BishopAccountability.org

Four priests who abused their flock: Grim stories from the San Diego diocese files

By Peter Rowe
San Diego Tribune
September 10, 2017

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/religion/sd-me-abuse-archives-20170901-story.html

[Note: See also Documents from the San Diego Settlement. For more information on the four priests, see entries for Rev. Robert Nikliborc, Rev. Franz Robier, and Rev. Edward Rodrigue in the BishopAccountability.org database and Paul R. Shanley—Assignments and Archdiocesan Documents.]

[Note: This is a multi-part feature story. It also includes: A decade after settling sex abuse cases, the Diocese of San Diego still copes with the fallout; Back story: Skepticism and cautious optimism, a decade after a scandal's landmark settlements; Largest sexual abuse settlements by Roman Catholic institutions in the U.S.; Timeline of the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal.]

In 2010, a superior court judge in Los Angeles ordered the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego to release its files on priests accused of sexually abusing minors.

The documents, now curated on the bishop-accountability.org site, make grim reading. A sampling:

Rev. Robert Nikliborc

A Chicago native, Nikliborc was ordained in San Diego in 1955. A year later, he underwent counseling at a church treatment center in New Mexico, following two allegations of sexually assaulting children. In 1957, he was sent to St. Boniface School in Banning. There, he was a accused of sexually molesting a boy from 1963 through ’65. “Johnny G.,” the victim, sued in 2003.

In 1969, while financial director of a Banning orphanage, Nikliborc was convicted on income tax evasion charges. After serving a prison sentence, he began a 30-year tenure as pastor of St. Anne’s Parish in San Diego (1971-2001).

Early in his pastorship, Nikliborc was ordered by Bishop Maher to end a relationship with a church secretary. “The scandal is not only among the parishioners who are complaining,” Maher wrote on April 12, 1976, “but among our clergy. The question is what hold does this woman have on you?”

Nikliborc retired from the priesthood in 2001.

Rev. Franz Robier

An Austrian citizen, Robier worked in the Diocese of San Diego from 1955 until 1982. He died in 1994 at the age of 82.

Robier has been accused or raping or sexually assaulting at least 24 girls in the 1950s and ’60s. Several victims were members of the children’s choir at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in San Diego’s Oak Park. “He’d have me sit on his lap,” said one of the victims, Jane Doe Number 5. “The other girls, he took places.”

 

Rev. Edward Rodrigue

A San Diego native, Rodrigue was ordained in 1962. In 1979, he was sentenced to a year’s probation for sexually abusing a boy. In 1992, he was removed from the priesthood.

Records show that he was a serial abuser. In 1998, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for abusing a youth. In 2003, civil suits accused him of abusing at least 19 children. He admitted to molesting “four or five” boys every year over a 22-year period.

Released from prison in 2006, Rodrigue died in 2009.

Rev. Paul Shanley

A Massachusetts native who preyed on minors while a priest in Boston, Shanley was a subject of the Boston Globe “Spotlight” team’s investigation.

In 1993, Shanley was transfered to the Diocese of San Bernardino. During his time there, he assisted at parishes in Scripps Ranch and La Jolla.

A June 19, 2002, letter from Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law to Bishop Gerald Barnes of San Bernardino apologized “that a priest of this Archdiocese has been the cause of bewilderment, scandal and anger among the faithful of San Bernardino.”

In 2005, Shanley was convicted of raping a boy. He served 12 years in a Massachusetts prison. Released on July 28, Shanley will be on probation until 2027.

Contact: peter.rowe@sduniontribune.com




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