Church Records of Priests Reviewed
Archdiocese of Dubuque turns over documents to judge in abuse civil lawsuits

By Mary Nevans Pederson
Telegraph Herald [Dubuque, IA]
September 29, 2005

A federal judge received hundreds of previously private documents from the Archdiocese of Dubuque on Wednesday. He will study them all and determine if they can be used as evidence in at least three civil lawsuits against the archdiocese by people claiming priests abused them when they were young.

Federal magistrate John Jarvey, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, ordered the archdiocese to turn over the documents after requests by attorneys for the men and women who filed the suits. The archdiocese objected to the documents, many of them pertaining to the personnel files of the accused priests, being used in court.

"In good conscience, we have to take measures to protect matters of professional privacy between priests and others and their bishops. We feel they are in the same category as certain communications between doctor or lawyers and their clients," said Monsignor James Barta, vicar general for the archdiocese.

The plaintiffs argued that the documents are critical to their cases.

"Our purpose (in asking for the documents) is not to identify more victims by name, but to find out what the church knew about these priests and when they knew it," said Chad Swanson, one of the attorneys representing the litigants who claim archdiocesan priests abused them as minors.

In one case, a plaintiff asked for 20 documents pertaining to complaints of abuse by a priest decades before his own abuse allegedly occurred. James Cummins, an NBC News correspondent in Dallas, is seeking information on accusations against the Rev. Irwin Patnode in 1940 and 1941. Cummins claims he was molested by the Rev. William Roach at a Cedar Rapids parish 21 years later.

Attorneys for both sides agreed to have Jarvey review the more than 200 documents privately and rule which ones can be used in further proceedings in the civil suits.

They also agreed that names of other victims not named in the suits could be stricken from the documents to protect those individuals. Attorney Brendan Quann, who represents the archdiocese, said they were all delivered to Jarvey by Wednesday's deadline.

In addition to Cummins' suit accusing Roach, a former archdiocesan vicar general, as his abuser, the other plaintiffs are Kathleen Guertin, of California, who accused the Rev. Patrick McElliot of molesting her in the 1960s in a Waterloo parish, and Joseph Faucher, also of California, who accused the Rev. William Schwartz of sexually abusing him in the 1970s in a Waterloo parish.

In civil suits against the archdiocese, two other men have named Roach as their abuser. He also served parishes in the Iowa cities of Cascade, Dubuque and Key West and died in 1986. Two additional men have said Schwartz abused them.

Schwartz, who worked in Dubuque in the 1980s, retired in 1994 and lives in Arizona. Four other women have named McElliot as the priest who abused them.
He also worked in Iowa parishes of Andrew, Colesberg and Dubuque. He died in 1987.

Seventeen lawsuits are pending against the archdiocese from people claiming they were victims of clergy sexual abuse.

Jarvey is expected to rule soon on a motion by the archdiocese asking for a summary judgment to dismiss Cummins' suit.