Defrocked Priest Sues New York Archdiocese for Libel over Sexual Abuse Statement

By Sharon Otterman
New York Times
September 20, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/nyregion/defrocked-monsignor-charles-kavanagh-sues-new-york-archdiocese-for-libel.html?_r=1

A once-prominent Roman Catholic monsignor who was removed from the priesthood in 2010 for sexual abuse of a minor took the unusual step on Wednesday of filing a federal lawsuit against the New York Archdiocese, claiming he had been libeled in a church statement.

Lawyers for the former monsignor, Charles M. Kavanagh, now 75, filed the lawsuit in Federal District Court in Manhattan, citing what they said was a startling turn of events that took place earlier this year. In April, Mr. Kavanagh’s accuser, Daniel Donohue, told a federal judge that he had not been truthful in one of the most damaging parts of his testimony to a secret church tribunal that considered sexual abuse charges against Mr. Kavanagh in 2006.

Mr. Donohue, now 48 and living in Portland, Ore., alleged in 2002 that Mr. Kavanagh had repeatedly molested him in the late 1970s, when he was a high school student at Cathedral Preparatory Seminary in Manhattan and Mr. Kavanagh was the rector there.

According to the civil complaint filed on Wednesday, the 2006 church tribunal, whose findings were never fully disclosed publicly, found Mr. Kavanagh guilty of holding hands with Mr. Donohue while Mr. Donohue’s hand was in his lap, and judged that to be sexual abuse of a minor. The church tribunal also found “to a moral certainty” that Mr. Kavanagh, wearing only underwear, had pressed up against Mr. Donohue in bed on a trip to Washington when Mr. Donohue was a high school senior, the complaint said.

A second church panel in 2010 recommended that Mr. Kavanagh be defrocked, and he was. But Mr. Kavanagh kept proclaiming his innocence and sued Mr. Donohue for libel. To settle that case, in April 2012, Mr. Donohue retracted his allegation about the episode on the trip to Washington, stating before a federal judge, “I did not go on any such trip with Monsignor Kavanagh while I was in high school.”

The trip actually took place when he was a sophomore in college, when Mr. Donohue was no longer a minor, according to lawyers for both sides. In his statement, Mr. Donohue addressed only the timing of the Washington trip, not his allegation that Mr. Kavanagh joined him in bed.

He also requested mercy for Mr. Kavanagh, his former friend and spiritual adviser. “I have never intended that the church would deprive him of his ministry, and I hope the church will re-examine this decision and process,” Mr. Donohue said.

Supporters of Mr. Kavanagh were overjoyed and immediately sent the statement to the New York Archdiocese, hoping the case would be reopened. But instead, on May 1, the diocese sent out a short written statement.

“It should be noted that Mr. Kavanagh was found guilty by a church court of multiple counts of sexual abuse of a minor, and that this particular trip to Washington was not the basis for the court’s decision,” Joseph Zwilling, the spokesman for the archdiocese, wrote at the time. “Changing this one fact will not have any bearing on the court’s ruling or on its penalty that Mr. Kavanagh be removed from the priesthood and returned to the lay state.”

Mr. Kavanagh is now suing Mr. Zwilling; the archdiocese; the archdiocesan newspaper, Catholic New York; and its editor, John Woods, for issuing and publishing a libel. The suit alleges that the archdiocese knew before issuing the release that the church tribunal had found Mr. Kavanagh guilty only of “hand-holding in the lap,” not multiple counts of sexual abuse, and improperly implied he had other sexual abuse victims, when Mr. Donohue was the only accuser Mr. Kavanagh knows of.

“That statement is defamation by implication, because it implies that this man is a serial sexual predator, which is a lie,” said Ann Mandt, Mr. Kavanagh’s sister, who is also among his lawyers. She also said the hand holding in the lap never happened.

Mr. Zwilling defended himself on Wednesday. “I have only just received a copy of the lawsuit filed by Mr. Kavanagh, and have not had a chance for it to be reviewed by our attorneys,” he said in an e-mail. “However, I stand by the truthfulness and accuracy of my May 1, 2012, statement.”

Mr. Kavanagh has acknowledged having an intense friendship with Mr. Donohue that progressed to hand-holding and hugs, but he has strongly denied that it had a sexual component. He was the archdiocese’s vicar for development, as well as pastor of St. Raymond’s Church in the Bronx, at the time the accusations were made, making him one of the highest-ranking priests in the archdiocese to have been found guilty by the church of sexual abuse.

Saying his client feared further litigation, Mr. Donohue’s lawyer, Kelly Clark, declined to comment beyond stating that “the relationship of spiritual trust that Dan Donohue once had” with Mr. Kavanagh “turned into a source of great pain for Mr. Donohue, and this latest move by Mr. Kavanagh is no different.”

Ms. Mandt said Mr. Kavanagh, who now lives in Lake Worth, Fla., would keep fighting until his name was cleared. “Let them try to make their case,” she said of the church, “because we are ready to make ours.”