BishopAccountability.org
	Philly Archdiocese Suspends 3 Priests Named in DA Sex-Abuse Report, Vows New Look at Others By Maryclaire Dale The Republic February 16, 2011 http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/4cd8505b16064cceb28e99885ceb3270/Priest_Abuse-Charges/ PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia archdiocese has suspended three priests named as child molestation suspects in a scathing grand jury report issued last week and has pledged to reopen complaints made against 34 others still on the job. Joseph Gallagher, Stephen Perzan and Joseph DiGregorio have been removed from ministry while their cases are reviewed. A city grand jury last week charged five other people — four current or former priests and a former Catholic school teacher — with raping boys in the late 1990s or endangering children by covering up the crimes. An earlier grand jury report, in 2005, blasted the church for ignoring or dismissing sexual-abuse complaints made against 63 priests in the archdiocese over many decades. While the archdiocese under Cardinal Justin Rigali after the first report formed a panel to handle abuse complaints, the second grand jury found it mostly worked to protect the church, not the victims. Rigali addressed that criticism Wednesday by announcing that he would retain former city child-abuse prosecutor Gina Maisto Smith to reopen complaints made against the active-duty priests. "Sexual abuse of children is a crime. It is always wrong and gravely evil," Rigali said in a statement, in perhaps his strongest words to date to describe the nature of the offense. "The grand jury report makes clear that for as much as the archdiocese has done to address child sexual abuse, there is still much to do." Smith is a veteran of the Philadelphia district attorney's office, which issued last week's grand jury report. She will re-examine complaints that internal church investigators previously said they could not substantiate. District Attorney Seth Williams, whose office faulted the handling of the crisis by both Rigali and his predecessor, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, welcomed Rigali's latest pledge. "I commend Cardinal Rigali and the archdiocese for this latest action," Williams said. "The cardinal's strong words and recent efforts are the correct steps at this time. I will continue my commitment to working with him to protect our children." Williams, who is Catholic, has said it pained him to bring the charges against his own church. But, he said, his obligation as a prosecutor required it. He was able to file the criminal charges chiefly because of recent laws that have extended the time child sex assault victims have to come forward. The 2005 grand jury on priest sex abuse in Philadelphia was frustrated by legal time limits and filed no criminal charges. The new report accuses church officials of downplaying at least two complaints that Gallagher molested boys and frequently talked to them about masturbation during confession. One accuser killed himself after the archdiocese dismissed the allegation he filed in 2007, when he was 36, the report said. The accuser said Gallagher had molested him when he was a young altar boy at St. Mark Parish in Bristol. An earlier complaint against Gallagher was dismissed because the man who reported it estimated that it occurred in 1968 or 1969, before Gallagher arrived in 1970. The grand jury wrote that the discrepancy about dates "could have amounted to mere months." Perzan, according to the grand jury, failed a lie detector test about whether he molested two boys at St. Gabriel's Hall, a residential program for delinquent youth. The archdiocesan review board said it could not substantiate their complaints, despite testimony from adults at the school that Perzan was too friendly with the boys and had them in his room with the door closed. DiGregorio also failed a lie detector test related to a 2005 complaint from a woman who said he and a second priest had abused her at Our Lady of Loreto in about 1968. The church review board initially found her complaint credible, in part because the other priest admitted his actions, but reversed itself two months later, the report said. Gallagher, who is retired, has no listed telephone number. Perzan, who recently has been living at St. Helena Rectory in North Philadelphia, and DiGregorio, who remained a parochial vicar stationed at Stella Maris parish in South Philadelphia until his suspension, did not immediately return messages left at their rectories on Wednesday. The grand jury report cast doubt on the review board's handling of allegations against the priests. "Our review of just some of these priests' files shows that the review board finds allegations 'unsubstantiated' even when there is very convincing evidence that the accusations are true — evidence certainly alarming enough to prompt removal of priests from positions in which they pose a danger to children," the grand jury wrote. Smith, the former child-abuse prosecutor retained by Rigali, vowed to bring to the job the vigilance against child abuse that she honed in 20 years as a prosecutor, some covering high-profile child kidnappings and murders. She said she also knows how to defuse the defenses that child predators mount. "Clearly the grand jury report cites these (37) cases as particular concerns," Smith told The Associated Press. "And that's why I'm here."
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.