HiddenMysteries: CathyLicks Keeping Crimes a Secret!

Diocese says 125 priests have been accused

By Tom Mooney

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence acknowledged in a court document of having more than twice as many priests accused of sexual misconduct in recent decades than it had ever publicly acknowledged, claimed a national group yesterday that tracks cases of sexual abuse by priests.

The revelation, said the group BishopAccountability.org, came in a case filed by one alleged victim, Christopher Young, which is now before the state Supreme Court.

In a January document explaining why the diocese couldn’t produce all the records asked for, church lawyers said the request was unduly burdensome because since 1971 it had heard allegations “in one way or another” against about 125 priests.

In a 2004 report — part of national survey on priest sexual abuse following the scandal that broke in Boston — the Providence diocese reported that 56 priests had been accused of sexual abuse between 1950 and 2002.

The number of accused priests now mentioned in the Young case is so large, claimed Anne Doyle, co-director of the group, that it establishes the Providence diocese as “one of the most dangerous dioceses in the United States for children.”

The group demanded that the state’s top prosecutors, state Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch and U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente investigate the diocese.

“The secrets of this diocese are prosecutable,” Doyle said. “They are keeping secrets of crimes.”

The diocese yesterday described the disparity in the numbers as “a difference in reporting criteria and methodology.”

In its 2004 report, prepared by the John Jay School of Criminal Justice in New York and commissioned by the nation’s bishops, the survey required the diocese to provide statistics on every “plausible, credible” allegation of sexual misconduct, the diocese said in a prepared statement.

However in the Young case, Superior Court Judge Netti C. Vogel ordered the diocese to produce “any notice of any allegation against any priest” whether that priest was living or dead and, the diocese said in its statement, “regardless of whether such allegations were credible … withdrawn or ultimately found to be false.”

“Hence a difference in reporting criteria and methodology necessarily resulted in the difference in numbers reported,” the diocese’s statement said.

But Doyle, from BishopAccountability.org, said the record is clear in the Young case that the diocese underreported the number of accused priests.

She said Judge Vogel, responding to the diocese’s plea that it not have to produce such a burdensome supply of records, told church lawyers they could limit the production of records to those involving three serious allegations: rape of a child under 14, sexual contact with a child under 14 and rape of a child between the ages of 14 and 16.

“Just those three crimes and the diocese says that reduces the number to 95 priests,” Doyle said. “Ninety-five priests accused of child rape and child molestation in the last 35 years.”

Doyle called for a grand jury investigation as prosecutors in other jurisdictions — Boston, New Hampshire, Philadelphia — have investigated cases of priest sexual abuse.

“In every case, the information that has resulted has launched drives for new laws and it has taught the public about the dangers of sexual abuse and what the children suffered in dioceses there. It must happen here, too, in the state of Rhode Island.”

Corrente, the U.S. Attorney, declined to comment yesterday.

Attorney General Lynch issued a statement saying that over the years his office has never found the diocese to provide information that was “inaccurate or untrue … If however, through the information released today by BishopAccountability.org, we find that the diocese has withheld names and/or has not been fully candid … this will be very troubling news.”

In a follow-up interview, Lynch spokesman Mike Healey said, “we’re not going to make decisions based on this information alone. So we will be reaching out to the diocese directly and immediately for more information.”

http://www.projo.com

CathyLicks Keeping Crimes a Secret!

Sunday, October 21 2007 @ 12:16 AM CDT