Green Bay Diocese Releases List of 46 Priests It Knows to Have Sexually Abused Minors since 1906

By Paul Srubas
Green Bay Press-Gazette
January 17, 2019

https://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/2019/01/17/clergy-abuse-green-bay-diocese-sexual-minors-priests-offenders-named-list/2597975002/

The Catholic Diocese of Green Bay on Thursday morning released 46 names of clergy with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of minors.

At a press conference on the diocesan campus, Bishop David Ricken apologized to the 98 known victims of sexual abuse by the clergy in the diocese since 1906 and called for other victims, if any, to come forward, to help make sure no abusers remain in the clergy.

"We believe you," Ricken said of the victims, survivors and families, whom he called "my greatest concern."

Diocesan Chancellor Tammy Basten and the Rev. John Girotti, vicar for canonical services, also spoke about the internal investigation conducted at the diocese since September to identify the clergy members.

Green.jpg Green Bay Bishop David L. Ricken discusses the release of a list on Thursday of 46 priests who have been confirmed to have sexually abused minors. (Photo: Jim Matthews/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin/@jmatthe79)

Ricken also chose the opportunity to announce two workshops the diocese will sponsor related to sexual abuse. One, on Jan. 30, will be at St. John the Baptist Parish, 2597 Glendale Ave. in Howard, for clergy and pastoral leaders for training on assisting victims of sexual abuse. The other, on Feb. 1 at the Tundra Lodge in Green Bay, will introduce licensed mental health professionals to a trauma response model for helping victims.

Ricken said the names of suspected priests would be posted on the diocese's website at noon. The website appeared to have crashed less than a minute after noon. The diocese also provided attending media with a list of the names of the priests and ex-priests.

The list includes 46 clergy members, only 15 of whom are still alive. It is broken into two sections, one with 36 priests with a substantiated allegation of the sexual abuse of a minor, and 10 with a single substantiated allegation of abuse that was made after the priest died. One name was withheld pending further legal review, as the priest has contested his inclusion on the list, Giotti said.

The names include former Rev. John P. Feeney, who was sentenced to prison in 2004 for the late 1970s molestation of two Outagamie County brothers; former Rev. Donald Buzanowski, convicted of molesting boys at Ss. Peter & Paul Parish in Green Bay in the 1980s; and the Rev. Richard Thomas, who was convicted in 1993 and again in 2016 in Brown County Circuit Court for indecent exposure.

The list also includes the former Rev. David Boyea, who was convicted in Brown County of molesting a boy in 1985. Boyea's case was brought before the public again this fall when retired Bishop Robert Morneau announced he was withdrawing from public ministry for failing to report Boyea's sexual activities in the late 1970s, an omission Morneau said allowed Boyea to remain in contact with youths and to molest again.

Green Bay's record release does not include clergy from specific religious orders, like the Norbertines, over whom Ricken claims no jurisdiction. Ricken said he understood the Norbertines are conducting a similar internal review of their own personnel records, but he couldn't say what they intended to do with the findings.

St. Norbert Abbey in De Pere released a statement Thursday confirming it has hired an independent agency to review its personnel records and develop a report of credible sexual assault allegations against Norbertines over the last 50 years. The abbey didn't indicate whether it intended to make that report public, but said it intends to continue to fully cooperate with local authorities in any cases and to assist victims.

The Norbertines will also sponsor a Day of Reflection at its Norbertine Center for Spirituality for victims of clergy abuse, their friends and supporters. It will be held April 6.

Nationwide disclosures

The diocese is the latest Catholic institution to divulge the names of known or suspected offenders since an August report by a Pennsylvania grand jury, which identified more than 300 abusive priests who are believed to have molested at least 1,000 children.

The report prompted investigations by prosecutors in at least a dozen other states and a U.S. Department of Justice inquiry.

Since then, lists of abusive priests have trickled out from dioceses across the country as victim advocates called for greater transparency from the church.

