Father John Corapi and the State of Due Process for Accused Priests, by Ryan MacDonald, Catholic Lane, April 4, 2011

Father John Corapi and the State of Due Process for Accused Priests

By Ryan MacDonald
Catholic Lane
April 4, 2011

http://catholiclane.com/father-john-corapi-and-the-state-of-due-process-for-accused-priests/

Unlike many cases of accused Catholic priests, accusations against Father John Corapi have focused a spotlight on due process in the Catholic Church.

A zero-tolerance policy without due process that de facto impugns the reputations of the accused is immoral. The Church has a duty to protect the innocent, even if the innocent is a priest. Of course, the Church has a moral duty to make sure that the scandal of abuse and cover-up is never repeated, but it cannot willfully sacrifice the reputations of the innocent . . . The end does not justify the means. I do not know that any of this applies to the Father Corapi case, but we have seen this happen in other cases too and it is wrong – Pat Archbold, March 20, 2011 at www.NCRegister.com/blog

Those are some of the sanest words I have read about the matter of Father John Corapi, a gifted priest who, at this writing, has been sidelined by accusations of sex and drug abuse brought by an unidentified adult woman.

Before I write further, I should point out that unlike many of those writing on this topic in the Catholic on-line world, I am not a follower of Father Corapi. I don’t dislike him either. His preaching style and message just haven’t touched me the way they seem to have touched many others. I simply mean to say that I am not a disgruntled fan driven to champion the cause of a spiritual icon whose good name has been cast into the abyss. If Father Corapi never preached in public again, that fact alone would elicit no emotional response from me beyond my concern for justice.

Yet I am deeply troubled, like Father Corapi himself, by a zero tolerance policy that treats accused priests as if they were guilty unless they can manage to prove themselves innocent. As Father Corapi pointed out in his statement, the “damage to the accused is immediate, irreparable, and serious,” and the procedure for addressing it “has little regard for any form of meaningful due process.” This must not be the last word in a Church built upon the Truth of the Gospel.

I cannot speak directly to the case of Father John Corapi except to point out the inherent injustice of it. I have been writing for some time about the state of justice and due process for Catholic priests who are accused. Like many Catholics, I was angry about the sex abuse scandal in the priesthood. In 2002, I was aghast at the revelations that swept out of Boston across the U.S. detailing claims of abuse by priests. This went on below the public radar for years while bishops moved some accused priests from parish to parish erring on the side of misguided assurances by treatment centers and psychologists.

I was angry about all this until I became aware of the extent to which our Church and our priests have been subjected to rampant fraud. As unjust as the Father Corapi case is, it is at least current. He and his supporters at least have an opportunity to gather information that could point to less than stellar motives for his accuser’s claims. Already, the claim has has surfaced that his accuser — whose name, to date, has been shielded from public scrutiny — had previously threatened to “destroy” Father Corapi. If clear evidence of guilt is not forthcoming soon, then it is time for the true voice of the faithful to help restore Fr. John Corapi’s good name and ministry.

Mounting any defense at all, however, is simply not a luxury that most accused priests have had. In the early 1990s, insurance companies ended coverage for damages when Catholic institutions were sued in sex abuse claims. Since then, a full seventy percent of the claims against priests have alleged abuse that is decades old, and for which no clear evidence of either guilt or innocence could possibly exist.

In all claims against priests in the United States since 2002, the accused priests – if they are even still living – have been placed on “administrative leave,” but often with little hope of ever clearing their names. Their bishops assure them and the public that their suspensions are “pending investigation,” but there is often no legitimate investigation. How could there be after the passage of decades? Many of the claims are deemed “credible” solely because a diocese fears litigation and decides to settle.

While sitting at my computer typing this, I received an e-mail from a prominent U. S. Catholic writer informing me of another case that has arisen in his diocese. An 80-year-old man has just demanded settlement for alleged sex abuse by a priest some sixty-five years ago. The priest, who had never before been accused, died over fifty years ago, but this fact did not cause the diocesan PR handlers to question the claim at all. On the way to settlement, they issued a press release calling for “any other victims of Father X to come forward.” His name has already been released to the public as a “credibly” accused sex offender priest.

