Hiding Truth to Protect a Big 'Earner'

By Jimmy Breslin
Long Island (NY) Newsday
January 3, 2003

We are in receipt today of a portion of a transcript of a four-hour sworn statement of the Rev. Michael Hands, a priest who has pleaded guilty to molesting a 13-year-old boy. The statement is for a civil suit by the mother. Hands also charges that Msgr. Charles "Bud" Ribaudo, formerly of St. Dominic's in Oyster Bay, sexually abused him back when he was in high school, which Ribaudo denies.

The Rev. Hands is hardly heroic. The parents of the victim report that they walked into the boy's bedroom just in time to find him standing on a chair with a rope around his neck. They blame it on the molestation.

Yet the statement by Hands takes the matter out of Long Island and puts it alongside Boston as a national story. It shows that the inside of the Catholic Church coincides with that heard on a bug in any Mafia clubhouse.

Hands says diocese officials felt bad that there was little they could do to help him right away because the matter already had gone to the police; that normally, if they had time, they would make some kind of settlement with the family right away.

They were still desperate to do this because they had to protect Msgr. Ribaudo, who was the biggest earner for the church on Long Island. He brought in all the donation money. Of course they would place him in a parish with a high school filled with young boys. Oh, there may be a risk with an accused sex molester around the school. But he gets the money! Hands, who stood in the way of this, was told that he had to save the big earner.

What follows here is dialogue from only 20 pages of the statement. The testimony here cannot be contained in one column on one day in a newspaper. Therefore, this could be part of a continuing report.

In what follows, the "Q" is Michael Dowd, attorney for the family. The "A" the Rev. Hands.

Q. Tell me about the contents of those conversations.

A. The first conversation with [Diocese of Rockville Centre] Bishop Murphy happened after he had become bishop, maybe about a month. He visited me in St. Luke's Institute in Maryland when he was down for the bishops conference. We talked for about 45 minutes to an hour. I was extremely forthright with my conversation about what had happened with [the victim]. I was also honest with him that during therapy, after about two and a half, three months, I had begun to remember and recall and speak about, for the first time, what had happened between Father Bud Ribaudo and myself ... I was working my way through that, as well as anger issues over the bishop not knowing me or Father Ribaudo. The first thing that he told me hurt me. He said that he heard about these allegations I made about Msgr. Ribaudo and that it was sad because he had heard that he was such a talented man and that Bud Ribaudo had gone for psychological testing locally while continuing to live on Long Island.

Msgr. Frank Caldwell [director of priest personnel] told me that they wanted to send Msgr. Ribaudo to St. Luke's Institute, and I said I kind of have a problem with that, if we would be sharing a facility together with the man I'm accusing of sexually abusing me. He tried two or three times to have me not oppose sending him there, because he thought this was good.

Q. Is this Caldwell?

A. Yes, Caldwell. Because he thought it was a good thing. Again, I went through the same kind of behavior as I had done when Bud Ribaudo had originally touched me. I just tried to block the whole thing from my mind and pretend that none of this was happening. I found from St. Luke's that they had firmly opposed his coming.

Q. Tell me about Murphy's conversation.

A. Bishop Murphy told me that before he came to our diocese, that when he was working as a bishop up in the Boston Archdiocese, he had handled many situations like this before, that I need not feel like I can't talk to him. He says that he heard it all before and that he understands, and that I could tell him anything and that he is not beyond handling such sexually explicit news.

So I did. I told him everything. And at the end of the conversation, I asked him for his blessing. ... The next conversation that I had with him directly happened in February of 2002. But I've had conversations with him via Frank Caldwell in between.

Q. Tell me about those conversations with Caldwell in between.

A. In the conversation with Frank Caldwell during the time I was in residential treatment at St. Luke's, after hearing about what happened with Bud Ribaudo and subsequently talking, he had talked to some of the people in the therapeutic team about how that experience had impacted me and he was surprised. He told me that I don't ask, every time I talk to him, where is Bud Ribaudo, what's happening with Bud Ribaudo?

I said I don't want to think about what happened. I don't care what happened to Bud, that's your business, and I hope you deal with that. ... And however you deal with that, I don't want to talk about, talk to Bud Ribaudo or anything about Bud Ribaudo. He said, do you know that there has never been a priest in the diocese that has been as psychologically evaluated as intensely as Bud Ribaudo? ... he wanted to impress upon me that this was being handled very seriously, my allegation, and that they were doing whatever the procedure called for.

I'm surprised at that, because I told Msgr. Caldwell about what happened ... in the end of August of 2001 in a visit he made to St. Luke's Institute to visit me. It was an official visit and he came as the diocese liaison, and I told him I was very raw; the day before, I had made this disclosure to my therapeutic small group and to the therapist and to the community, that I told the story of how Bud Ribaudo was touching me.