Most recently, the Jesuit order’s USA Midwest and Maryland provinces released the names of 89 priests and brothers with credible or established allegations of sexually abusing a minor since the 1950s, including eight with ties to Wisconsin.

The Green Bay diocese hired an independent firm to review the files of all priests and deacons who served in the diocese in the wake of Morneau's admission that he had failed to report Boyea's sexual activities. The list is a product of that report.

Sexual abuse by clergy has been an ongoing issue in dioceses worldwide, throughout the U.S. and in Green Bay. In 2004, Bishop David Zubik released a report stating that allegations had been made against 35 priests and deacons serving the diocese between 1950 and 2003. Of those 35, 15 were dead, 15 had withdrawn or been removed from the priestly ministry, four were completely removed from the priesthood and one was being actively prosecuted in circuit court.

Five other cases were dropped by police or by the alleged victims, Zubik reported at the time.

Green1.jpg Green Bay Bishop David L. Ricken, right, Chancellor Tammy Basten, center, and Vicar for Canonical Services Rev. John Girott, at a press conference Thursday announcing the release of a list of 46 diocesan priests who were found to have sexually assaulted minors. (Photo: Jim Matthews/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin/@jmatthe79)

Zubik released that report in advance of a national study being released by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Despite the disclosure, Zubik refused during his time in Green Bay to release the names of those 35 priests and deacons, saying he believed it unfair to do so given that many were dead and no longer able to defend themselves.

And in 2006, under his direction, the diocese embarked on a new policy calling for the destruction of personnel records of priests who had been dead for at least a year. The policy exempted records of cases involving pending court action, and it dealt with all personnel records, not just those of accused priests, according to the diocese.

Nevertheless, activists saw the move as a deliberate effort to destroy records to protect the diocese from civil liability in sex abuse cases. SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, publicly decried the policy in 2010, four years after the diocese said it enacted it, and called it an effort to protect pedophile priests.

Zubik was transferred to Pittsburgh in 2007 and in recent years has found himself in the center of a statewide investigation of sexual abuse allegations against priests throughout the eight Catholic dioceses in the state of Pennsylvania. Most of those allegations predated Zubik's time as diocesan leader but go back to years when he served as administrative secretary to the bishop and director of clergy personnel in that state, prior to his years in Green Bay.

According to the grand jury report in Pennsylvania, Zubik was probably aware of at least some of the steps the diocese took to keep adverse publicity to a minimum during the years the abuses came to light, including reassigning suspected abusers to other parishes or dioceses and reaching settlements with victims that included confidentiality agreements.

The grand jury probe in Pennsylvania prompted prosecutors there last fall to issue a nationwide call to Catholic bishops everywhere to refrain from destroying records pertaining to sexual abuse by clergy.

That grand jury report was part of what prompted the Green Bay diocese to hire an outside investigator and examine allegations, Ricken said. Despite the diocese's record-purging policy, sufficient records were retained to provide a clear picture of which priests faced allegations that could be substantiated, Basten said.

The start of the press conference was delayed when the diocese's vicar general, Rev. John Felton, entered the conference room and evicted Green Bay resident Jason Jerry from the press pool. Jerry, who runs an online news site called Greater Green Bay Society of the Llama and who has publicly identified himself as a victim of clergy abuse, was escorted out as not being a credentialed member of the media with a formal press release/invitation to the press conference.

"For them to throw a victim with a substantial claim, who also happens to be a freelance journalist trying to do his job, out of this press conference was an outrage on several levels," Jerry said in a written statement to the Press-Gazette. "On the one hand, they say they support and pray for the victims, but on the other hand, all they want to do is shut me up. Who else gets to investigate themselves, then judge their own guilt or innocence?"

Established in 1868, the Green Bay diocese is composed of 324,000 Catholics in 16 counties: Brown, Calumet, Door, Florence, Forest, Kewaunee, Langlade, Manitowoc, Marinette, Menominee, Oconto, Outagamie, Shawano, Waupaca, Waushara and Winnebago.