Sweeney Blasts Newark Archbishop over Handling of Priest Sex Abuse Accusations
By Jeff Green
Saying New Jersey’s top Roman Catholic cleric should feel more “public pressure and public embarrassment” for protecting a priest charged with molesting a boy in 2001, state Senate President Stephen Sweeney on Friday discussed his reasons for joining politicians statewide to call on Newark Archbishop John J. Myers to resign. Declaring “I’m a Catholic,” Sweeney this week said he came to believe that the archbishop must go as more details emerged about the Rev. Michael Fugee, a onetime assistant pastor at a Wyckoff parish, and how the archbishop returned him to ministry even after he was accused of groping a 13-year-old boy. In a meeting with The Record’s editorial board Friday, Sweeney said he supports legislation to expand New Jersey’s statute of limitations on civil suits against sexual offenders and touted his role in enacting a law that monitors sex offenders with ankle bracelet tracking devices. Sweeney, D-Gloucester, also said he would back a boycott of Sunday collections for the diocese during Mass, saying parishioners should consider withholding their dollars and sending written messages of protest to church leaders instead. In another Friday development, the Diocese of Trenton issued a message on its website that says Fugee, who attended youth ministry events in one of its parishes without permission, committed a “serious breach of compliance with our child protection policies.” The diocese’s message, which followed a similar one issued Wednesday by the Paterson Diocese on its website, urged victims of clergy sex abuse to report any allegations to the diocesan abuse hotline. But victims’ advocates sharply criticized the two dioceses for their handling of the Fugee case, declaring that the recent statements were “more about looking good than being good” and were attempts to “play gatekeeper and screen child sex abuse reports” instead of referring potential victims directly to law enforcement. “They want victims and witnesses to come to church officials first, giving them the chance to destroy evidence, fabricate alibis, intimidate victims, threaten witnesses, discredit whistle-blowers and start their extensive and expensive damage control and public relations maneuvers,” Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said in a statement. Sweeney last week said he was willing to wait for the Bergen County prosecutor’s investigation of Fugee before demanding that Myers leave. On Friday, he said his decision to call for Myers’ resignation was spurred by the fact that the archbishop has refused to publicly address Fugee’s apparent breach of a vow never to minister to children and Myers’ own decisions over the years on the priest’s behalf. Sweeney, an altar boy in his youth who said the left-handedness he was born with was reversed by his parochial-school training, said that for Myers to reinstate Fugee to his ministry, even after his conviction on aggravated criminal sexual contact was overturned, broke faith with the people the archdiocese serves. “This is a place of trust,” Sweeney said about the churches of the archdiocese. “Tell me why they’re allowing [Fugee] to stay a priest? Kick him out, he doesn’t belong around children.” He said church leaders urgently need to address the church’s priest sex abuse problem. “Someone that’s grabbing children has some wires crossed,” he said. “They can be conniving, they can be cunning. You can’t put that person back in the place of temptation.” Sweeney said he supported a bill the would have expanded the period during which childhood victims of sex abuse could sue their abusers in civil court, from the present two years to 30 years. The legislation – sponsored by state Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex, who was among the first New Jersey public officials last week to demand Myers’ resignation — would make certain people in authority, such as directors and board members and anyone who permits sex abuse of a child, potentially liable in a civil lawsuit. The bill stalled in the Senate last year, and there has been no further action on it. Sweeney also was a sponsor of a state law under which hundreds of high-risk sex offenders are required to wear, for the rest of their lives, ankle bracelets that monitor their movements by satellite tracking. Jim Goodness, Myers’ spokesman, said the archbishop has not directly addressed the Fugee case because he has been focused on providing information to prosecutors. Goodness would not say whether Myers would talk publicly about it when he returns from a weeklong trip to Poland next week, but as more information becomes available, he said, “I’m sure the senator will soon see the archdiocese is doing everything it is supposed to do.” Goodness noted that the archdiocese has passed every independent audit of sex abuse polices since the “zero tolerance” reform known as the Dallas Charter was adopted by U.S. bishops in 2002. “This is an unusual case, we’ll be the first to admit it, but our procedures are strong,” he said. “In this instance, someone did not follow them.” He said the archdiocese in recent days has “emphatically” restated those policies to its priests. Goodness initially said Fugee was supervised on his youth group outings, but since has maintained that Fugee was not assigned to youth ministry positions and now says the youth retreats are not allowed under the agreement. The statement by the Trenton Diocese notes that allegations reported to its abuse hotline are forwarded to the appropriate law enforcement agencies. All dioceses in New Jersey have agreed to that reporting policy since 2002. But Blaine, of the victims’ advocacy group, said going through the church was nonetheless a risk. “Why give Catholic employees the opportunity to ignore or conceal or enable even more crimes?” she said. Blaine suggested that bishops personally visit parishes where Fugee was involved with youth groups and direct church staff to ask parishioners there if they had been harmed by the priest. Blaine also cast doubt on claims by the dioceses that they knew nothing nor permitted Fugee’s participation with youth given that photos of youth retreats he attended were posted to Facebook. Rayanne Bennett, a spokeswoman for the Trenton Diocese, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Paterson Diocese spokesman, Richard Sokerka, was unavailable for comment. The Paterson Diocese on Wednesday posted a statement on its website calling on anyone with information about “inappropriate behavior” on Fugee’s part to inform diocesan staff. The message was sent to all 110 parishes in Passaic, Morris and Sussex counties and is to be published in The Beacon, the diocesan newspaper. Officials said they have heard no complaints. A spokesman for Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, said this week that Dolan is closely following the developing events in the Fugee case. The same day, the archdiocese confirmed that it hired a top criminal defense lawyer to review legal documents in the prosecutor’s inquiry. Fugee, 52, was convicted in 2003 of aggravated criminal sexual contact after being charged with groping a 13-year-old boy while he was assistant pastor of St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church in Wyckoff. The conviction was overturned because of a judicial error, but to avoid a second trial, Fugee agreed to serve two years’ probation and signed an agreement with prosecutors never to supervise or minister to children, and to stay away from youth groups. Email: greenj@northjersey.com
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