Syracuse bishop on 2011 deposition: My words gave wrong impression to child-molesting victims

By John O'brien
Syracuse.com
September 13, 2015

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2015/09/syracuse_bishop_on_2011_my_words_gave_the_wrong_impression_to_victims_of_child-m.html

Bishop Robert Cunningham in 2010. Photo by Stephen Cannerelli

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- The Roman Catholic bishop of Syracuse issued a public letter today clarifying a 2011 deposition in which he said child victims of priest sexual abuse were partly to blame.

Bishop Robert Cunningham sent the letter in response to a story on Syracuse.com and in The Post-Standard that cited his deposition in a federal lawsuit.

"Victims of abuse are never at fault!" Cunningham wrote.

"Depositions are difficult by their nature," he wrote. "The line of questioning varied between the specific and generic scenarios concerning the Sacrament of Confession."

He said he was trying to explain that he didn't know what went on in a person's heart and mind.

"I tried my best to answer questions and I must admit gave responses that I wish were different," he wrote. "It saddens me to read the article and to realize that my words gave the wrong impression to victims, their families and the people of the diocese that I believe the victims of abuse are at fault. Nothing could be further from the truth."

In the deposition, Cunningham said,"the boy is culpable" and later referred to victims as accomplices.

"Bottom line is I cannot go back and change my words but I can assure you that I did not believe the individual involved in the case was at fault," Cunningham wrote.

The deposition was taken in a federal lawsuit against the diocese, filed by a man who said he was sexually abused as a child by a Syracuse priest.

A national victims' advocate group responded to the story today by calling for New York Cardinal Tim Dolan to "harshly, publicly and immediately denounce" Cunningham and his predecessor, Bishop James Moynihan, for blaming victims of pedophile priests.

The Syracuse.com story reported that a survivor of a priest's child-molesting, Charles Bailey, said Moynihan told him 10 years ago that victims were partly to blame.

"Shame on any and every Catholic official who ignores – and thus essentially endorses – these mean-spirited remarks," said Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, outreach director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests