More Than a Witch Hunt
Dominicans Under Fire in Oakland

By Robert Kumpel
San Francisco Faith
March 2005

http://www.sffaith.com/ed/articles/2005/0503rk.htm

Editor's note: The following story was to appear in our February issue. The day before deadline, however, I received a call from a Dominican priest asking me to pull the story. The priest told me he could give me information that would put the situation at St. Albert's Priory in perspective. I agreed I would at least hold the story for another month and arranged to talk with the priest in about a week and a half. When that time expired, I thrice called the priest, leaving messages both where he carries out his apostolate and at the Dominican house. After about a week, the priest contacted the Faith's publisher with a message that Dominican superiors directed him to refer me to Dominican spokeswoman Carla Hass. Calls to Hass went unanswered.

Since it was revealed that the Dominicans were housing accused sex offenders at St. Albert's Priory in Oakland (see "Soft Men," November 2004 Faith), the local media, victim's rights groups, and the priory's neighbors have made life for the Dominicans a little less soft.

Stories in late November from the San Francisco Chronicle, the Contra Costa Times, the Oakland Tribune, and ABC News 7 forced California's Dominican provincial Father Roberto Corral into damage-control mode, as more of the public learned of the seven accused sex-offenders living at St. Albert's. On November 29, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) called upon Oakland Mayor Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown to investigate. The Rockridge neighborhood's city councilwoman Jane Brunner spoke with Dominican officials to set up a town meeting in hopes of allaying the community's fears about the resident abusers. The meeting was to take place on Thursday, December 16, at a public venue. The Dominicans backed out of the meeting, which was supposed to include representatives from SNAP and the media. Instead, the Dominicans arranged their own meeting at St. Albert' s on Tuesday, December 14, a night when Councilwoman Brunner was unavailable. By the end of the meeting, to which admission was denied to SNAP members and the media, few neighbors were pacified, and the leaders at St. Albert's seemed to create only more rancor.

Oakland's SNAP leader Daniel McNevin was not allowed in the meeting, but that didn't stop him from noticing who was and was not admitted. "It was very tightly managed. The spokeswoman, Carla Hass, sat outside the meeting the entire time and watched the television cameras come and go, and she wouldn't let anyone come in. She wouldn't let the Oakland Tribune come in. The meeting was by invitation, and you had to RSVP. Voice of the Faithful's East Bay chairman Peter Davey heard about the meeting, called the provincial's office to RSVP, and he was told not to come. He went anyway, and they let him [in]. He left early, and he told me, 'there is so much anger in that room. The Dominicans are about to get a lesson in public relations.'"

Managing public relations in a time of crisis has fallen upon Folsom media specialist Carla Hass. Hass claims to have worked with the Dominicans since 2002, but "cannot recall" whether she was hired by the order or specifically by St. Albert's. On December 16, Father Corral was sent some follow-up questions for this story; he deferred them to Hass, who promised to respond by January 1. The questions included specific inquiries about the individual offenders and whether the Dominicans had informed the neighbors or Claremont Middle School about the presence of these men. Father Corral was also asked to comment on a Dominican priest at St. Albert's who allegedly traveled to Bangkok without permission as well as to explain how the Dominicans could be trusted to select good candidates for the priesthood, given their track record in handling the sex-offender controversy.

On January 1, Hass sent the following e-mail reply to the questions: "you say that you are writing a follow-up article for the San Francisco Faith. As with your previous accusations and representations in that publication, many of the assumptions and claims asserted in your recent email are inaccurate and misleading. I caution you not to make any statements regarding the Western Dominican Province or member of the Western Dominican Province that are libelous or slanderous or unjustly malign reputation. As you should be aware, declining to respond to your self-serving questions provides no justification for or defense against libel or slander."

When one of the seminarians interviewed for this story heard Hass' veiled threats, he replied, "it's unfortunate that Carla Hass is resorting to the same type of threats and evasion that many of the U.S. bishops used to intimidate innocent victims of abuse while trying to cover up the priestly pederast scandals.

Annette Floystrup, one of St. Albert's neighbors who attended the December 14 meeting, believes Hass isn't helping the Dominicans quiet the community's outrage. "She was at that meeting, and she was noticeably defensive," Floystrup said.

Floystrup continued: "I brought up a number of points that seem to have come back to be dealt with. One of the things I wanted to bring up, but forgot to, was to ask, 'who here tonight is a paid representative and/or observer for the Dominicans and what firm do you represent?' There was a man there in a suit, and I can smell a lawyer from pretty far away!"

