What's in a Diocesan Archive? Examples from Boston The Boston archdiocesan archive, opened by court order, shows the kind of evidence that lies concealed in the secret archives of every U.S. diocese: * Allegations of victims and family members * Unheeded warnings from priests and bishops * Descriptions of cover-up activities * Evidence of secret transfers and rewards for abusers * Confidential chronologies of abuse This page provides links to Boston documents that show what the archives of U.S. dioceses contain.

* Is the survivor experience ever expressed in these archives? - David Coleman called this amazing essay "Living on a 'fault' line." It exists in the diocesan files because he faxed it to John B. McCormack, a decade after he'd told McCormack the same story in person. Only after the second communication was the accused priest investigated in California, where five other victims came forward. (See other documents on Fr. Richard T. Coughlin.)

* Is the experience of the parents of survivors represented in the archives? - In this remarkable letter, a mother begs Cardinal Medeiros to keep Geoghan away from other children. Medeiros's reply, urging her to "love the sinner," is in stark contrast to the moral clarity that the mother showed. (See other Geoghan documents.)

* How do dioceses keep track of a priest's career? - Every diocese keeps assignment records on its priests, like this record for Boston abuser Joseph Birmingham. If they were made public for all known abusers, these records would help other victims to come forward, and would allow tens of thousands of U.S. parishes to assess the harm they have experienced during the last fifty years. But dioceses don't release these records except under duress. These records only tell part of the story, however, because they generally don't list treatment centers to which the priest had been sent. (See other documents on Birmingham.)

* Did worried parents ever try to get information about a priest's career? - Dioceses used the borders between parishes to restrict information about abusers and facilitate their quiet transfer. In this document, a fearful parent requests information about Fr. Joseph Birmingham. (See other documents on Birmingham.)

* Are there examples of such requests being rebuffed? - Fr. John McCormack deflects the parent's question, although McCormack knew that there were already allegations against Birmingham in the chancery files, and indeed had personal experience of Birmingham's behavior. (See other documents on Birmingham.)

* Did the dioceses keep track of allegations? - This detailed chronology of allegations against John Geoghan was written in 1994. A few years later, Cardinal Law granted Geoghan's request for Senior Priest Retirement Status, praising his "effective life of ministry, sadly impaired by illness." (See other Geoghan documents.)

* Do priests ever try to "do the right thing" in the diocesan files? - This letter was written in 1967 by Fr. Arthur Chabot about Fr. Paul Shanley. Thirty years and two cardinals later, Shanley's record was still being concealed. (See other documents on Shanley.)

* Do the files offer any examples of harmful clericalism? - This letter from John Geoghan's pastor, denigrating a credible abuse complaint in the middle of the priest's sorry career, is one of the worst examples of this clericalism, especially read with Bishop Daily's reply to him. (See other Geoghan documents.)

* Did bishops ever try to "do the right thing"? - In Boston, only Bishop John M. D'Arcy cared about vulnerable children and proper discipline among priests. In this letter he expressed concern to Bishop Thomas V. Daily about Fr. Richard Buntel, an abuser and a drug dealer who remained in service for another decade. Shortly after another letter, this one to Cardinal Law about John Geoghan, D'Arcy was shipped off to South Bend, despite his request that he be allowed to stay with his gravely ill mother in Boston. (See other documents on Buntel and Geoghan.)

* Did bishops sometimes lie in order to transfer priests to unsuspecting new dioceses? - Bishop Banks told the San Bernardino diocese that Paul Shanley was a priest in good standing, thirty years after the Boston archdiocese began to receive allegations against the priest. (See other documents on Shanley.)

* When bishops told the truth, were they heeded? - Boston had learned from Youngstown that Robert Burns had a "problem: little children." (See the notes at the bottom of that document, and also the affidavit of the "sending" bishop.) Yet Cardinal Medeiros placed Burns in St. Thomas Aquinas in Jamaica Plain, and Cardinal Law placed him at St. Mary's in Charlestown. After Burns was sentenced to prison in New Hampshire for sexual abuse, an incredulous survivor questioned a Boston abuse bureaucrat about the Burns placements. (See other documents on Burns.)

* What does a treatment center report look like? - Treatment centers are an important link in the quiet transfer of abusers into unsuspecting parishes and dioceses. This report from the Institute of Living on Joseph Birmingham provides a window into the process. Its assessment of Birmingham is complacent and inaccurate, but even its mild recommendations were ignored by Cardinal Law. Birmingham was subsequently assigned to a parish without restriction, and without telling the parish about his past. (See other documents on Birmingham.)

* Is there any evidence that dioceses manipulated the treatment centers? - In this letter, Bishop Robert J. Banks makes clear that he wants a more upbeat assessment. He receives an Orwellian but compliant answer. (See other Geoghan documents.)

* What do the diocesan files tell us about Review Boards? - In this 1994 document, the Boston Review Board recommended that an abusive priest not be allowed to say weekend Mass. Fr. Thomas P. Forry had over the years been accused of assaulting his housekeeper and abusing several boys, and had abandoned a woman after a clandestine live-in relationship of many years. But the Review Board reversed itself in the next year (see Law's explanation), and then closed the case. These and other documents raise serious questions about the independence of consultative boards and their relationship with diocesan abuse bureaucrats. Even after bad behavior as a prison chaplain, Forry was filling in at parishes, until a victim who encountered him at Mass complained, and Forry was finally removed during the 2002 Geoghan and Shanley revelations. (See other Forry documents.)

* Do the documents offer any unexpected insights? - If this Canadian priest's insight into an abuser's "dual life," written in 1968, had been heeded by the Boston archdiocese, one woman's life would certainly have been saved. If the lesson had been applied to the hundreds of other abusers in Boston, a better policy would have emerged much sooner, and many survivors would never have been abused. (See other documents on Fr. James D. Foley.)

* Have these documents ever had a major effect on the crisis? - These notes (pictured above) by Fr. John B. McCormack on a 1993 meeting between Cardinal Law and Fr. James D. Foley probably resulted in Law's resignation. In the meeting, Foley revealed that he had abandoned one of his female victims during a fatal drug overdose. Despite this admission, Foley continued to serve in parishes for almost ten years, well beyond the bishops' Dallas meeting. He was removed only when the archdiocese accidentally released his file, mistaking him for another Foley, and the story came to light. Law resigned a few days later. (See other documents on Foley.)

For a fuller list of selected Boston archdiocesan documents, please click here.

Note: The documents linked on this page have been carefully redacted by the lawyers involved in the Ford case and by the Boston archdiocese, but if you spot a redaction error, please notify us at staff@bishop-accountability.org, and we will take the file down until the error is corrected.