused by his clients after waiting two years for the Boston archdiocese to make good on promises to publicly post its own list of “credibly accused” priests.
“The archdiocese has not done it, even though it said it would for about two years,” he said. “It’s necessary in order to allow the victims to heal and protect innocent children and notify the public.”
Victims’ advocates and lay reform groups have repeatedly asked the archdiocese to post such a list, as some other archdioceses around the country have done.
A year ago, Boston archdiocese spokesman Terrence Donilon told The Patriot Ledger that the archdiocese was working on a list and hoped to have it posted by the end of 2010.
“At this time, our work on this important undertaking is ongoing,” Lynch said in an e-mail Wednesday. “We continue to evaluate the complexities of this initiative, especially those associated with disclosing information relating to deceased priests or those accused of a crime, whose guilt or innocence has not been established, and the serious due-process concerns this presents for those accused.”
Another priest on the list who was deceased when he was first accused was associated with Boston College High School in Dorchester. A spokeswoman for the school said she could not comment on the allegations.
“This represents a very sad time in our school’s history,” school spokeswoman Michele O’Connor said. “We can only hope and pray for the healing of the victims.”
Anne Southwood, chairwoman of the Boston-area council of the lay reform group Voice of the Faithful, said posting priests’ names might help put more pressure on the archdiocese to release a more complete list.
“It’s important for survivors of clerical sex abuse to have some kind of closure,” said Southwood, a Marshfield resident. “I expect that this list might hurry along the process of the archdiocese presenting its own.”
Christian Schiavone is at cschiavone@ledger.com
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.