Floystrup said that one of her neighbors (who requested not to be named in this story) claimed that one of the seven accused Dominicans had traveled to Bangkok, Thailand (a travel destination notorious for its offerings of young boys for sexual services). "She had a conversation with this man, who was a priest, and he told her in passing that he was going on a trip to Bangkok. At the meeting, she pressed and pressed and pressed Father Corral, rephrasing the question in various forms until Corral finally admitted that in fact this individual had taken the trip even though he had been expressly forbidden by Father Corral. It's like, 'of course he's under our control, isn't he?' This brings up a lot of questions, like where the hell did he get the money to do that? She kept pressing Corral to find out if the trip was for ministerial purposes. Corral went round and round and finally admitted that there was no ministerial or official reason for the trip."

It is rumored throughout the neighborhood that the Dominicans believe this problem will go away quickly, a suggestion that makes Floystrup laugh. "That speaks volumes about how out-of-touch they are with the neighborhood. I knew well at least half the neighbors at that meeting from various community activities I've been involved in. This neighborhood is not a typical urban neighborhood where you don't even know your next-door neighbor. It's very well organized, an activist neighborhood if you will. We've been producing a newsletter for the neighborhood for over 12 years now that comes out monthly, and the St. Albert's story will be in that newsletter. It's distributed through a tree of volunteers, who distribute it on foot to nearly 10,000 people.

"If they [the Dominicans] think this is going away, they are very badly mistaken. This is a well-educated neighborhood, and some of those in attendance make their living deconstructing things. The first question a man asked Father Corral was, 'how many people wrote that opening statement and were any of them paid?' [The meeting] was pretty tightly managed, but it got off the rails of their agenda pretty quickly. It started at 7:30 p.m. and was supposed to go until 9 p.m., but it lasted until almost 10:30 p.m. And I can tell you that damn few people left."

Like McNevin, Floystrup thinks the town meeting only deepened the crisis for St. Albert's. "There's no question that people who went in there thinking, 'maybe this is just a witch hunt,' came out more thoughtful about the issue. Many people went in sort of neutral and came out very negative. I think that two things contributed to that: one was the revelation of the trip to Bangkok, and the other was something I brought up, which is whether or not their internet access is monitored. I said, 'look, everyone knows that pedophiles and, in particular, those who prey on adolescents, troll the internet like crazy. Who's following these people when they're on the net? They can check out a car and drive to meet some kid that they've seduced online.' They had no answer. They tried to tell us that they are being certified as 'Child Safe,' but what everyone realized is that they're getting certified to house more pedophiles. They were asked very specifically if they were going to bring in more offenders, and their answer was no answer, which means, of course they will if it becomes necessary, and the hell with what the neighborhood wants."

Floystrup's take on the meeting does not portend well for St. Albert's priory. "The majority of people I spoke with after the meeting told me that they were appalled at the lack of judgment shown by the order in not informing the neighborhood of their plans and now the order's contempt, demonstrated by the fact that they are now asking us to trust their judgment that these men are safe."

Voice of the Faithful's Davey is also cynical about whether the meeting effected any change at St. Albert's. "Father Corral said that he didn't think the seven accused offenders were any risk to anyone because they were all receiving counseling. Of course, that's the same mistake these bishops have been making for the last several years -- stating that there's no risk, when, in fact, pedophilia is not curable. It's like alcoholism. I cautioned him that he shouldn't be making a statement like that. That's why the bishops are in the mess they're in right now, because they've transferred these guys around. Either they didn't pay attention to the information, or they were totally naïve and stupid -- I don't know which.

"Around 8:30, the subject came up about a priest asking permission of Corral to go to Bangkok. It was denied, and he went anyway. That really blew the lid off things, that he was able to go anyway. Everyone wants to know where he got the money, and he obviously didn't go there for priestly duties. It got a little acrimonious after that. Also they made a statement that they were just now putting together a program to control what these guys can access on the internet. The reaction was one of shock, because everyone thought it should have been in place from the get-go. That angered a lot of folks.

"When the question came up about what they wore, we were told that they wore the Dominican garb on the premises and dressed in their clerical clothes when they went out. That was kind of surprising. They spoke about one of the men falling in love with a girl and running away with her several years ago, but I assumed that all the others are there because of pedophilia and there was not much further distinction made. The people there wanted names and photographs because they have children and want to protect them, and that was denied. One of the neighbors told me that the Dominicans feel that things are going to cool off and it will probably go away. Well, the neighbors plan to meet amongst themselves at the beginning of January to plot their next step, so [the Dominicans] haven't heard the end of it."

Since reading the testimony of the two former seminarians in the November San Francisco Faith, another former seminarian at St. Albert's has come forward.

Pietro (not his real name) said he thinks St. Albert's neighbors are being misled by Father Corral. "There was a secret meeting at St. Albert's every time they moved one of these guys in," said Pietro. "We were ordered not to even talk to our parents about it. There was no supervision. Zero. From day one. They might be getting some kind of counseling, but no supervision. One of the priests, a child molester, walked all over the neighborhood after he moved in, and no one was watching him. They can all roam freely. And they don't wear clerical garb, they wear civilian clothes when they leave. No one can tell they are Dominicans or priests or anything.