Q. This was what month, what year?

A. August of 2001.

Q. When did you get arrested?

A. May of 2001. And Msgr. Caldwell took the information back. He told me on a phone call the next day that - he thanked me for my honesty and he knew my pain and encouraged me to continue to work through this issue with the therapists. And that he had brought this information to - there was no bishop at the time officially appointed - he told [Msgr.] Jack Alesandro, who was the acting administrator of the diocese and vicar general and [Msgr.] Alan Placa.

... And as Bishop Murphy was already appointed but not arriving ... he had a lot on his plate, planning his party, that they didn't want to tell him about this until after the party, and they didn't want to tell anybody, anyone, anything until after the party.

And a month went by and the party happened and Bishop Murphy was welcomed in. Frank Caldwell told me that during the first week after the party he told Bishop Murphy that, you know, Msgr. Ribaudo, very prominent priest in the diocese, well, when he [Hands] was in high school, Father Hands said that he [Ribaudo] had repeatedly touched him in a sexually explicit way in his office and what do we do about it?

I was told by Msgr. Caldwell that at that point he [Ribaudo] was put on a medical leave and told parishioners that - and the word through the diocese was that - he was having heart-related medical attention since he had a past history of heart attacks and - but in reality he was going to psychologists to be evaluated.

I was then told by Msgr. Caldwell that in December of 2001 ... Bishop Murphy wanted to ask me to ... leave the priesthood ... that he felt that was in everyone's best interests ... I told him that I already had made that determination for my own reasons ... And he said OK, because that's what the bishop wanted. And the other thing is that, do you know that Msgr. Ribaudo was really really evaluated and we want to reinstate him back in the parish to be the monsignor in charge of St. Dominic's parish and high school before Christmas?

... And I was then told that the only way that that could happen is if I promised never to talk about it, to never tell anyone. They asked me, Caldwell asked me specifically, who did you tell beside your therapist? I said, well, the residential treatment community of everybody at St. Luke's. I would have to be in large group settings and tell everybody everything that happened in my life, that that's an important part of therapy is making that kind of disclosure and dealing with the emotions around that disclosure, and I would, continue to do that.

They said, well, in your legal dealings, would you not tell anyone? I said, well, at this point in time, I don't see a reason why I'm going to have to tell anybody, tell the judge. But in my case, but if I'm ever asked, I'm certainly not going to lie. That happened.

I think, in telling my story to a judge, I would want to say as some sense of an understanding of sexual boundaries that were broken between myself and [the victim], that growing up as a teenager is a very intensely vulnerable emotional place, having had sexual boundaries violated by a priest who told me that this was all being done for my good because I was in need, and that this went on to become a relationship that I had saw to be very mentoring, that that did impact judgments and decisions that happened with [the victim] that I see as very distorted and wrong and hurtful now. But to understand what happened, I would someday probably want to mention that I had this experience.

And he said, could you say that it was a significant adult in your life and not mention that he was a priest? I said I could try that. I don't believe any judge or district attorney would let it rest with that. They would want to know who actually was this person. He said, I see, I see.

I was very concerned about what would happen to me because of the legal charges, the ramifications, and that when any legal requirement, whether it was incarceration or anything was finished, what would I do next? That as the bishop wanted me to move out of the priesthood and I told Msgr. Caldwell tell the bishop I don't want to, I'm not going to fight this with him and the Vatican and anything like that. I'm not going to make it an issue, because the bishop was concerned about that. He wanted to know what I would do.

And he also wanted to know that I was not going to talk about Bud Ribaudo and that when I would make the transition from the ministry, I said, you know, would the bishop or the diocese help me to make that transition, meaning financially. I own nothing. I have nothing. I've been here, I have no place to stay, and medical insurance would drop me ...

In the conversation I had with Msgr. Caldwell, I felt that there was a sense that they will make this agreement, that they will help me in paying my insurance and medical, and help me get the therapeutic help that I need and help me to make a transition, whenever that occurs, but then it was very important that I also give them my silence around Bud Ribaudo.

And my mother and father knew about what happened with Bud Ribaudo about a month or five weeks even after I had these recollections of what happened. I finally told them what happened, and they were understandably upset, and my mother had mentioned to a friend of hers who is visiting them in Florida, something about this, and word of that conversation got back to someone, who told Msgr. Caldwell. And he wanted me to call my mother or he would call my mother himself and stress with her the importance of keeping this silent because Bud Ribaudo was now back in a parish and they wanted to keep him back in the parish.

... Of course, they would want to keep him in the parish because there is no - very few priests in the diocese who could bring in as much money into this parish. He's a very important priest to keep there ... if you shut your mouth.