BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News [Buffalo NY]
November 17, 2024
By Jay Tokasz
Monsignor Charles A. Klauder, who made St. John the Baptist Church in the Town of Tonawanda one of the largest parishes in Western New York, liked to remark that he walked in the footsteps of John Neumann “all my life – in Philadelphia and at St. John’s.”
Neumann served as first resident pastor of St. John the Baptist before becoming bishop of Philadelphia, organizing the first parochial school system in the United States and doing so much charitable work that he would be canonized a saint in 1977.
As a young man in Philadelphia, Klauder used to pray at Neumann’s tomb, and after being ordained to the priesthood in 1918, he sought to pick up at St. John’s where Neumann had left off.
Klauder’s 45 years at St. John the Baptist are one of the lengthiest pastorates in Buffalo Diocese history, and he died in 1972 as a revered figure who was credited with rebuilding a parish that had gone dormant for decades after Neumann left in 1840.
But in his long tenure as pastor, Klauder also strayed from Neumann’s saintly footsteps.
Decades after Klauder’s death, diocese officials in 2019 quietly put his name on a list of clergy with “substantiated” claims of sexual abuse of children. The diocese made no public announcement about Klauder’s inclusion on the list, nor did it specify when the alleged abuses happened, when they were reported to diocese officials, or any other details.
Klauder’s name is known by generations of St. John’s parishioners and school alumni. The school hall/gymnasium is named for him and a street in the town bears his name. After his death, he was buried in a plot in front of the church.
Chief Judge Carl L. Bucki of U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of New York has denied the diocese’s request to keep in place a temporary stay that since 2020 has blocked all lawsuits against parishes and other Catholic entities from moving forward in New York state courts.
His case renewed questions that have dogged the diocese for years over its lack of transparency around clergy sexual abuse of minors.
The Buffalo Diocese in 2018 was among a few dozen dioceses in the country when it first began disclosing the names of clergy accused of sexual misconduct. Now more than three-quarters of the nation’s 196 dioceses and archdioceses have listed names of accused priests, with some disclosing detailed information to try to rebuild trust with parishioners and the larger public, according to BishopAccountability.org, a nonprofit organization that has been tracking the clergy abuse scandal nationwide since 2002.
The Diocese of Sacramento, for example, includes photographs and assignment histories of the priests on its clergy abuse list. It also provides information about when the alleged abuse happened, the age of the accuser, the general nature of the accusation, and the year the alleged abuse was reported to the diocese.
Abuse survivors and their advocates have criticized the Buffalo Diocese list as inadequate and not representative of the depth and breadth of clergy abuse here.
Diocese officials acknowledged in 2018 that they did not include on the list 48 priests who were deceased and had a single allegation against them that was reported to the diocese after the priest’s death. They said it was unfair for a priest not to have an opportunity to defend himself against a single claim. However, if a second credible allegation against a deceased priest emerged, diocese officials said at the time that the priest’s name would be added to the list.
A 2021 Buffalo News analysis of Child Victims Act lawsuits filed from 2019 to 2021 found 230 Catholic priests had been accused of molesting children in the Buffalo Diocese, with the allegations dating as far back as 1946.
The diocese’s list of credibly accused priests now includes 87 diocese priests, most of whom were ordained in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s and whose misconduct was alleged to have happened decades ago. A separate list posted on the diocese website identifies 23 religious order priests, such as Jesuits and Franciscans, who were accused of abusing a minor while on assignment in the Buffalo Diocese.
Klauder was not part of an original list of 42 offending priests put out on March 20, 2018, as public pressure on the diocese to release names mounted in the wake of a retired priest’s admissions to The News that he had molested “probably dozens” of boys in parishes decades ago. Then-Bishop Richard Malone on Nov. 5, 2018, disclosed the names of an additional 20 diocesan priests, after diocese officials received an avalanche of new abuse claims and did a deeper review of their files.
Diocese mum on Klauder’s abuse
Klauder’s name, however, wasn’t put on the list until nearly a year after the first update.
A diocese spokesman told The News in an email that the priest’s name was added to the list in 2019 “based on reports of abuse the diocese received in 2019.”
The spokesman, Joseph Martone, declined to elaborate.
The sweeping changes to address declining Mass attendance, financial struggles in many parishes, and a shrinking number of priests would cut the number of Catholic parishes in Western New York in half, while eliminating 40% of the region’s Catholic churches.
