By Bishop William F. Murphy
Long Island Catholic
July 2, 2003

The three listening sessions of June 22, 23 and 24 were a time of grace; difficult, painful at times, but grace filled. In the weeks ahead I will be reviewing the large volume of thoughts, opinions and suggestions made to me on many issues. I do not want to wait, however, to clarify something that remains a shadow to too many here on Long Island: my role in the Archdiocese of Boston.

In 1987 I returned to Boston after more than a dozen years studying in Rome and working in the Vatican. After being pastor of a parish for a short time, Cardinal Law appointed me to his Cabinet as Secretary for Community Relations, a post I held until October 1, 1993. During that time, I had no responsibility outside of those that had to do with community relations, social justice issues, ecumenism and communications. During that time I had no access to information about any priest who may have been involved in the abuse of a minor.

In 1992, in response to the sex abuse crisis, Cardinal Law, like most U.S. bishops at that time, began a process of writing procedures on handling cases of priests charged with the sexual abuse of minors. In early 1993, that policy went into effect. Significantly that policy took responsibility for handling these cases out of the Vicar General’s Office and placed them under a Delegate to the Archbishop. This Delegate reported directly to the Cardinal bypassing the Vicar General. Thus when I became Vicar General on October 1, 1993, the policy was already operative and the Delegate was reporting then, as now, directly to the Archbishop. The Vicar General did not deal with accused priests, except for the specific cases described below, none of which involved a reassignment to a pastoral position.

It is true that the confidential files were located in a locked closet between my office and that of the delegate. Some files had been left in my office by the prior VG. These and any other files that may have been in someone’s office were all placed in the one locked file in the aforementioned closet. I had a key to that closet. But I did not have nor did I seek any involvement with the cases stored there. It was clear to me that they were being handled directly by the Cardinal and the Delegate.

In the media there has been some confusion on this because of my name. For a period while I was VG, the Cardinal’s Delegate was Reverend William Francis Murphy, a young priest with the same exact name as I. He, like those before and after him, reported directly to the Cardinal and not to me about pending cases of allegations of sexual abuse and the proper handling of them. Some of those cases, such as that of Paul Shanley, have become notorious. Many seeing the name William Murphy on published letters and memos have assumed that he was I. That is not true.

Therefore I can say with complete honesty that I was not involved in handling allegations made against priests and I was not involved in recommending the assignment of any such priest to pastoral ministry where he might have contact with minors. While I was not involved in handling priests, allegations against them, evaluations of them or any decision regarding their possible return to pastoral ministry, Cardinal Law did on occasion ask my counsel or gave me some specific tasks that dealt with a few of these priests after they had been removed from pastoral ministry.

On occasion, Cardinal Law gave me some specific administrative tasks that dealt with a few of these priests after they had been removed from pastoral ministry. One of these was John Geoghan, whose uncle, a priest, was a high school and college classmate of my father, who much admired his priest classmate. When I became VG, John Geoghan was “Assistant in the Office for Senior Priests” and residing in Regina Cleri, the home for retired priests. His job was to visit retired priests living on their own to see that they were not in need. In those days this was considered a “safe ministry” for a priest with allegations against him. The Rector of Regina Cleri complained to the Cardinal that the retired priests were uncomfortable with John Geoghan, whose reputation was at that point beginning to become known publicly. For the first time, at the Cardinal’s request, I looked at John Geoghan’s file. The Cardinal and I agreed that he should be removed from his “safe ministry.” I met with John Geoghan several times over five or six months trying to get him to resign. Whether I cajoled him by reference to family or pressed him with strong arguments, he kept refusing to respond to that request. With the Cardinal’s permission, I removed him against his will. By that point he was living in his family home. Later I worked with the Cardinal on the petition to the Pope who removed him from the priesthood in response to our report and request.

There were occasions when I was involved in attempts to find ways of resolving situations of priests after they had been removed from ministry. After the Archdiocese received a donation of property, I suggested that it might be a place to house these priests safely, away from minors, under supervision. It was not. The Cardinal gave me permission to sell the property and use that money to lease a residence supervised by McClean’s, a well-known psychiatric institution. It was my task to persuade the priests who had been removed from pastoral assignments to reside at Baldpate where they were under supervision and underwent psychological and other kinds of counseling. The hope was that the priests would reach decisions about their own lives that would remove them permanently from priesthood. The Delegate regularly reported to the Cardinal that this had a very limited success. It was hoped that they would voluntarily seek laicisation. If any were ready to seek laicisation, I would explain the process to them and then pass them to the assistant for canonical affairs. After a year the project was abandoned without much success.

One of the priests, Melvin Surette, made several proposals to the Cardinal seeking to have a nonpastoral ministry in the chancery. One of his proposals was that he would have an office under the supervision of the Delegate. Working from that office, he would seek out appropriate job opportunities for priests on leave. Such jobs would have to be such that there would be no possibility of contact with minors. The Chancellor and I approved an expenditure of about $14,000 for him to set up such an office under the supervision of the delegate. That proposal, to my memory, never materialized and the money was never spent.

One other priest on administrative leave for serious allegations, Ronald Paquin, went out and found a job for himself at a local pharmacy. When the delegate learned of this, he asked me to call him in and instruct him that he was to give up that position because of possible contact with minors. With some argument, he reluctantly agreed to do what I asked him to do.

The only other role I had as VG in these matters was a routine one. I was involved administratively in reviewing legal settlements as they were processed. While I deeply regret now that most of these settlements contained provisions for confidentiality, it was my understanding at the time that such confidentiality provisions were routine in the resolution of personal injury cases. That approach was wrong and I apologize that I went along with this. As you know, I have made it clear that in our diocese we will not enter into any confidential settlements precisely because I do not want anyone to misinterpret a desire to help the suffering as some kind of “hush money.”

As you may know, the Attorney General of Massachusetts has empanelled a Grand Jury whose findings will probably be released in the near future. I appeared one day before that Grand Jury. I answered honestly all questions put to me. What that Grand Jury report will say I have no way of knowing. Whatever it might say, what I have told you is the truth. As with all grand juries, there is no opportunity to question, argue or refute anything that is brought before the grand jurors by the state’s representative. The Grand Jury will reach its conclusions without hearing any counter arguments from me or my counsel. I have no defense against that. However, whatever may or may not be said in that forthcoming report, I have shared with you my role in Boston as completely and as honestly as the facts and my memory have been able to record them.

From what I have described here, I believe it should be clear that I was not involved in assigning priests with allegations of abuse against them to situations where they could be a danger to minors. In fact, in the few cases in which I was involved as Vicar General for the Archdiocese of Boston, my efforts were directed at keeping such priests away from minors, either making sure that they were not in pastoral situations or removing them from the priesthood entirely.

All of us who have had to reflect on the past in light of the present can see missed opportunities. For example, when I came here as your bishop, I removed from “safe ministry” in November 2001 the two priests about whom I then had information. I further determined that there would not be such pastoral ministry for any priest about whom there were credible allegations. I also determined that we would enter into settlements only if it was so indicated by the civil authorities and that we would never enter into confidentiality agreements. I have kept that pledge to date and I intend to continue to do that as our diocese seeks to implement the Charter of Dallas and the Norms of Canon Law. This is an ongoing task but one to which we are committed as a diocese.

I ask you to continue to pray for all of us and to support us in this most important commitment of our diocese.