In his landmark 2010 book, Double Standard: Abuse Scandals and the Attack on the Catholic Church, David F. Pierre, Jr. described the “due process” extended to priests in one diocese during a typical round of mediated settlements:

In 2002, [the Manchester] New Hampshire diocese faced accusations of abuse from 62 individuals. Rather than spending the resources and the time looking into the merits of the cases, ‘Diocesan officials did not even ask for specifics such as the dates and specific allegations for the claims’ New Hampshire’s Union Leader reported [Nov. 27, 2002] . . . It was almost as simple as a trip to an ATM machine . . . ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ a pleased, and much richer, plaintiff attorney admitted” — Double Standard, pp 125-126).

I have researched and written extensively about the case of one falsely accused and wrongly imprisoned priest from the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire who was one of the subjects of the mediated settlement described above. Father Gordon MacRae writes weekly for a remarkable Catholic blog, These Stone Walls (www.TheseStoneWalls.com) . He could have left prison over 14 years ago had he actually been guilty and willing to say so. Father MacRae will remain in prison for sixty-seven years unless his case can be overturned with new evidence. That’s ironic given that he was convicted with no evidence at all beyond the word of someone who walked away with $200,000 from the priest’s diocese. In one of the most egregious subversions of due process I have seen, the Diocese of Manchester issued a press release declaring him guilty before his trial.

One of Father MacRae’s accusers recanted this year, and provided a disturbing account of how he was enticed by others into falsely accusing the priest with the promise of a vast windfall of money. It is in fact money – not sex, not abuse, and not celibacy– that has driven the scandal since 2002 and sabotaged the civil liberties of accused priests. Father John Corapi’s superiors should reveal any financial demand brought by his accuser/s as well as their history of settlement of such demands.

Dredging for Dollars

Many Catholics have not yet seen through attempts in various states to extend civil statutes of limitations so that Catholic institutions can be sued long after current time limits have expired. The trend is based on a dubious claim that victims of abuse require decades to come forward. The claim is baseless. People are accused of sex abuse in the U.S. every day. Public school teachers are exponentially more likely than priests to be accused of abuse, but only priests routinely face claims that are decades old. A pattern of mediated settlement of these claims without thorough investigation has placed all of our priests in harm’s way.

Around the U.S., bishops and other Catholic leaders have rallied support to oppose extensions of civil statutes of limitations. As more than one bishop has pointed out, statutes of limitations exist in legal systems to promote justice, not hinder it. Witnesses die, memories fade, facts are blurred, and justice is subverted by old claims. Our bishops are justified in opposing “ex post facto” laws that have but one goal: to target and bankrupt the Catholic Church.

There is a problem, however, and it’s a serious one for Catholics concerned about due process for accused priests. “Prescription” is a term in Church law that describes the length of time in which a delict (a crime) exists and must be prosecuted. Canon law placed time limits on prescription because the Church long ago recognized the challenge to justice when accusations against priests are so old that there could be no legitimate investigation or defense.

So at the very same time many bishops opposed retroactive extensions of statutes of limitations in civil law, the U.S. bishops as a body heavily lobbied the Holy See for retroactive dispensation of the Church’s own statute of limitations. The result is that no matter how long ago an accusation was claimed to have occurred, the priests accused are removed from ministry, placed on administrative leave, and subjected to draconian penalties including possible dismissal from the priesthood without trial or any defense at all. Once accused, many priests cannot afford lawyers to protect their own rights while their bishops’ and accusers’ lawyers enter into settlement negotiations.

Our bishops must not argue statutes of limitations from two polar opposite points of view depending on their own interests. If extending statutes of limitations is unjust in civil law, it is equally unjust in canon law. I do not write this because I wish to be seen in confrontation with Church officials. On the contrary, I love our Church. However, this blatant double standard, and the rampant suppression of the rights of accused priests that results from it, is poised to be the next wave of The Scandal.

The Church must Herself be a mirror of justice. Cases like the one presented by Father John Corapi can, if true, cast a harsh light upon the state of justice and due process in the Church. An accusation, without evidence or corroboration, becomes enough to remove a priest from ministry indefinitely, and often forever. We are uncertain at this juncture of the exact evidence or corroboration presented by Father Corapi’s accuser to his superiors and bishop. The fact that Father Corapi protests his administrative leave would lead an objective observer to conclude that Father Corapi himself believes the process to be unjust. He is in a unique position to inform Catholics of the precarious state of civil rights, due process, and a presumption of innocence when priests are accused.