Names Added to List of Clerics Accused of Abuse

Newsday
October 31, 2014

http://www.newsday.com/news/region-state/names-added-to-list-of-clerics-accused-of-abuse-1.9570936

A watchdog group that documents the clergy sex abuse crisis on Friday added four names to its public database of priests and other religious leaders accused of sexual abuse.

BishopAccountability.org, an online research site that has chronicled the clergy sex abuse crisis since it erupted in the Archdiocese of Boston in 2002, named clerics with the Congregation of Christian Brothers, the Dominican Order and the Salesians of Don Bosco.

One of the alleged victims, now a 48-year-old man, said in a recently settled lawsuit that he was abused by three clerics, starting when he was 12. Two of the clerics -- the Rev. Sean Rooney and Brother Alan Scheneman -- were members of the Salesians.

The man said Rooney molested him in 1980, when he was 14, while they were on a bus traveling from Don Bosco Technical High School in Boston to Sacred Heart Retreat House in Ipswich, during a school trip for students from the Salesian Junior Seminary, in Goshen, N.Y., where Rooney was a teacher and the boy was a student. He said Rooney also repeatedly sexually abused him at the junior seminary, according to the lawsuit filed by Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian.

The same alleged victim said Scheneman repeatedly sexually abused him in 1981 at the junior seminary, where Scheneman was a faculty member.

John Kelly, a Massachusetts attorney who represents the Eastern Province of the Salesian Society, confirmed there was a monetary settlement, but declined further comment.

Scheneman left the order during the 1980s, according to the National Catholic Directory. Attempts to locate him and Rooney were unsuccessful.

Another alleged victim accused Brother William Hennessey, of the Congregation of Christian Brothers, of repeatedly molesting her between 1962 and 1964, starting when she was 8. Hennessey was assigned to Catholic Memorial High School in West Roxbury. The girl's family lived near the school and befriended Hennessey, who often visited her mother and grandmother at their homes, Garabedian said.

Hennessey died in 1978. Anthony Doughtery, a New York lawyer representing the Christian Brothers, said as part of a bankruptcy protection reorganization plan, the Christian Brothers paid $13.5 million to fund a trust created to distribute funds to sexual abuse survivors.

Another woman accused Brother Julius Martin Mattingly of sexually molesting her from 1969 to 1975, from age 13 to 19. Mattingly was assigned to the St. Stephen Priory in Dover.

Attempts to locate Mattingly were unsuccessful. Thomas Van Dusen, a Michigan attorney who represents the Dominican Order, declined comment.

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, said the group publishes the names of accused clerics "to advance transparency in the Catholic Church and to help protect children."

"We are told by many survivors that seeing their perpetrators names made public is a source of tremendous validation and healing," she said.