Friar stationed at The Grotto molested 3 California boys, new records reveal

By Bryan Denson
Oregonian
May 04, 2015

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2015/05/friar_stationed_at_the_grotto.html

The Grotto's Christmas Festival of Lights is an annual tradition at The Grotto, a Portland shrine.

For many decades, a Servite friar who served at a Catholic shrine in Portland kept his sexual molestation of three boys a secret.

But the nature of Brother Gregory Atherton's shame went public this month, when lawyers for 508 people who won a $660 million judgment against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for clergy abuse released a massive trove of personnel files.

Atherton, who is 89 years old and living in an undisclosed location, fully acknowledged his wrongdoing and apologized to his Servite brothers, said the Rev. John Fontana, the provincial of the order's roughly 55 friars in the U.S.

Once the allegations were substantiated, Atherton was immediately removed from public ministry, placed out of contact with children and placed under a "safety plan," Fontana said. But Servites don't turn their back on their own, he said, and they found work for him out of the public midst.

"One victim, in his adult life, decided he needed to talk to Brother Greg," said Fontana, who witnessed what he described as a touching meeting between Atherton and the man. He recalled the words spoken by Atherton's victim: "If I'm going to follow the gospel, I forgive you."

Atherton's molestation of the three students at Servite High School in Anaheim, California, began in June 1967 and ended in 1975, according to a timeline of the abuse included in the records.

The abuse occurred while Atherton – then serving as registrar, office manager and music director at the school – molested the three boys, the youngest of whom was 14, according to a chronology included in the records. He abused them after giving haircuts and after church services, music lessons and choir practices, documents show.

Atherton abused his victims in motels during road trips from California to Portland, Utah and British Columbia. The timeline of his abuse notes that he molested at least one boy every day for two weeks as they traveled to and from Portland's Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother, better known as The Grotto, stopping in between at pornographic shops in San Francisco.

It's not clear when the Servites sent Atherton to serve at The Grotto, a popular holiday destination for families and young kids during its Christmas Festival of Lights, or when officials there first learned of the allegations against him.

What is clear is that by 1990, officials at the helm of the religious order knew much about the accusations. By then, he was working in the business office of The Grotto, and his superiors quickly dispatched him to Foundation House, Servants of the Paraclete, in Jemez Springs, New Mexico, for an evaluation and treatment for his sexual predelictions.

"Though the statute of limitations for criminal charges has expired on all but one allegation, there is the potential for civil liability," the Rev. Liam J. Hoare wrote to the priest who headed the regional office of Servites on June 19, 1990.

"The potential legal issues are cause for much anxiety and concern for Brother Gregory at this time," Hoare wrote. "This anxiety is an appropriate affect, given the situation, leading me to conclude that he takes responsibility for his behavior and the impact it has on his own life and others."

Atherton spent several weeks at the New Mexico retreat, which he described in a July 1990 letter to superiors as his "desert journey." He wrote that the other 19 men in the program – two brothers, two seminarians and 15 priests – had broken up into groups and shared their stories, shadowed by guilt and shame.

"I am most grateful for your time and effort," Atherton wrote. "We are dealing not only with a man's ministerial future, but perhaps also his salvation. God has, in his unfathomable Wisdom, brought us to this moment."

Eventually, plaintiffs' lawyers in California began to send letters to the Servites' legal team in Portland and making demands, including a complete confession.

"As you know," one law firm wrote, "our clients have been patient in not filing a lawsuit and bringing the media into this matter. However, their patience is wearing thin."

Atherton wrote to his fellow Servites in 1993 to say he had prevailed in one lawsuit filed against him. But the pain he caused was clearly on his mind.

"As I have said all along, even though there may not be any prosecution, there are still many people who are hurting over this whole thing and it is for them that I also pray," he wrote. "I suffer along with those who suffer because of me. I have not stopped worrying about publicity up here in Portland."

Legal actions continued until 2007, when the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, described as the most populous archdiocese in the U.S., settled its lawsuit with 508 people making credible claims of abuse.

Records released Friday about Atherton included 999 pages of personnel files, legal papers and other documents.