N.J. Diocese Pays $610k to Settle Claim It Allowed Sexually Abusive Priest to Remain in Ministry
By Mark Mueller
In what is believed to be one of New Jersey’s largest individual settlements involving sexual abuse by a priest, the Diocese of Trenton has paid $610,000 to a Burlington County man who says he was molested for more than a decade by the former head of the diocese’s youth group. Chris Naples, 42, of New Gretna, filed suit against the diocese in March, alleging church leaders allowed the Rev. Terence McAlinden to remain in ministry for 15 years after quietly paying a settlement to another alleged victim. It wasn’t until 2007, when Naples publicly accused McAlinden, that the diocese suspended the priest. A church investigation at the time found Naples’ claims to be credible. Had the diocese acted on the earlier allegation, Naples says, his own abuse would have not lasted as long. He alleges McAlinden molested him hundreds of times in the late 1980s and 1990s, beginning when Naples was 13. In recent years, a third alleged victim also has come forward, saying McAlinden repeatedly sexually assaulted him in the 1960s at the priest’s first assignment, Our Lady of Victories Church in Sayreville. The diocese settled with the man in 2012. Naples, who reached agreement with the diocese in August after months of mediation, said in an interview the settlement is less about the money than the message it sends. “This has never been about the money for me,” he said. “I wanted to make a statement, and this definitely makes a statement. It’s about them doing the right thing, meaning the church I grew up in, the church I trusted. It’s about them being transparent and not sweeping it under the rug.” In addition to the $610,000, the agreement calls for the diocese to set aside $15,000 for Naples’ medical and counseling bills.
The total appears to be one of the largest known individual payouts to settle a clergy abuse case in New Jersey, according to victims’ advocates, attorneys and a national database of such settlements. In 2011, the Trenton Diocese paid $1 million to settle claims by five former altar boys who said they were molested at a Ewing church by the Rev. Ronald Becker, who died in 2009. Last year, the Newark Archdiocese paid $650,000 to five alleged victims of the Rev. Carmen Sita, who was permitted to change his name after an abuse conviction. Sita, who took the name Gerald Howard, went on to abuse more children in Missouri, authorities have said. In 2009, one of the Missouri victims, Mark McCallister, received a $600,000 payout, which was split between the Archdiocese of Newark, the Diocese of Jefferson City, Mo., and the Servants of the Paraclete, a religious order that ran a New Mexico treatment center where Sita spent time. It’s possible New Jersey’s dioceses have paid out higher settlements that have not been made public or that are subject to confidentiality agreements. In a 1988 case involving a former student at the Delbarton School in Morristown, a lawyer for the alleged victim described his client’s settlement as approximately seven figures. The precise amount, subject to a confidentiality agreement, has not been made public. Nationwide, multimillion-dollar judgments have been awarded in several cases, including an $11.4 million jury verdict against the Diocese of Rockville Center, N.Y., in 2005 on behalf of two victims of a lay music minister. The largest group settlement came in 2007, when the Diocese of Los Angeles paid $660 million to 508 people who were abused by priests, lay ministers, teachers and other employees. After attorneys’ fees, each of the victims received $780,000, according to bishopaccountability.org, a database of abuse cases and settlements. In Naples’ agreement, the Trenton Diocese denies culpability. But Naples said he was given verbal assurances by a diocese attorney and by the victim assistance coordinator for the diocese that Bishop David M. O’Connell would issue a written apology to run in the diocese’s newspaper, The Monitor. O’Connell was not bishop when the alleged abuse occurred. Naples called an apology one of his key demands during the mediation process. He said he insisted a statement be read during Masses at St. Theresa Roman Catholic Church in Little Egg Harbor, where Naples says McAlinden molested him, and at Visitation Roman Catholic Church in Bricktown, where Naples was a parishioner.
Naples said he also demanded that McAlinden be kicked out of the priesthood, or laicized. He said he was told the diocese had already petitioned the Vatican for McAlinden’s permanent removal, a process than can last years. Rayanne Bennett, a spokeswoman for the Trenton Diocese, confirmed the settlement in an email and said O’Connell intends to make a statement “at a time yet to be determined.” Addressing McAlinden’s place in the priesthood, Bennett added, “The canonical status of Father Terence McAlinden, who has been suspended from priestly ministry since September, 2007, will be decided by the Holy See.” McAlinden, now 73, could not be reached by telephone and did not reply to an email seeking comment. Naples first brought suit against him and the diocese in Delaware, one of the states where McAlinden allegedly abused him during overnight trips. Public records show Naples won a $3 million judgment against McAlinden individually in that state. Naples said he could not discuss the case because of a confidentiality clause. In a lengthy deposition involving the Delaware suit, McAlinden acknowledged a sexual relationship with Naples but insisted it began after his parishioner turned 18. He also admitted sleeping nude with other teenage boys and bathing naked in a hot tub with them. In the deposition, he characterized the nudity as “standard practice.” The diocese was severed as a defendant in Delaware after making the controversial argument that McAlinden was “off duty” -- in essence, not acting as a priest -- when he allegedly molested Naples in that state because the trip was not explicitly sanctioned by the priest’s supervisors in Trenton. “How do we determine when a priest is and is not on duty?” a justice of the Delaware Supreme Court asked, according to a video of the session on the court’s web site. “Well,” a diocese lawyer replied, “you can determine a priest is not on duty when he is molesting a child, for example. … A priest abusing a child is absolutely contrary to the pursuit of his master’s business, to the work of a diocese.” The argument drew national attention, along with fierce criticism, when The Star-Ledger disclosed the diocese’s stance in a story in June. That attention likely factored into the diocese’s decision to quickly settle with Naples once he filed suit in the Garden State, said Mark Crawford, New Jersey director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, an advocacy and support group. “When the bishop allowed his attorney to argue the priest wasn’t ‘on duty,’ that angered a lot of people around the country,” Crawford said. “So here the bishop wants to look like he’s doing the right thing.” More importantly, Crawford said, the diocese could have taken an even bigger monetary hit had Naples’ case gone to trial. “This was a no-brainer,” Crawford said. “They were caught dead to rights. Chris was being abused when another victim was telling them about abuse by McAlinden, and they did nothing to stop it. So this is really a savvy business decision. If it had gone to court, they would have lost their shirts.” Naples said he would not have been able to endure the legal battles in Delaware and New Jersey without the support of his wife, his children, his close friends and his Delaware-based lawyers, Raeann Warner and Thomas Crumplar. He said he will now focus on healing. But he said he will never truly find closure until McAlinden is no longer a priest. “That would be the ultimate,” he said. “That is worth more to me than any money they can ever give me.”
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.