Secrets, Sins and Silence Five dioceses agreed to help one sexual abuse victim By Tim Townshend St. Louis Post-Dispatch November 16, 2004 Secrets, Sins and Silence • Part 1: The Untold Story of Sexual Abuse at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, by Phillip O'Connor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 13, 2004 • Part 2: Coming to Terms, Confronting the Church, by Phillip O'Connor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 15, 2004        • Dad Is Haunted by Family Friend's Abuse of Son, by Phillip O'Connor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 15, 2004 • Part 3: As Scandal Breaks, Search for Truth Begins, by Phillip O'Connor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 16, 2004        • Five Dioceses Agreed to Help One Sexual Abuse Victim, by Tim Townshend, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 16, 2004 • Timeline, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 16, 2004 • Sins and Silence: Problem Priests, Editorial, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 17, 2004 [See also Will public debriding bring private healing of the wounds at St. Thomas Aquinas? by Bishop John R. Gaydos, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 22, 2004.] On Dec. 1, 2003, an extraordinary secret meeting took place in Conference Room 2050 at Chicago's O'Hare Hilton. Representatives of five U.S. Catholic dioceses gathered around a table with Ted Lausche, a Wisconsin man who said he had been sexually abused by priests in their dioceses decades before, beginning when he was 6 years old. Three hours later -- after questioning that Lausche, 47, described as "grueling" -- those representatives agreed among themselves to pay thousands of dollars for Lausche's therapy, drugs and other needs. A now retired Jefferson City Diocese priest, who at one time had taught at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Hannibal, Mo., was one of several priests Lausche had accused of molesting him as a child -- an allegation the priest vehemently denies and the diocese has never found credible. Although Lausche did not attend St. Thomas, the Chicago meeting -- and the approximately $35,000 the Jefferson City Diocese has so far paid the accuser -- provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the incredible lengths the Jefferson City Diocese and others like it around the nation are going to deal with abuse allegations since the priest abuse scandal became public in 2002. The force behind the airport meeting was Sister Ethel Marie Biri, chancellor of the Jefferson City Diocese. Biri had met Lausche, of Lake Geneva, Wis., and his mother-in-law, Laverne Stovicek, on two other occasions in the months prior -- once by herself and the second time with members of the diocese's lay review board. At each meeting, Biri listened as Lausche told his story. In August 1969, when Lausche was 12, the boys from his Louisiana orphanage were taken to a camp in Mississippi. Lausche contends he was sodomized in a camp shower by a young seminarian from Missouri who later became a priest, while being held down by another seminarian who is now a priest in Indiana. At the O'Hare Hilton meeting Lausche, Stovicek and Biri sat at a table with Sister Addie Lorraine Walker, provincial leader of the Dallas province of the School Sisters of Notre Dame; Monsignor Robert L. Sell III, vicar general and chancellor of the Lafayette, Ind., diocese; Sister Carmelita Centanni, victims' assistance coordinator for the archdiocese of New Orleans; and Monsignor Russell Harrington, chancellor of the diocese of Lafayette, La. The Rev. James J. Cink, director of child protection for the archdiocese of Mobile, Ala., sat in via conference call. At least one of the five priests Lausche accused of abusing him as a boy previously had been convicted of molesting children and was known to have lived near the Louisiana orphanage where Lausche once lived. Another was removed as a priest in 2003 after other allegations of child abuse surfaced. Biri said Lausche's allegation against the Jefferson City Diocese priest "is unsubstantiated." Despite the lack of proof, Biri and the diocese decided to help Lausche out financially. "It's clear to me that Ted is not someone who is just making this up," she said. "However, I can't say the identity of the people he's named is correct." Biri said she recognizes the payments to Lausche may look, to some, like hush money. "I can understand how people would see it that way, but that's not how we approached it," she said. Harrington said his diocese is "paying for Lausche's therapy at present" in an alternate-year agreement with the New Orleans archdiocese. So far, the Lafayette, La., diocese has paid $5,600 for Lausche's therapy since last January. This coming January, the archdiocese of New Orleans is scheduled to take over those payments, Harrington said.

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