Column: We’re not powerless against this serial predator

By David Clohessy
Eagle-Tribune
November 10, 2015

http://www.eagletribune.com/opinion/column-we-re-not-powerless-against-this-serial-predator/article_0ff8d061-7978-522e-91bc-caae14e4c71f.html

Only one predator priest appears in “Spotlight,” the already acclaimed film about clergy sex crimes and coverups in the Boston Archdiocese that opens next month. He’s the now-defrocked Ronald H. Paquin.

That’s fortuitous, because just weeks ago, Paquin walked out of prison.

Paquin is known to have sexually abused more than 40 boys. Once, with four boys in his car, he crashed. One boy died, and another was badly injured. The surviving boys later said he had been drinking while driving.

Weeks ago, Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said “Paquin poses a danger to the community.”

Sadly, however, two state experts disagree. In light of their psychiatric evaluations, the ex-priest cannot be civilly committed to a lock-down center for sexual predators.

So after a decade behind bars, Paquin has been freed from prison. What now?

Our choices are simple. We can either do nothing and hope for the best. Or we can launch a concerted outreach drive to find at least one of Paquin’s victims who is willing and able to pursue new criminal charges against him and put him back in prison. Instead of passively sitting back, hoping another victim will summon the strength to step forward, why not aggressively seek them out and help them gain the emotional wherewithal to report to law enforcement?

A number of institutional leaders have the resources, and duty, to do this.

— Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley overseas a flock of 1.8 million. What if he personally visited each parish where Paquin worked, looking his flock in the eyes and saying, “Help me beat the bushes. Together, let’s find, and help, others who were molested by Paquin and might help secular authorities pursue him again”?

O’Malley’s scores of parishes each have websites, weekly bulletins and pulpit announcements. Imagine how many would read, and might heed, an impassioned request in these outlets for other Paquin victims to pick up the phone and call 911.

— At least three bishops quietly shuffled Paquin on to the next set of unsuspecting parents: Bishop John McCormack, Bishop William Murphy and then-Cardinal Bernard Law. Imagine if the three of them bought even small ads in local newspapers saying “We can’t undo the past. But we can try to help now. If you were hurt by Paquin, please call secular authorities immediately.”

— We’re reluctant to criticize law enforcement professionals. But even prosecutor Blodgett sounded fatalistic. “Unfortunately, we have no further legal options available to hold Mr. Paquin,” he said.

Instead of just saying “our hands are tied,” imagine if the prosecutor had called a news conference and begged anyone with information or suspicions about Paquin’s crimes to call the cops?

Finally, we need not wait for action by the elites. Paquin was assigned to parishes in Haverhill, Milton, Lincoln, Methuen and Chelsea.

Imagine if current and former church members and staff in those towns mounted an aggressive phone call, email and social media campaign saying “A potentially dangerous serial child molester will soon walk free. Please ask everyone you know if they were hurt as a child by Ronald Paquin.”

How do we know such appeals will work? We don’t of course. But history suggests that they often do.

In 2002, literally thousands of adults who had been victimized as kids by clerics began filing police reports and civil lawsuits. Why? Because determined and savvy reporters began writing about this crisis, showing victims that their courage could have an impact. We’ve seen the same phenomenon when grand juries launch investigations and when others in authority make strong pleas to victims, witnesses and whistleblowers.

For the safety of kids, it’s sure worth a try.

And even if these appeals turn up no one who is willing or able to prosecute Paquin and imprison him again, they will not have bene in vain. An effort like this would bring comfort to still-suffering survivors of childhood trauma. It would inspire others to search out still-isolated and struggling survivors and offer them support. It would warn perhaps tens of thousands of parents about Paquin.

And it just might even deter those who are concealing or might conceal child sex crimes from such secrecy. (“If years later, prelates, police, prosecutors and the public will go to such lengths with this predator, maybe I won’t be able to keep a lid on my secrets forever either.”)

So let’s cut the pretend powerlessness. Let’s prod the powerful to take action. And whether they do or don’t, let’s marshal our own energies and contacts and email lists. Let’s do what we can to find and help others who were assaulted by Paquin, gently prod them to call police, and see if we can keep a serial predator where he belongs: behind bars.