Holding the Diocese Accountable

Gallup Independent
November 12, 2014

http://gallupindependent.com/

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Diocese of Gallup’s Chapter 11 petition being filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Mediation talks before Judge Randall J. Newsome should begin soon if they haven’t already started.

As Bishop James S. Wall discusses mediation strategy with his bankruptcy attorneys, he needs to keep some very vulnerable children in the forefront of his thoughts. Although they are adults now, the case’s clergy sex abuse claimants were once Catholic children from parishes across the diocese. They were once children whose parents sent them to Catholic schools and churches to learn about their Christian faith. They were once eager young altar servers. Neither they nor their parents expected to be betrayed by their own church leaders.

As the mediator, Newsome also needs to keep some promises in the forefront of his thoughts. Newsome is new to the bankruptcy case, but he needs to hold the Gallup bishop and his attorneys accountable for some old promises. Whatever monetary settlement amount is determined for abuse survivors, the mediation talks should result in a settlement agreement that includes the following requirements that will insure clergy abuse survivors finally receive some truth and transparency from the diocese.

• Publicly release a list of everyone associated with the Gallup Diocese who has been credibly accused of the sexual abuse of minors since the diocese’s founding. This includes men and women, priests, members of religious orders, employees and volunteers. This list needs to be posted on the diocese’s website as the bishop promised when he arrived here in 2009, and it needs to be posted permanently and prominently. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s listing on its “Office of Investigations” webpage would be an example to emulate.

• Publicize the list of credibly accused abusers by inserting it for three consecutive weeks in the church bulletins of every parish that was ever part of the Gallup Diocese.

• Publicly release and post online every personnel file of each credibly accused abuser. Identifying information pertaining to clergy sex abuse victims must be redacted, but diocesan officials and their attorneys should not be allowed a role in the redaction responsibilities.

• Require the personnel file of James M. Burns, which has already been released and posted online, to be re-released with dramatically fewer redactions. It is unacceptable that the Gallup Diocese was allowed to censor more than one-third of this notorious abuser’s file.

• Require the diocese to offer counseling to all victims of clergy sex abuse and their immediate family members by underwriting the cost of the therapy.

• Require the diocese to create a new ethics policy for all employees and volunteers. Require that policy be posted prominently on the diocese’s website, and require all employees and volunteers to read and sign the policy and attest to the fact that they have not violated the policy. Another good example from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia would be its “Standards of Ministerial Behaviors and Boundaries.”

• Require the diocese to publicly remove from ministry every employee and volunteer who has violated the ethics policy. The Gallup Diocese currently has a number of individuals who have not been accused of sexually abusing children, but they have been credibly accused of offenses that range from “boundary” allegations to violent crimes. The diocese needs to finally remove these individuals from ministry and tell the public the truth about their removal.

• Publicly release a list of all real property in Arizona and New Mexico, along with the sale prices, which the diocese has sold to help fund the bankruptcy settlement. This includes residential lots, rural tracts of land, and commercial property that is not needed for religious purposes. Lead bankruptcy attorney Susan G. Boswell promised such a list would be compiled, and she promised such property would be sold. The Diocese of Gallup has no need for such property — it needs to live up to its promise of funding a fair and just settlement.

These mediation talks and the final settlement agreement will reveal a lot about the character of the Gallup bishop. We hope it will reveal some sorely needed moral courage.