By Seamus McGraw
Court TV
May 1, 2006
http://www.crimelibrary.com/news/original/0506/0101_rev_robinson2.html
TOLEDO, Ohio (Crime Libarary) — They were particularly vulnerable children. Some by their own accounts were still pre-schoolers when the nightmare began. Some were older, though not much. All of them were targeted for the reasons that victims of child abuse are always selected.
In some cases, they came from broken homes. Others were from large and overwhelmed families looking for someone, a priest perhaps, who could offer guidance and support. Still others were the kids who had developed reputations for being disruptive, and would, therefore, be unlikely to be believed, even if they did come forward to report what had been done to them.
Years later, a handful of them did come forward and many of them told the same sordid tale of bizarre ritual abuse. Even now, the few details that have emerged are chilling and paint a portrait of almost unimaginable depravity. They spoke of being brought to a remote location, some remembered it as a farmhouse outside of Toledo, according to one source familiar with their allegations, and there, at the hands of priests, they said, they were subjected to what can only be described as real evil.
They told of rituals in which children were sexually penetrated with crucifixes and more than one reported that a snake had been also been used as a sexual device. In some cases, the youngsters were forced to eat what they were told were human eyes, and in at least one case, two young children were forced to undergo what was later described as a Satanic "marriage" ceremony and when it was completed, the source said, they were directed to consummate it as the other children allegedly looked on.
It's been more than 20 years since those alleged incidents took place, and yet, until recently, virtually nothing was said about them, at least not in public. That all changed nearly three years ago when one woman, identified now as Jane Doe, came forward to tell her story, first to representatives of the Toledo Diocese, and then, when the Diocese, in the eyes of some critics failed to act aggressively enough, to the state Attorney General. The Diocese has disputed this much of her story; it claims it acted appropriately and notified local prosecutors. But it is also clear that it took six months before her story, which also pointed a finger at Father Gerald Robinson, led authorities in Toledo to reopen their long dormant probe into the then 23-year-old unsolved murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, a 71-year-old nun who was found on Good Saturday morning, 1980, strangled and stabbed to death on the floor of a hospital chapel in what authorities have described as a ritualistic fashion.
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| Gerald Robinson |
Her statements, together with the statements of others who came forward afterwards, are largely credited with setting in motion the chain of events that led to Robinson's arrest and his current trial.
But Robinson, by all accounts, was not the most significant character in Jane Doe's saga of sexual abuse and psychological torture. The principle player, according to Jane Doe and other alleged victims, was a member of the Oblates of St. Francis, now defrocked, named Chet Warren.
Earlier Allegations Deemed Incredible
The truth is, though Jane Doe's decision to come forward may have triggered a firestorm and focused intense local and national scrutiny, not just on the ritual abuse alleged, but on the broader issue of sexual abuse by priests, she was not the first to talk about the depraved rituals that allegedly took place.
In fact, according to one source who has reviewed the files of several of the alleged victims, at least two had told their stories to others well before Jane Doe emerged. In fact, according to the source, those allegations had surfaced as part of legal complaints alleging a broader pattern of sexual abuse within the diocese. But the allegations were so bizarre, that even advocates for the victims of alleged abuse by priests were wary of them, fearful that if the details of mock weddings and sexual abuse with crucifixes and snakes had been made public, that the accusers would come off as hysterical and be accused of concocting wild fantasies.
There had of course been, stories of such ritual abuse in the past, and even now, from the Midwest to the Northeast, rumors still surface about similar rings of Satanist priests preying on children. But none of those tales had ever been substantiated, and most regarded them as little more than the fevered imagining of psychological damaged victims, amplified by conspiracy buffs and others who were not concerned by the lack of corroboration or hard evidence.
But when Jane Doe came forward with her allegations, there was, at least some evidence that some kind of dark ritual had been performed at least once in the Toledo Diocese. The proof of it was Sister Margaret's body, which had been wrapped in an altar cloth and stabbed repeatedly around the heart so that her wounds formed an upside down cross, a well-known Satanic symbol.
Whether Sister Margaret's slaying was actually a ritual murder, or whether it was simply made to look like one, will be up to a jury to decide. But the slaying, together with Jane Doe's compelling testimony, was sufficient to give the other victims the courage to come forward with their tales, and to give those who supported them the impetus to believe them.
Of course by then it was, in some respects, too late.
Although the allegations made by Doe and the others were enough to trigger a tangentially related murder case, Warren and the other priests who allegedly abused the children of the Toledo Diocese more than two decades ago, have escaped formal prosecution, though the church has stripped Warren of his Roman collar.
And there are also questions about the fate of future civil complaints. The Diocese has settled a lawsuit with several of the alleged victims of sexual abuse by priests, though others have come forward since. But Ohio law currently only allows a two-year window after a victim turns 18 to pursue a civil case against an alleged sex abuser. It took some twenty years before the alleged victims could find anyone to believe them.
There have been efforts to change that. Earlier this year the Ohio legislature took up a measure that would extend the statute of limitations from two to twenty years and would also establish, temporarily, a "look back" window that would allow suits to be filed on claims dating back some 35 years.
The measure is opposed by the Catholic Conference of Ohio which argued that it was unconstitutional and could expose churches to frivolous lawsuits.
Contact Seamus McGraw at seamusm@ptd.net
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