Joining Klauder on the list then were the Rev. Gerald Collins, the Rev. Richard Crumlish and the Rev. Louis Dolinic. Multiple Child Victims Act lawsuits alleged abuse by Collins, Crumlish and Dolinic, and Dolinic was put on administrative leave in 2018 following an abuse complaint. A diocese review board later determined the complaint was substantiated.
Klauder is not accused of sexual abuse in any Child Victims Act cases, according to a Buffalo News review of court records. The diocese’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing resulted in claims from 900 people alleging sex abuse, but the filing didn’t happen until Feb. 28, 2020, months after Klauder already was on the list. Those bankruptcy claims have not been made public.
The diocese didn’t make any announcement about the addition of Klauder and the others to the list, which occurred at a tumultuous period prior to the resignation of Malone under pressure from a growing number of Catholics frustrated by his mishandling of the abuse scandal.
Martone said in his email that the list “is publicized on the diocese’s website and has been amended from time to time over the past several years.”
But dioceses would be better off disclosing more information on their lists and whenever they make changes to those lists, if they want to improve their credibility and transparency, said Terry McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org, based in Waltham, Mass.
And nuances matter, he added.
“Of course, everyone knows there are guys who are really bad news, but there’s a difference between somebody who abuses 20 kids and somebody who abuses one, or even three or four,” said McKiernan. “I think if you don’t specify, anybody who looks at this list begins to wonder, ‘Well, are they all abusing 20?’ So why not be a little more specific? But I don’t think Buffalo has ever been receptive to that argument.”
When pressed for more information about the abuse allegations lodged against Klauder, Martone said the diocese was handcuffed by the bankruptcy proceedings, which include mediated settlement talks with insurers and a creditors committee that represents abuse claimants.
“Because of the ongoing Chapter 11 negotiations, the Diocese declines to respond to questions about policies regarding how names are added to the list and what additional information may be disclosed,” he said.
A celebrated pastor
Despite the abuse allegations, Klauder’s legacy at St. John the Baptist seems largely intact.
Martone said the diocese has been advised that Klauder’s name was removed from a parish hall, which is used as a gymnasium and cafeteria for the school. However, the room is still commonly referred to among parishioners as Klauder Hall.
Klauder Road, which runs between Parker Boulevard and Kenmore Avenue in Tonawanda, is named for the former St. John pastor, who was buried in a stretch of lawn at Englewood Avenue and Highland Parkway that faces the main entrance of the Colonial style church that Klauder is credited with getting built in 1950.
Klauder also figures prominently in a parish history on the St. John the Baptist website, which celebrates him for reviving the parish and growing it from 35 families when he started in 1927 to more than 2,000 at the time of his retirement in 1971. Klauder’s death less than a year later made the front page of the Courier-Express.
“He was respected and, I guess, revered by the parishioners there,” said Monsignor James G. Kelly, a retired Buffalo Diocese priest.
Kelly grew up in St. John the Baptist Church and was baptized as a baby by Klauder. As a newly ordained priest in 1962, Kelly celebrated his first Mass in his home parish, with Klauder joining him on the altar.
But Kelly said he wasn’t particularly close with Klauder and doesn’t know why Klauder was on the list or when his name was added.
“I had no idea if there were allegations or anything like that,” he said.
Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, Christopher O’Brien and his family were St. John’s parishioners, and he attended the parish school for a time when Klauder was pastor.
O’Brien is now an attorney who represents many plaintiffs in CVA cases, including some against the Buffalo Diocese.
He said he only recently learned from a fellow graduate of St. John the Baptist School that Klauder was on the diocese’s list, and he’s pretty sure most local Catholics are still unaware.
Married before he became a priest
Klauder was baptized in Philadelphia in St. Peter’s Church, where Neumann was buried after his death in 1860. He worked in his family’s tannery business as a young man and married Louise M. Soulas in 1904.
After Klauder’s wife died in 1910, he entered Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina and was ordained a priest in 1918 at age 38, according to news accounts.
Klauder went to the Buffalo Diocese immediately seeking to reopen the St. John the Baptist chapel but was rebuffed at first by Bishop William Turner and assigned instead to serve as assistant pastor at other area churches.
Turner finally relented and appointed Klauder pastor of St. John the Baptist in 1927. Klauder told the Courier-Express he was “led by God” to the place where Neumann had worked, and he described attending Neumann’s beatification ceremony in 1963 as “one of the most outstanding events of my life.”