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Shrine priests ordered to release records of alleged child abuse

By George Pawlaczyk And Beth Hundsdorfer
Belleville News-Democrat
February 14, 2015

http://www.bnd.com/2015/02/14/3662227_shrine-priests-ordered-to-release.html?rh=1

Rev. James V. Fitzgerald

A lawsuit against a Catholic priest last assigned to Belleville has resulted in a court order by a Minnesota judge requiring the religious organization that operates the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows to turn over any records of alleged molestation of minors by clergy from 1949 to 1978.

The order affects offices of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in all 50 states, which must turn over records of child abuse pertaining to any priest that occurred during the nearly three decade span. The Oblates at the Shrine have until March 27 to comply.

The inclusive dates are based on when the late Rev. James V. Fitzgerald was ordained and when he allegedly sexually abused two young brothers during a fishing trip in Minnesota.

Fitzgerald, known by his middle name of “Vincent,” worked at parishes in Minnesota and South Dakota until his assignment in 1994 at age 75 to the Shrine in Belleville. Until his death in 2009, Fitzgerald resided at St. Henry’s Oblate Residence, 200 N. 60th St., Belleville.

The Rev. James Brobst, Midwest Area councilor for the Oblates, said when Fitzgerald was in Belleville, he “did not have a ministry.” Brobst referred questions as to whether Shrine administrators knew at the time of Fitzgerald’s assignment to Belleville that he had been accused of child abuse to the religious order’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. The Rev. William Antone, the provincial who heads the order in the United States, could not be reached for comment.

The Bishop of Belleville, the Rev. Edward Braxton, did not respond to written questions sent to his administrative assistant.

“This will lift the incredible veil of secrecy,” said attorney Michael Bryant of Waite Park, Minn., co-counsel for the plaintiffs along with the Jeff Anderson law firm in St. Paul, which specializes in lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by clergy.

“Every time we get files, we find more documents of what they’re hiding,” Bryant said. He described the documents as letters from grief-stricken parents of abused children and memos from meetings between high-ranking Oblates discussing child abuse by clergy not reported to police and never made public. He did not specify what Oblate office has already furnished records.

Susan Gaertner, attorney for the one of the defendants, the Catholic Diocese of Duluth, could not be reached for comment. According to court records, she has said the diocese will comply with the court order..

Fitzgerald’s name was included on a list of priests “credibly accused” of child abuse published by the Diocese of Duluth in 2013. Previous to that, diocese officials said they were unaware that Fitzgerald had been accused of child sexual abuse.

Fitzgerald was sued in the early 1970s for allegedly sexually abusing two young boys on an American Indian reservation in South Dakota. That lawsuit was dropped because of the statute of limitations. In Minnesota, a recently enacted law provides a three-year window for lawsuits regarding child sexual abuse to be brought that were previously blocked because of legal time limits.

Fitzgerald’s time at St. Henry’s paralleled intense publicity in the metro-east over accusations made public in the News-Democrat about allegations of sexual abuse by priests of the Diocese of Belleville. This led to the removal of a 15 priests from ministry although Fitzgerald’s name was never brought up.

David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests in St. Louis, said, “Back in the 1990s, the first of Belleville’s predator priests were exposed. Local Catholics must ask themselves, ‘Why now, 20 years later, do we almost never learn about these child molesting clerics from our church officials? Why must victims, witnesses, whistle-blowers, journalists and lawyers expose these dangerous men?’”

In a sworn deposition, a Minnesota priest who was Fitzgerald’s supervisor stated he learned of the alleged abuse from the Minnesota victim’s mother shortly after she heard it from her 13-year-old son. The priest stated that Fitzgerald regularly traveled in a motor home to conduct his ministry and transport teenage boys during fishing trips to the state’s many lakes.

“There is particular harm in the way Fitzgerald abused children because one of the things he did different than anyone else is he had a traveling ministry using a recreational vehicle, whether it was going on a fishing trip or on a mission,” said Patrick Wall, a legal advocate at the St. Paul law firm. Wall is a former Catholic priest and has written widely about sexual abuse of minors by clergy.

“He specifically isolated the kids away from their parents’ protection and molested them under the auspices of priestly work,” said Wall, “And that has a higher level of damage that gets infused in the child, and a greater fear because they are so isolated. Many of them really didn’t think they were going to make it.”

The boy known only as “Doe 30” in the Fitzgerald lawsuit, attempted suicide and was given the Last Rites by the Rev. Francis Garvey, who stated in the deposition that he believed Fitzgerald had committed child abuse. The boy recovered and is a plaintiff. Garvey, now deceased, stated he reported the sexual abuse to his superior but did not notify police.

The presence of an Oblate priest the Rev. Real Bourque in Belleville in 2006, who admitted to a reporter that he had sexually abused children in other states, resulted in police being sent to the local Oblate director’s office. But the police were refused a meeting. Bourque is deceased.

At the time, former Belleville Bishop Wilton Gregory, who had become the Archbishop of the Catholic Diocese of Atlanta, said if he had known that Bourque was a child molester he would not have approved his transfer to the Shrine’s retirement home. While bishops do not have direct control of religious orders, their permission is required when a transfer is proposed.

Wall, the legal advocate and former priest, said that in 1994 when Fitzgerald was assigned to Belleville, it was not customary to include references to accusations of child sexual abuse in the proposed transfer letter to a bishop.

Gregory headed the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that met in 2002 in Dallas to discuss widespread sexual abuse of children by priests and drafted the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.” The document stressed complete transparency in all cases where priests were accused of abuse.

Paula Grant, director of communications for the diocese in Georgia, said Friday that Gregory was away from the archdiocese “on personal time” and she could not relay a BND reporter’s question to him about Fitzgerald until Tuesday.


Read more here: http://www.bnd.com/2015/02/14/3662227_shrine-priests-ordered-to-release.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy
Contact: gpawlaczyk@bnd.com




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