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Priest’s paedophilia classified as a ‘disability’ ...
By Barry Duke
AFTER the Rev Gil Gustafson was convicted of child sex abuse 30 years ago, the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis decided to ensure his financial security for decades to come. The priest was fined $40 and sentenced to 10 years probation and six months in jail. He served four-and-a-half months. The abuse destroyed the life of his victim, Brian Gerrity, who died of drug abuse and AIDS at the age of 28. According to this report, the church continued Gustafson’s priestly salary and health insurance, covered his living expenses and psychological treatment and paid for his education and training. It also gave him jobs in the chancery, helped him establish his own consulting business and steered clients his way. In July 2006, Gustafson was declared “disabled” based on his paedophilia, the church said. This allowed him to collect disability payments on top of his earnings as a leadership consultant. The archdiocese’s long-standing support of Gustafson, outlined in church documents and interviews, has angered abuse victims and their families. They say it’s another sign that the church cares more about the welfare of abusive priests than the children they assaulted. Jeff Herrity, the father of a boy whom Gustafson was convicted of abusing from 1977 through 1982, asked:
Herrity expressed his outrage and sorrow in this video. The archdiocese said it is required by church law and “Christian compassion” to care for priests removed from ministry. A statement from the church said:
It has been 30 years since Gustafson’s last known instance of child abuse, the archdiocese said. Some of his clients say he is entitled to a second chance. In response to written questions from the Star Tribune, the archdiocese stated that it removed Gustafson, now 62, from ministry as soon as it learned of his abuse in 1983. He lived under supervision and held mass at a Bloomington monastery for nuns until 2002, the year Catholic bishops adopted a zero-tolerance policy for priests who abused children. Officials in Rome sentenced him to a life of prayer and penance.
The archdiocese hasn’t revealed how many abusive priests are supported by disability payments. The support is not included in the church’s report this month of $6.2 million spent on victims, priests and lawyers in abuse cases over the past 10 years. While the church has been supporting Gustafson, the Herrity family has spent decades haunted by the trauma. Photos of a smiling, sandy-haired Brian Herrity are propped up in the living room of their White Bear Lake home. Brian was one of several boys Gustafson admitted to abusing before a Ramsey County District Court found him guilty of molesting Herrity in 1983. Brian was a “happy, happy kid,” who liked to jump on his dad’s lap and snuggle and later enjoyed speed skating and wrestling, recalled his father, who encouraged his son to become an altar boy at St Mary of the Lake Church. Gustafson, the parish priest, began abusing Brian when he was about 10, said his father. The abuse continued for five years – at the church rectory, the family’s home, on a bike ride, a trip to Valleyfair. Brian’s class pictures reveal the transformation, from a friendly kid with goofy bangs on his forehead to “a person we couldn’t recognise,” Herrity said. The years of abuse “mentally and physically destroyed him,” Herrity added. Classmates at Hill-Murray School mocked him after he went public with his abuse, his father said. He began a descent down a “path of destruction” that included drug abuse and promiscuity and ended in his death of complications from AIDS at age 28, in 1995. Herrity said:
The family also sees the abuse as a factor in the struggles of Brian’s older brother, Jeff, who died in 2010 at age 45. Herrity added:
The archdiocese paid for Brian’s therapy for a couple of years, Herrity said. A court settlement of $150,000 went into an account for Brian to tap at age 18. After paying the attorney, most of that money “went up his nose,” said his father, referring to his son’s drug use. As Brian was dying from AIDS, Herrity said he met with the Rev Kevin McDonough, the former vicar general who handled clergy abuse cases, to ask if the archdiocese could provide any financial help for the medical bills and hospice care. Instead, he said, McDonough “gave me a list of public social workers”. After Gustafson’s release from jail, then-Archbishop John Roach pressed for his return to active ministry. Scott Domeier, a former accounting director for the archdiocese now in prison for embezzling more than $600,000, said Gustafson was in a group of sexually abusive priests who were paid greater amounts than those paid to priests who were still active in ministry and in good standing. In Gustafson’s case, the church also paid for his education, travel, room and board and other expenses, at least until 2007, Domeier said. When Gustafson was hired as a leadership consultant for Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Minneapolis in 2009 some school supporters were outraged when his background became known. The Rev David Haschka, a Jesuit official who has handled clergy sexual abuse cases and the school’s founding president, said he hired Gustafson based on a recommendation that he received after calling the chancery. Haschka recalled Gustafson’s criminal history but was assured by a priest personnel expert that Gustafson was safe, he said.
While his sponsors say Gustafson should be allowed to pursue his career, other Catholics say it is wrong for the Church to promote a paedophile priest. LaVonne Murphy, a longtime church administrator, was so disturbed when she saw Gustafson at a National Ministry Summit in Florida in 2008, sitting with archdiocese colleagues, that she wrote a letter to Archbishop John Nienstedt. In it she said:
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