BishopAccountability.org

More sex abuse victims could be eligible for Catholic reconciliation cash

By Michael Gartland
Daily News
January 06, 2019

https://nydn.us/2s9k3AA

Billy Short, 59, a survivor of alleged sexual abuse by a priest.

Two Catholic dioceses in New York are considering expanding the criteria that allow victims of clergy sexual abuse to seek compensation from the church.

Under the proposed changes, the Archdiocese of New York and the Rockville Centre Diocese would allow for molestation at the hands of clergy not ordained in those dioceses to be covered under their Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Programs.

As it now stands, only clergy ordained within each respective diocese can be held liable for accusations.

“There is some serious movement toward including the religious order priests,” a source familiar with the discussions said.

Spokesmen for both the Rockville Centre Diocese and the New York Archdiocese confirmed that expanding their compensation criteria is being considered.

“This has not yet been finalized,” said Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the New York Archdiocese. “It involves detailed discussions with the various religious orders who serve in the archdiocese.”

The talks just months after the former New York State attorney general began serving New York’s eight Catholic dioceses with subpoenas regarding their response to claims of sexual abuse.

An expanded compensation programs framework could include clergy working within a diocese who were ordained not through the diocese itself, but through a separate Catholic order, such as the Franciscans, Jesuits and Dominicans.

The terms of a religious order priest’s stay within a diocese will most likely factor into any decision to change compensation program criteria, Rockville Centre Diocese spokesman Sean Dolan said.

Both ­­­­Dolan and Zwilling declined to speculate on how many more victims might come forward as a result of any changes.

Since the creation of the first victims fund in New York in 2016, five Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Programs have paid out $207 million statewide, according to Camille Biros, an administrator for the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Programs.

A decision on whether to expand the umbrella of those covering the New York and Rockville Centre dioceses is expected within the next two months, two sources noted.

For Billy Short, 59, change can’t come soon enough.

Short sought relief from the Rockville Centre Reconciliation and Compensation Program, but was told he wasn’t eligible because his alleged abuser, a Capuchin priest, wasn’t ordained within the diocese.

Short claims he first met the Rev. John Mahoney when he was an altar boy at St. Barnabas the Apostle Church in Bellmore and that the priest took him and several other boys on field trips upstate to a Catholic retreat in Garrison and to Taconic Lake, where he’d ply them money and booze.

“We’d want to go because we were going to get stuff,” recalled Short, who was between the ages of 8 and 12 when he took the trips. “But on the bad side, you’d have to close your eyes when he did the bad stuff.”

“At the time, I didn’t think it was such a big deal. Society wasn’t making that big a deal of it,” he said. “He was very well known and well liked.”

The “bad stuff,” as Short recounted, included Mahoney slapping him on the backside with his bare hand and a wooden paddle and being fondled by the priest.

Mahoney also devised a perverted point system to keep track of who and how frequently he abused, Short said.

Between 10 and 15 boys’ names were inscribed on the panel. After each spanking, Mahoney would have them write a notch next to their name.

“He kind of made it a game — who had the most,” he said. “It f---ed my life up.”

Short said if the umbrella for Rockville Centre’s compensation program is not expanded, the only other recourse he has is to hope state lawmakers pass a law eliminating or extending the statute of limitations on sexual abuse.

Mahoney died in Dec. 2004.




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