KALAMAZOO (MI)
WOOD-TV [Grand Rapids MI]
May 22, 2024
By Rachel Van Gilder
The Michigan Attorney General’s Office on Wednesday released its report summarizing allegations of sexual abuse involving priests within the Catholic Diocese of Kalamazoo, saying the goal of the document was to “acknowledge the reports of abuse from victims” and to make public the findings of its investigation.
“We must break down the walls of silence that so often surround sexual abuse and assault,” Attorney General Dana Nessel said during a virtual news conference Wednesday morning. “In the end, we hope that this report provides a voice to those have suffered in silence for so long and that it shines a light on those alleged offenders whose actions allowed them to evade true accountability.”
She praised the survivors who shared what happened to them.
“Their willingness to come forward helped bring attention to an issue that has affected so many in our state and our country, including, of course, children,” Nessel said.
THE REPORT
The 144-page report contains allegations dating back to 1950 against 19 priests who worked with the diocese.
“The report contains detailed descriptions of allegations of sexual abuse and other sexual misconduct, including grooming and misuse of authority, against minors and adults,” the office’s release said.
PDF: Attorney General’s full report (Discretion advised)
[See BishopAccountability.org’s cache of the report here.]
The AG’s Office said that of the 19 priests, 12 were ordained or incardinated by the Diocese of Kalamazoo. Of the 19, 12 are dead. Six of the remaining seven have been removed from ministry and one was deemed too infirm to minister as of 2023, the diocese said.
Ten of the 19 were included in the list released by the diocese last month of people it has barred from working with children, which means the diocese deemed the allegations against them credible. Of the nine who were not on the list, at least four had allegations involving only adults.
The AG’s Office has pursued criminal cases against two of the priests: Brian Stanley and Jacob Vellian. Stanley, who was accused of holding a teenage boy against his will in a closet at St. Margaret’s Church in Otsego, pleaded guilty in November 2019 and later sentenced to jail time. Vellian died in India before he could be brought back to the United States to face charges.Play VideoMichigan AG announces release of abuse within Diocese of Kalamazoo
The AG’s Office noted that it could not file criminal charges in many of the cases because of statutes of limitations, because the priest involved has died or because the law was not broken. It added that some people who came forward with allegations did not wish to pursue criminal charges.
“Where we had the evidence and a priest who was alive and the charge survived the statute of limitation challenge, we did in fact move forward,” Danielle Hagaman-Clark, of the AG’s criminal trials and appeals division, told reporters. “At least with one of these priests, we believe there was a charge we could move forward with if we had a victim who was willing to participate in a criminal justice investigation.”After the Fall: The legacies of Grand Rapids’ two most notorious priests
The AG’s Office said the list of priests came from its search of hundreds of thousands of pages of documents it got from an October 2018 search warrant for the diocese and 65 reports to the state’s tip line for victims of clergy abuse. Information in the report came from the documents, tip line, interviews with victims and investigators, “open-source media,” and “reports of allegations disclosed by the Diocese.”
“The Diocese of Kalamazoo agreed to provide reports of abuse directly to the Department of the Attorney General. Victims often reach out to their faith leaders to share stories of abuse, and the willingness of the diocese to provide information was instrumental in the compilation of this report,” Nessel told reporters.
Her office said the report was shared with the diocese before it was made public.
BISHOP: ‘TRAGIC, APPALLING, INEXCUSABLE’
In a news conference in Kalamazoo following the release of the AG’s report, Bishop Edward Lohse apologized to those who suffered abuse at the hands of clergy and said the diocese would work to prevent future assaults.
“Today we are confronted with a disturbing truth: The sexual abuse of minors by priests here in the nine counties of the Diocese of Kalamazoo is an historic reality,” Lohse, who became the bishop of the diocese last year, said. “It is tragic, appalling and inexcusable. No one knows this better than you who are the victim survivors of that abuse. You were entrusted to our care and we failed to protect you. There is no other way to put it. For that failure, I am deeply sorry.”
He promised to meet the reality of the abuse “head-on.”
“We cannot be afraid of the truth. The ugliness detailed in the attorney general’s report is not the whole of who we are — but it is a part, and we must acknowledge that fact and own it so that it does not happen again,” he said.
Lohse said diocesan review boards had reason to believe most of the allegations brought forth are credible:
“There are 28 allegations of sexual misconduct with minors,” Lohse said, also clarifying that there were cases in which a single priest had multiple allegations against him. “At this time, we estimate that as many as 23 of those could be credible. Not all of those occurred here in the Diocese of Kalamazoo.
“There are 24 allegations of misconduct against adults, 22 of which are alleged to occur within the diocese. We estimate that potentially all 24 of those could be credible,” he continued.
He also said that “in at least some cases, there is evidence that suggests that warning signs weren’t recognized or unheeded.”
Lohse said that currently, no active priests within the diocese have credible allegations of abuse against a minor. He said the diocese now has robust policies to protect kids and that it will be updated this summer, but acknowledged “that does not erase what happened in the past” and how reports of abuse by priests have eroded the “level of moral credibility” of church leaders.
“(The allegations in the AG’s report are) a reality check,” Lohse said. “We have work to do.”
“When push comes to shove, we’re going to side with protecting kids,” he said.
THE AG’S INVESTIGATION
The AG’s Office has published or will publish similar reports for all seven of the Catholic dioceses within Michigan. The reports for the dioceses of Marquette and Gaylord were released in 2022 and January of this year, respectively.
“The information is being released to the public as an acknowledgment to the victims of these alleged crimes and as a public accounting of the resources allocated to the Department of Attorney General to investigate and prosecute clergy abuse,” the release from her office said.
Nessel could not provide a precise timeline for releasing the rest of the reports, but said to expect the next one to be for the Diocese of Lansing, followed by Grand Rapids, Saginaw and then the Archdiocese of Detroit, the one she thinks “will be the most comprehensive.”
The AG’s Office says that the October 2018 searches of the seven dioceses resulted in the seizure of 220 boxes of paper documents (58 related to Kalamazoo) and more than 3.5 million digital documents (about 200,000 linked to Kalamazoo). It says it has reviewed all of them, spoken with victims and hired a full-time victim advocate to work with them.
The investigation has yielded criminal charges against 11 priests from around the state, including Stanley and Vellian. Nessel said those cases involved at least 38 survivors.
In most of those cases, the priests pleaded to charges or were convicted by a jury. The state is still working to extradite one of the suspects, Roy Joseph, from India.
To report abuse by any member of the clergy to the state attorney general, you can call 844.324.3374, email aginvestigations@michigan.gov or go to the AG’s website. The state also has resources for all victims of sexual abuse at 855.VOICES4 (864.2374).
—News 8’s Meghan Bunchman contributed to this report.