Questions Remain As Richmond Bishop Promises Transparency Surrounding Sex Abuse Crisis
By Bridget Balch
On Ash Wednesday, the first day of the 40-day Lenten season of penitence, Richmond Bishop Barry Knestout preached about the dangers of “virtue signaling,” urging people to avoid doing good for the “optics” rather than out of sincerity. “Today there is temptation to make sure things look good, even if they’re less than perfect,” he said. And in September, Knestout, leader of the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, responded to the latest public revelations of the extent of the church’s clergy sex abuse crisis with a nine-page letter expressing sorrow for the pain church leadership had caused, a commitment to protecting children and a promise of transparency. “Leadership is best practiced in a transparent way which includes accountability,” Knestout wrote. While a number of Catholics interviewed leaving Ash Wednesday services said they felt that Knestout and the Catholic Church have responded well to the clergy sex abuse crisis and are now being transparent, noting last month’s release of a list naming 43 priests who were credibly accused of abuse, the Diocese of Richmond has not directly answered a number of questions from the Richmond Times-Dispatch and refused to release some details that the other Virginia diocese and the national Catholic Church have published. Knestout also has declined to be interviewed by The Times-Dispatch at least four times since August. The diocese has refused requests for more information about the priests who have been named as credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors, including the church’s response to accusations at the time. It also won’t say how many priests had received accusations that the bishop — who had the final say over who would be included on the list — did not deem credible. The diocese has refused to release the names of the lay people who review sexual abuse cases for the diocese and the independent auditor that examined the clergy files. The list was posted online Feb. 13 — a week before Pope Francis gathered an unprecedented global summit in Vatican City on the issue of clergy sex abuse. The diocese would say about its auditor only that it was “highly qualified and experienced in this type of review,” according to Deborah Cox, the diocese spokeswoman. Cox also would not reveal the identities of the members of the Diocesan Review Board, the mostly lay board that investigates abuse cases in the diocese. She said they requested anonymity. By contrast, the Diocese of Arlington, the other Catholic diocese in Virginia, names its board members online. The National Review Board, which is the board equivalent for the U.S. Catholic Church, also publishes the names of its board members. Becky Ianni, a leader of Virginia’s chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a group that supports victims of clergy abuse, and a victim of sexual abuse by a priest as a child, said that the diocese’s secrecy concerns her. She said that Ash Wednesday triggers memories of her abuse — she said it’s when William Reinecke, a priest close to her family when she was a child, pulled her out of class to put ashes on her forehead and then abused her in the church’s vestry. Reinecke is on both Virginia dioceses’ lists of abusers. In 2007, when she decided to report the abuse she had experienced, she was asked to tell the details to the diocesan review boards in both Arlington and Richmond. When she asked for the names of the board members before making her case, she said the Richmond diocese would not tell her, though Arlington did. “When you go in front of the review board, you’re telling them your entire story,” Ianni said. “That’s very intimidating for a victim.” She refused to meet with the Richmond board and instead told her story to the Arlington board. Ianni found it troubling that the diocese also won’t say who performed the independent audit of clergy files. “If this person is truly independent, then why not name them?” Ianni said. “Why does that need to be a secret?” She also criticized the diocese for not releasing greater detail about the number of victims and how church leadership responded to the allegations at the time they were made. “Church officials should be fully transparent about all aspects of the abuse crisis. Lists should not just include names, but also the full work histories and photos of perpetrators, information on when the diocese first received allegations against each perpetrator, the total number of allegations each perpetrator received, and what steps were taken in response to those allegations,” Ianni said. “Only when information like this is made public will communities be fully informed and children be most protected.” In recent weeks, Ianni said she has received four to five calls a day from people around the country who say they were sexually abused by Catholic clergy as a child, including some from Virginia. At least one person from the state told her that his or her abuser was not on the lists released by the Arlington and Richmond dioceses. When asked how many priests had accusations that were not deemed credible by the bishop, Cox did not answer the question. “The list includes names of clergy against whom a credible and substantiated allegation of sexual abuse of a minor was made,” she wrote in her email response, noting that credible in this instance meant it was supported by a majority of the evidence. “This determination was made after carefully considering many factors and circumstances including, but not limited to admissions, convictions, arrests, settlements of civil claims, detailed, consistent and plausible complaints, number of victims, priest’s assignment history, adverse actions against the priest by Church authority, and whether the name was published on other lists of known abusers.” The list released by the diocese didn’t include any of that information. It named only the priests and noted their birth years, years they were removed (if they were), the years they died (if applicable) and the churches where they were assigned. Cox also said that she could not answer why a report released by the diocese in 2004 included only 19 priests accused by about two dozen victims through 2002, although the latest list names 43 priests with accusations in the same time period. “We can say that, to the best of our knowledge and following the file review, this list includes the names of every member of clergy against whom a credible and substantiated allegation of sexual abuse of a minor was made since the Diocese’s inception,” Cox said in an email. The diocese said that the abuse allegations ranged from the 1950s to the 1990s and that no credibly accused priest is currently serving in active ministry. A 2017 annual report released by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on clergy abuse said that, from July 1, 2016, to June 30, 2017, 654 survivors of child sex abuse came forward in 129 Catholic dioceses, down from 1,318 the year before. As of the final date the report covered in June, 173 of the allegations were deemed substantiated, 118 were considered unable to be proved, 242 were still under investigation, 132 were designated “other,” to include unknown outcomes or cases referred to a different Catholic jurisdiction, and 30 were deemed “unsubstantiated.” Some survivors had made more than one accusation. The same report stated that the U.S. Catholic Church had spent more than $587 million on costs related to sexual abuse allegations from 2014 to 2017, including more than $45 million in support for offenders and nearly $120 million in attorneys fees. In his letter released Feb. 13 along with the list of accused priests, Knestout reaffirmed his desire for transparency: “This crisis calls us to be immersed in three aspects of reconciliation. We need to bring to light the damage that has been done by child sexual abuse in the Church in order for healing to take place. We must express our sorrow and contrition publicly and clearly to acknowledge what we have done and what we have failed to do. We must continue to demonstrate our commitment to never let this happen again. In doing so, we make known — and support with actions — our commitment to repair the damage that has been done.” The 9 a.m. Ash Wednesday Mass at St. Bridget Catholic Church in Richmond’s West End was so crowded that rows of chairs were added to the vestibule to accommodate the overflow. After Mass, dozens of children in plaid skirts and khaki pants laughed together as they walked back to their Catholic school nearby. “For the first time, I believe that the church is taking a very open stand. They’re acknowledging what has happened,” said Maria Thompson, who had attended the Mass. “They’re taking positive steps, even in the Catholic schools, to bring about awareness of abuse.” “It’s a heartbreaking situation because 96 percent of priests are wonderful and then we have 4 percent are not,” said Kathy Binns, another parishioner. “I think the days of hiding things and trying to make do and thinking treatment is going to help and everything else is kind of by the wayside now and victims are at the forefront.” But Ianni doesn’t see it that way. She called the diocese’s victim coordinator Wednesday to ask how many other female victims had come forward to accuse her abuser, a fact she said she wants to know to help her feel less alone. But she was told that information is confidential. Contact: bbalch@timesdispatch.com (804) 649-6601
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