Archbishop Myers Fires Back in Letter to the Faithful
By Jeff Green
[read the letter] A defiant Newark archbishop lashed out at critics in a letter to Catholic clergy, defending his handling of an alleged pedophile priest and denouncing the media, victims’ advocates and politicians as “evil” for distorting his record. John J. Myers distributed the letter in response to press accounts that detailed a 2010 deposition in which he denied knowing about a priest’s alleged sexual abuses while he was bishop of an Illinois diocese. But during Myers’ time as bishop in Peoria, the diocese received an allegation that the priest had molested a child and that no action was taken, according to records made public in the settlement. In the letter, which Myers urged priests to share with churchgoers, the archbishop declared that anyone who claims that he had “no effective part” in protecting children from abuse is “simply evil, wrong, immoral and seemingly focused on their own self-aggrandizement.” “God only knows their personal reasons and agenda,” the archbishop wrote. “We are still called to love them. And God will surely address them in due time.” Francis Fiorenza, professor of Catholic Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School, said he has never seen such a strongly worded statement from a bishop. Many Roman Catholic prelates have gone on the defensive during the decades-long sex-abuse scandal, but Myers may be the first to cast their critics and the media as sinners, he said. “That’s the old story of you kill the messenger,” Fiorenza said. “It’s a rare case, in these times especially.” Andrew Ward alleged in a lawsuit that he was molested by Monsignor Thomas W. Maloney in 1996, only a month after the diocese received a complaint from a woman who said she was abused by the same priest when she was a child. A $1.35 million settlement in his suit against the Peoria diocese was announced last week. A top Myers aide received the woman’s complaint and took no action against the priest, but Myers testified in the deposition that he never saw the report and that it possibly was lost in the diocese’s “slipshod filing system.” Ward’s parents and lawyer insisted that as the leader of the diocese, there is no way he would not have received that information. In his letter, the archbishop said media reports about the case “provided deceitful and misleading information” and that he had a duty to correct it. Myers said he told the truth in his testimony, reiterating that he did not have suspicions that Maloney was abusing children. “One can understand when family difficulties lead parents, even by conjecture, to blame someone outside the family, but conjecture is no reason to undermine [priests] or bishops, for that matter,” Myers wrote, apparently alluding to drug and criminal problems Andrew Ward had as a child and young adult Ward’s mother, Joanne, said she was stunned by the archbishop’s words and that he struck an intimidating tone toward victims of clergy sexual abuse and their supporters. If she was abused by a priest, she said the letter “would make me so afraid, and that makes me sad.” Patrick J. Wall, a canon lawyer and former priest who has assisted the Wards in their lawsuit, said the letter was a “clear attack” against the family’s legal team and victims’ advocates. “It’s completely disingenuous that he’s not aware of these incident reports," Wall said. "He’s supposed to be aware of them.” The Rev. Jim Chern, the Catholic chaplain at Montclair State University, posted Myers’ letter to a personal blog over the weekend, repeating some of the archbishop’s arguments. He implored readers to think twice about purchasing local newspapers, saying that one unnamed paper “has made it one of their goals to force our Archbishop John J. Myers to resign.” Myers wrote that his former diocese provided Illinois authorities with the initial abuse claim when they investigated Maloney in 2007. He said police found that neither of the complaints “had a basis for criminal action.” Ward’s lawyer disputed those assertions last week, saying police never saw the woman’s complaint during their inquiry. Police did not respond to a request for comment Monday. Letters in Maloney’s personnel file show that Myers invited the priest on at least two vacations, including a weeklong visit to Greece, and that they dined together with friends, once on the archbishop’s birthday. In one letter, Myers wrote that he did not “ever expect to ‘profit’ from our friendship.” In his letter to clergy, Myers downplayed his relationship with the priest, writing that he never vacationed with Maloney and that he only remembered receiving customary gifts from him, including a “coin of minimal value.” The archbishop testified that he did not consider the priest to be a “very close personal friend.” “The file absolutely speaks differently,” said Mark Crawford, the New Jersey director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. A Myers spokesman did not return multiple calls for comment Monday. Victims’ advocates and several Democratic state lawmakers have called on Myers to resign over his handling of recent sex-abuse controversies in the Newark Archdoicese. Critics have said Myers did not do enough to supervise the Rev. Michael Fugee, who was arrested in May for allegedly violating a ban on ministering to children, and that he allowed another cleric to live in the rectory of an Oradell parish without alerting parishioners about his past as an alleged abuser. Related: Read the letter (pdf) Contact: greenj@northjersey.com
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