Daphne Bramham: Pope’s Sacking of Paraguayan Bishop Resonates in Vancouver
By Daphne Bramham
When news of the Vatican’s sacking of a Paraguayan bishop broke late last week — ostensibly because he was protecting pedophile priests — it had a special resonance in Vancouver. For more than four years, the Shaughnessy parish raised money for priests, a seminary and an orphanage in Bishop Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano’s diocese of Ciudad del Este. Parishioners at Saints Peter and Paul supported priests belonging to the Comunidades Sacerdotales de San Juan (aka the Society of St. John), students in the Paraguay seminary that the priests built, and a “non-church orphanage,” Father John Horgan told me in an interview. But all of that came to an abrupt end in 2011. Parishioners complained to Archbishop Michael Miller about the Comunidades Sacerdotales de San Juan. It began in Pennsylvania when the Society of St. John was suppressed amid rumours of sexual abuse of seminary students and as its priests fled first to Rome and later Paraguay. Archbishop Miller ordered the fundraising to stop. Horgan admitted in an interview at the time that he had had “lapses in judgment” both in his fundraising efforts in the parish and in his personal relationships with some of the priests who fled. Among them was Eric Ensey. In the fall of 2011, the young American was Horgan’s travelling companion on a European pilgrimage. Horgan introduced Ensey to the pilgrims as a priest studying in Rome. Although Ensey was under orders from his bishop not to represent himself as a priest, he wore a cassock on the trip and even performed mass that Horgan and some of the Vancouver pilgrims attended. Ensey told pilgrims that, at Horgan’s invitation, he would be in Vancouver over Christmas. By early 2012, Ensey was “laiticized” or defrocked by an ecclesiastical tribunal for molesting a minor. The decision was upheld on appeal. Horgan admitted it was “a mistake of prudence” to not tell parishioners that Ensey was under investigation for sexually molesting a seminary student before the fundraising began and before Ensey visited the parish. Despite his admitted “lapses in judgment,” Horgan remained at Saints Peter and Paul until 2013. In what the archdiocese characterized as part of a large-scale series of transfers, Horgan was moved to St. Pius X Church in North Vancouver, where he is the parish priest and pastor of the elementary school attached to it. Carlos Urrutigoity was another beneficiary of the Vancouver parish’s generosity. Urrutigoity is the founder of the Society of St. John. He was a monsignor and vicar-general of the Paraguay seminary until the Vatican removed him after complaints from local people about Urrutigoity’s inappropriate sexual advances on boys. At the same time, the Vatican barred Bishop Livieres from ordaining any more priests from the seminary that had been largely funded by the Vancouver parish. Last week, Livieres was removed as bishop. A terse statement from the Vatican described it as a “grave decision ... under the weight of serious pastoral concerns is for the greater good and unity of the Church of Ciudad del Este and the episcopal communion in Paraguay.” Livieres had welcomed Urrutigoity and others from the Society of St. John even though the bishop had been warned by others about civil litigation and long-standing allegations involving sexual misconduct with young seminarians. Urrutigoity is from Argentina and left a seminary there because of allegations that he had made unwanted sexual advances on classmates. He moved to Minnesota to complete his studies. In 1989, against the advice of the rector from the Argentinian seminary, Urrutigoity was ordained and given a teaching position at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary. His sexually inappropriate behaviour there was later outlined in a deposition given in a 2002 civil case. Urrutigoity was expelled from the Minnesota seminary, not because of allegations of sexual misconduct, but because he had had a vision of creating a new order. He wound up in Scranton, Pa., where he founded the Society of St. John and began planning a seminary to raise a new generation of so-called traditionalists who reject changes that have occurred since “Vatican II” in the mid-1960s — including the use of English instead of Latin for mass and allowing women to take a greater role. But in 2004, the bishop in Scranton shut down the Society of St. John because of a civil lawsuit over the seminary’s financing. He also suspended Urrutigoity, Ensey and several others named in a civil case involving sexual abuse allegations against Urrutigoity and Ensey. The society’s priests fled to Rome against the bishop’s orders, which is where they came to the attention of Horgan. The parents of one of the priests — Dominic Carey — were parishioners at Saints Peter and Paul. But eventually, Livieres not only took Urrutigoity, Carey and several other Society priests in, he promoted them. When Livieres was fired last week, most Catholic and secular news organizations reported that it was because he had been protecting pedophile priests. And, they said, it signalled Pope Francis’s intent to clean up after decades of sexual abuse scandals, especially since it came only two days after Josef Wesolowski, a former archbishop in the Dominican Republic and a Vatican ambassador, was arrested after tens of thousands of pornographic images of children were found on his computer in his office in Rome. If it is the pope’s intent, it is welcome and long overdue. But lawyer James Bendell, who represented Ensey’s and Urrutigoity’s victims in Pennsylvania, isn’t convinced. When we spoke last week, Bendell said he was troubled that the pope didn’t send a clear message that sexually inappropriate behaviour is unacceptable and won’t be tolerated. Without that, Bendell fears, priests — both perpetrators and their enablers — will continue to go unpunished. Contact: dbramham@vancouversun.com
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.