Norwich Diocese Won't Yet Disclose Number of Victims

By Andrew Ryan
The Day [New London CT]
February 28, 2004

Unlike leaders of the two other dioceses in the state, Norwich Bishop Michael R. Cote declined Friday to release the number of child sex-abuse victims and the number of allegations levied against priests in the Diocese of Norwich in the past 50 years in conjunction with a national study of pedophile priests.

Norwich Bishop Michael R. Cote found the reports 'disturbing.' Photo by Sean O. Elliot.

While Cote described the findings of the report as "disturbing" and "heart-wrenching" in a written statement, Jacqueline Keller, diocesan communications director, said Cote would not enumerate the number of allegations or alleged victims because "he is not sure of the number and he does not want to release a number he is not sure of."

In January, Cote told parishioners in church bulletins that 19 priests, or 1.4 percent of the 1,347 priests who have served in the diocese since its founding in 1953, have faced substantial allegations of child sex abuse. Because many pedophiles have multiple victims, church reform groups argue that the key figure in gauging the pervasiveness of molestation in a diocese is the number of allegations or victims, not the number of accused priests.

"It's very important to know how many accusations there are, that is how many children claim to be abused," said Robert Marrion of East Lyme, a co-founder of Voices of the Faithful of Eastern Connecticut, a church reform group. Nationally, "at least half the priests accused were multiple abusers," he said.

While each incident of sexual abuse is tragic, the pedophilia itself did not elevate the church scandal to the level of a crisis, reformers and religious scholars said. The crisis is the coverup, shuffling known abusers among parishes by bishops, skirting the law and putting problem priests in contact with more children, they said.

Reformers seeking full disclosure are pushing for the names and parishes of abusive priests, the number of children they allegedly victimized, and information on what has become of the abusers.

On its Web site, the Diocese of Bridgeport reported that 32 priests in the last 50 years were the subject of 109 allegations of sexual abuse brought by 107 alleged victims, with one person making three separate claims.

The Web site breaks down the number of allegations in two charts, one tallying the allegations by the decade in which the alleged abuse occurred, and the other noting the decade the allegations were first reported to the diocese. The site noted that 95 of the 109 allegations were reported in the last 10 years.

The Web site also lists how many of the accused priests were ordained in Bridgeport and how many are still living, and specifies the cash settlements paid to sex abuse victims. Nineteen of the 32 priests accused of wrongdoing have been named publicly.

Like the Bridgeport diocese, the Archdiocese of Hartford did more than enumerate the number of priests accused of sexual abuse. In a press release issued Monday, the archdiocese said that 56 people lodged allegations against 20 priests, noting that most of the alleged abuse took place in the 1960s and 1970s.

Of the 20 accused priests, the release said that eight were dead, 10 no longer had active ministry assignments, one had his connection to the archdiocese formally terminated and one had left the priesthood.

While the archdiocese did not plan to release a list naming all of the accused priests, all of their names have already been reported, according to the Rev. John P. Gatzak, archdiocese communications director.

"We are very aware" that the other two dioceses released the number of allegations and the number of victims, said Keller, the spokeswoman for the Norwich diocese. "The temptation of course is to try to come up with a number but the bishop is very concerned about the truthfulness of the number."

The Diocese of Norwich, which covers most of eastern Connecticut and is home to about 227,000 Catholics, also told parishioners in church bulletins that the diocese has spent $70,000 on costs related to sexual abuse and that the church's insurers have spent an additional $498,000. However, the bishop didn't release the names of the accused priests nor how many children each priest allegedly abused, and he didn't offer details about how the diocese handled the cases.

State privacy law bars the diocese from releasing the names of accused priests, Keller said, a fact that a spokesman from the state Department of Labor confirmed. Keller said that many of the accused are now dead and that none are still priests.

Marrion, of Voices of the Faithful, remained optimistic.

"It's a step - maybe a baby step - but every step Is progress," he said. "It's what they do next. How much they open up now."

a.ryan@theday.com