Mass. Priest Urges Diocese's Reform
New Abuse Cases Emerge After Confrontation on Support for Molester

By Jonathan Finer
Washington Post
March 20, 2004

East Longmeadow, Mass. - The Rev. James J. Scahill says he can live with the blank stares and cold shoulders from his fellow Catholic priests. He can tolerate losing his elected seat on a church advisory council, as he almost surely will when a vote is held later this year.

But what he could no longer abide -- what led him to risk the enmity of a religious institution he had served for 30 years -- was his church's continued sponsorship of a pedophile priest who authorities have said might also be a killer.

So, along with his congregation in this affluent and leafy suburb of Springfield, he began to fight back, withholding donations to the diocese and speaking out against the bishop who led it.

"I knew damn well what I was stepping into, that this would create a lot of anger and resentment, but I thought the church needed to be challenged," said Scahill, pastor of St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church here. "Although, frankly, I had no way of knowing just how deep this went."

About 90 miles west of Boston, where the nationwide clergy abuse scandal first exploded two years ago, is a gathering storm of allegations, denials and legal action. In the diocese of Springfield, an industrial sprawl that hugs the Connecticut River and is home to about 250,000 Catholics, 30 clergymen have been accused of molesting 70 children since the 1950s, according to a recent study prepared for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

More than half of the alleged victims named Richard Lavigne, a defrocked Springfield pastor and a convicted child molester, who is also the only suspect in the unsolved 1972 homicide of 13-year-old altar boy Danny Croteau, according to authorities quoted by the Boston Globe. Not included in the accounting is the former head of the diocese, Bishop Thomas L. Dupre, who resigned last month. A local prosecutor has announced that he is investigating allegations that Dupre sexually assaulted two boys in the 1970s.

"What's gone on here is every bit as awful as what happened in Boston," said Peter Pollard, the Western Massachusetts coordinator for the Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests. "It feels like this diocese is a rat's nest of predators and protectors of accused priests."

But from this latest chapter in a tale that has produced so many villains, Scahill, 56, has emerged as a rare hero from within the clergy, say abuse victims and their advocates.

At a recent Mass in his modern wood-and-brick church, Scahill's homily included the familiar parable of the good Samaritan, who cares for a downtrodden stranger, but the lesson could have been drawn from his own life. "There are few things more wrong than seeing a need and not making an attempt to meet it," the plain-spoken priest told parishioners.

"When we're all long gone and this crisis is history, he will probably be considered for sainthood," said John Stobierski, a Springfield lawyer who represents 40 alleged abuse victims. "He's one of the lone members of clergy who stood up for what is right, and he has paid a tremendous price for it. I analogize his role to that of the priests who stood up to Rome's complicity with the Nazis during World War II."

Soon after he was assigned to St. Michael's in May 2002, Scahill said, he was presented with complaints from parishioners about the church's financial support of Lavigne, who admitted in the early 1990s to molesting two altar boys and was sentenced to 10 years of probation. The diocese later settled a civil lawsuit with 15 victims for $1.4 million. But Lavigne remained on a church pension, worth $1,000 a month, plus benefits.

After much soul-searching, Scahill asked parishioners to withhold the standard contribution to the diocese's general fund of 6 percent of earnings from collections. "They rose and applauded," he said.

"The vast majority have been supportive," Connie Gallagher said as she left church Sunday. "The church is full. He's a courageous man. He gave us the okay to go forth and speak up."

But that decision brought Scahill into direct confrontation with Dupre, then head of the diocese. At the end of May, Scahill said, he told Dupre of his plans and asked the bishop to begin the process of laicization to remove Lavigne from the priesthood and strip him of the church's financial support. "He told me not to tell him what to do," Scahill said.

Other priests considered Scahill a troublemaker, ignoring him or turning their backs when he entered rooms, he said.

"They thought I was trying to destroy the church," he said. "As priests, we are conditioned into a mind-set of obedience to the bishop. But should we not stand up when the church does the wrong thing? I believe the church will be better, stronger when we get past this."

Mark Dupont, a spokesman for the diocese, called Scahill a "compassionate and good pastor," but said, "On some level, the action he is taking [to withhold money from the diocese] is regrettable." Dupont said Scahill knew of the financial arrangement between the diocese and Lavigne when it was finalized in the early 1990s and "raised no objection."

Scahill, who was leading one of Lavigne's former parishes when the abuse allegations emerged, said, "I'm not a rebel by nature. For a while I sort of, kind of, went with the flow. But when my parishioners came to me [in 2002], I said, 'You know what? They're right.' "

Scahill said he confronted Dupre at a meeting of the Presbyteral Council, which advises the bishop. He asked the bishop about a statement he said Dupre had made to the council at a previous meeting just as abuse allegations were becoming public in Boston -- that the diocese was lucky certain priests' personnel records had been destroyed in the 1970s under the leadership of a previous diocesan head. Dupre denied knowledge of destroyed records when confronted, Scahill said.

Last September, Scahill testified under oath that Dupre had once said diocesan documents were destroyed. Dupre again denied Scahill's allegations in his own sworn statement.

Then, in October, Scahill was approached by a woman with a story that he said was "the most shocking yet." Her son was raped about 30 years ago, she said, by Dupre. Scahill told state authorities, who said they could not do anything unless the victim came forward.

In mid-January, after Dupre was confronted by a reporter from the Republican newspaper in Springfield about the abuse allegations, the bishop resigned, citing health problems. A grand jury is investigating the assault accusations, including evidence that Dupre did not turn over written allegations of abuse to law enforcement officials investigating the diocese. If charged, Dupre would be the first U.S. bishop to face criminal charges from the abuse crisis.

"There was no joy in that for me at all," Scahill said, of Dupre's predicament. "But it showed where some of the resistance was coming from."

While the community was still reeling from the allegations, Monsignor Richard S. Sniezyk, the interim diocese head, angered many parishioners when he told the Boston Globe that the abusive priests "did good ministry, they were good to their people, they were kind, compassionate, but they had no idea what they were doing to these young men that they were abusing."

Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell of New York was named Dupre's replacement last week, and a lawyer for the two alleged victims said he would file a civil lawsuit against Dupre. Lavigne, meanwhile, was laicized by the Vatican last fall and will lose his church pension in May. He remains a free man.

The three-decade-old murder of Croteau, whose body was found in a local river, his head smashed by a rock, is under investigation. Croteau's parents and some law enforcement officials who had investigated the death, told the Globe last year that they believe Lavigne was responsible.

"There is absolutely nothing to the idea that he committed murder," said Lavigne's attorney, Max D. Stern, who said that a blood sample provided by his client in the early 1990s did not match blood found at the murder scene.

Some of Lavigne's victims say they believe it is possible the priest was a killer. Steve Block, who works with disabled children in Springfield, said that as a 12-year-old altar boy he was molested by Lavigne, and that the priest had warned him not to tell anyone, "or else."

"We want justice for Danny," said Block, who said Scahill's support has been invaluable. "He told me his door is always open. He is a hero to the victims, him and his congregation. They stood up for people they had never even met."