Diocese of Oakland won’t release clergy sex abuse report until 2019

By Gwendolyn Wu
San Francisco Chronicle
November 26, 2018

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Diocese-of-Oakland-won-t-release-clergy-sex-13417164.php

The Cathedral of Christ the Light Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008, in Oakland, Calif. The Catholic Diocese of Oakland postponed its reveal of a list of credibly accused clergy members to next year, the church announced this week in a newsletter. Photo by Lance Iversen

The Catholic Diocese of Oakland postponed its reveal of clergy members credibly accused of sex abuse until next year, the church announced this week in a newsletter.

Bishop Michael Barber had previously said the Oakland Diocese has “nothing to hide” and called the publication of names “the right thing to do.” In an Oct. 8 announcement, Barber said the diocese would publish the list within 45 days, which would have made it due for publication on Thanksgiving.

But the diocese’s weekly newsletter announced that the names will not be released until after Jan. 1.

“First, we have decided it is essential we contact survivors in advance of a public announcement, and this will require a sensitivity to their unique situations,” diocese officials wrote. “Secondly, it is important we spend more time verifying the information we have on priests from religious orders and from other dioceses who served in the Oakland Diocese.”

The diocese initially said it would take 45 days to finalize the names, but there has been some difficulty in verifying claims from decades past, said Helen Osman, an Oakland Diocese spokeswoman. The diocese has not been in touch with some victims in years, she said.

“It’s a situation in which you don’t want to re-traumatize people, because even though their names aren’t going to be there, the name of their perpetrator could be released,” Osman said.

Melanie Sakoda, a Bay Area advocate for the national Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said most survivors do not care whether their abusers’ names are published.

“I’m not surprised,” she said of the delay. “It would have been better saying, ‘Here’s what we have so far, we’re still looking at them.’”

Sakoda said a partial list would have been a good start, because other reports on clergy sexual abuse have come out in recent months. One such report in late October listed the names of 95 priests accused of sexual abuse with ties to the Diocese of Oakland.

“These names are already out there, so it doesn’t make too much sense to delay any further,” Sakoda said.

The diocese is aware of that list, church officials said, but the internal investigation is independent of that report. Additional survivors have come forward to other dioceses since they released their own reports, officials said, and that influenced the Diocese of Oakland’s decision to make a complete list, if possible.

“To do a partial list doesn’t do justice to the community,” Osman said.

The decision to publish the names of accused priests comes after a grand jury report found six Pennsylvania dioceses guilty of covering up widespread sexual abuse by clergy members.

In October, the Diocese of San Jose named 15 priests accused of child sex abuse. The Archdiocese of San Francisco is reviewing 68 years of files of roughly 4,000 clergy members, some of whom have been accused of sexual abuse, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone announced on Nov. 15 in a letter posted to the archdiocese’s website.