'Too Little, Too Late'

The Phillyburbs
April 10, 2013

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/courier_times_news/opinion/editorials/too-little-too-late/article_ac81ae06-90c6-5f30-9608-f8f00f496bf4.html

Some might argue that it’s better late than never. But for the family of Bristol Borough’s Daniel Neill, who took his own life in 2009, the removal of an allegedly abusive Catholic priest from the ministry comes as little consolation for the loss they’ve sustained and the grief they’ve endured. In short, it’s too little, too late.

How would you feel? Fact is, the defrocking of Rev. Joseph Gallagher comes seven years after the 78-year-old now former priest retired.

It was more than 30 years ago that Neill, then just 10 years old, reported to the principal at St. Mark Parish school that he had been sexually molested by Gallagher. According to a 2011 wrongful death suit filed by Neill’s family, the principal called the then altar boy “a liar and threatened ... that his family would be disgraced if he persisted in making his report of sexual abuse.”

And so the child kept the allegations under wraps until 2007 — for nearly three decades — before again reaching out to the church. This was after the pedophile priest scandal erupted, including revelations that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia not only covered up the crimes but transferred accused priests from one parish to another in an effort to silence victims and protect the priests.

Still, the church circled the wagons. According to a 2011 grand jury report, a year after Neill took his story to the archdiocese victims assistance coordinator, church officials contacted him with word that his allegations were deemed unsubstantiated and therefore not credible. Eleven months later, Neill committed suicide. He was 38.

“Obviously they had a serious problem with this priest,” said the attorney handling the family’s law suit against the church. “It still took them four years to remove him from the ministry... For the family, it’s really much too little, too late.”

Those feelings are understandable. There is nothing the church can do to make the Neill family whole again. Their loved one is gone and even while he was here we can only surmise that Daniel’s thoughts were likely never far removed from alleged abuse he lived through and the effects he had to live with.

Yet there is reason to commend if not the archdiocese, the new head of the archdiocese, Archbishop Charles Chaput. It was Chaput who removed Gallagher from the ministry for “substantial violations” of “ministerial boundaries”, as well as two other priests likewise accused of abuse; he also removed seven other priests from the ministry last year.

The action, belated as it was, at least stands in contrast to the inexcusable inaction of past officials who chose to shield an institution rather than bring accused criminals in collars to justice.

Late is indeed better than never.