By Kevin O'Connor
Rutland Herald [Vermont]
April 20, 2006
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AID=/20060420/NEWS/60419006/1004
BURLINGTON - Vermont's Catholic Church will pay a record $965,000 to settle the first of 17 priest misconduct lawsuits against it.
The statewide Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington was supposed to defend itself Wednesday in the Chittenden Superior Court case of Michael Gay, a 38-year-old South Burlington man who said the Rev. Edward Paquette "sexually abused and sexually exploited" him as an altar boy from ages 10 to 12.
But immediately upon the start of the trial, Judge Ben Joseph announced the two sides had settled the civil lawsuit, which alleged the diocese knew the priest had a history of assaulting boys but did nothing to stop him.
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Michael Gay reacts to the announcement that his lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington had been settled out of court Wednesday morning at Chittenden Superior Court in Burlington. Photo by the Burlington Free Press / The Associated Press |
The diocese's lawyer, David Cleary of Rutland, acknowledged the church knew Paquette had abused boys in two states when it assigned him to parishes in Rutland in 1972, Montpelier in 1974 and Burlington in 1976.
But Cleary said church leaders employed Paquette based on repeated clearances given by psychiatrists, who went so far as to try to cure the priest with electro-convulsive "shock therapy."
"In retrospect, relying on the so-called science of the '70s didn't work out," Cleary said. "They know that now. They didn't know then."
The $965,000 offer dwarfs the once-record $150,000 the diocese paid to end another priest misconduct lawsuit in 2004 and the more than $700,000 it has spent since 1950 to settle all cases against its clergymen.
But the church still faces 16 more lawsuits against Paquette and four other former priests. The diocese doesn't have insurance for such cases, so it has to cover settlements with money on hand.
"This was much more than we wanted to pay," Cleary said. "But we decided that it would be the best to minimize the cost."
Gay's lawyer, former federal prosecutor Jerome O'Neill of Burlington, was ready to ask a jury to award his client up to $5 million in damages. He also was prepared to present 16 letters to and from church leaders about Paquette's problems with pedophilia, dating back to the priest's first job in Massachusetts four decades ago.
"For reasons of a most grave nature and the attending scandal, I am bound to notify you, by these presents, that you no longer possess faculties in the Diocese of Fall River," Bishop James Connolly of the Diocese of Fall River, Mass., wrote to Paquette, without elaboration, on Jan. 18, 1963. "You must certainly appreciate the fact that you are liable to prosecution, under the laws of the state of Massachusetts."
But no one ever pressed criminal charges against the priest. Instead, Paquette went on to minister in Indiana - where church leaders received sexual misconduct complaints - and then Vermont, court records show.
On March 30, 1972, Bishop Leo Pursley of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., wrote to Vermont church leaders about Paquette's behavior - "three homosexual episodes involving young boys," the letter said - and suggested the priest be reassigned to an "institutional chaplaincy" rather than a community church so he could minister "with less likelihood of relapse."
But the Vermont diocese assigned Paquette to Christ the King Church in Rutland on June 9, 1972. The priest stayed there until the Rev. James Engle wrote then Vermont Catholic Bishop John Marshall two years later.
"I am greatly disappointed and very saddened over the report I received from the (Rutland) hospital that Father Paquette sexually molested two young men while on communion calls in the hospital," Engle said in a letter Oct. 21, 1974. "As you readily understand, it is imperative that Fr. Paquette be removed from the Rutland area immediately."
One month later, the diocese reassigned Paquette to St. Augustine's Church in Montpelier. Court records don't include any diocesan reports of abuse during the priest's tenure there. But a Washington County man named only as "John Doe" has filed a lawsuit alleging Paquette assaulted him at St. Augustine's as many as 50 times from ages 10 to 12.
Two years later, the diocese moved Paquette to Christ the King Church in Burlington, where Gay says he was abused as a child. Court records don't include any letters specifically mentioning the boy. But on April 4, 1978, Bishop Marshall wrote a letter to a Massachusetts treatment center working with Paquette.
"Despite the demands of two sets of irate parents that 'something be done about this,' Father Paquette's pastor and I are determined to take the risk of leaving him in his present assignment," Marshall wrote. "Our thinking is that, knowing the awareness of others, concerning his problem, Father Paquette will have reason for 'self-control.'"
A three-page letter from Christ the King in Burlington outlined the problem. It noted Paquette, in addition to "fondling of privates of altar boys," had told stories to junior high students about "the occult and exocism (sic) process in fairly minute detail," including some graphic sexual content.
Marshall terminated Paquette April 17, 1978.
"No longer could keep lid on things at Christ the King," an internal memo said three days later.
Paquette, now 77 and retired in Massachusetts, didn't attend Wednesday's hearing. He told the court he was about to receive radiation treatment for prostate cancer and couldn't afford lodging. He repeatedly has hung up on a reporter seeking comment.
No diocesan leader appeared at the settlement announcement, which came the same day Vermont Catholic Bishop Salvatore Matano celebrated a Mass at the nearby Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on the first anniversary of his ordination and the election of Pope Benedict XVI.
Gay, sitting with his wife, watched the court proceedings with teary eyes.
"I'm not happy the way he took away something that was very important to me - a childhood, a faith in God and religion," Gay said of Paquette, bringing silence to the courtroom full of reporters.
A second lawyer for the diocese, William O'Brien of Winooski, attempted to defend the church's past actions. He pointed to a 1972 letter it received from an Indiana psychiatrist that closed, "I believe that Father Paquette could function very creditably in your diocese."
"Bishop Marshall was relying to a strong extent on the medical community," O'Brien said. "He made a mistake. It wasn't malicious. It wasn't evil."
Gay, for his part, said Wednesday was the first time the church had acknowledged what Paquette did to him 25 years ago.
The diocese still faces 11 more cases against Paquette, as well as one case each against former Vermont priests James Dunn, 76; James McShane, 65; and George Paulin, 62; and two cases against Alfred Willis, 61.
"We've offered to negotiate all of them," Cleary said for the diocese. "But if they were settled for similar amounts, it would be catastrophic."
The diocese already has paid $20,000 to settle another case against Paulin, a former Ludlow pastor who also worked in the state's Northeast Kingdom; $120,000 to settle a case against McShane, a former Rutland pastor who worked as director of the state church's Office of Youth Ministry and chaplain for the Vermont Boy Scouts and Catholic Camp Holy Cross in Colchester; and the once-record $150,000 in another case against Willis, a former priest in Burlington, Milton and Montpelier.
It also has spent more than $2 million for compensation, counseling and legal fees related to charges of child abuse by workers at the diocese's former St. Joseph's Orphanage in Burlington.
Church leaders stress they aren't using regular collection money or the diocesan Bishop's Fund to pay for the settlements, but instead are tapping a separate account designed for unforeseen circumstances. The church, however, hasn't reported the amount of that account or the cost of its legal fees.
Contact Kevin O'Connor at kevin.oconnor@rutlandherald.com
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