New York Archdiocese Names 120 Catholic Clergy Members Accused of Abuse

By Rick Rojas
New York Times
April 26, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/nyregion/archdiocese-priests-sex-abuse.html

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York on Friday identified 115 priests and five deacons who have been accused of sexually abusing a child in what is one of the largest disclosures that has been made by the church.

The list of clergy members joins a flood of names that have poured from dioceses and religious orders across the country in recent months as the church grapples with a scandal over its handling of abuse. Victims’ advocates had noted a conspicuous absence as the New York archdiocese, a center of gravity in the American church, held off while dozens of other bishops published the names of accused priests.

The disclosures have aided in illuminating the scope of an epidemic of sex abuse in the Catholic Church that has spurred investigations by law enforcement officials and inflamed a crisis of confidence among many of its followers.

The lists have been a major part of a broader campaign by bishops to apologize for the church’s failures as they seek to placate Catholics outraged by the scandal and brace for the findings of law enforcement investigations. The attorneys general in New York and New Jersey are among those who have initiated inquiries into clergy sex abuse.

Like other bishops, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, the archbishop, has sought to strike a conciliatory tone, acknowledging the “shame that has come upon our church.”

“I write to ask forgiveness again,” Cardinal Dolan said in a letter accompanying the list on Friday, “for the failings of those clergy and bishops who should have provided for the safety of our young people but instead betrayed the trust placed in them by God and by the faithful.”

The archdiocese in New York is one of the largest Catholic communities in the United States, encompassing Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island and several counties north of New York City. It includes an estimated 2.8 million Catholics, with nearly 300 parishes and more than 200 schools.

Victims’ advocates had urged Cardinal Dolan to name suspected abusers like bishops across the United States had done in response to an explosive grand jury report in Pennsylvania that detailed decades of allegations and intensified the tensions surrounding sex abuse that had gripped the church.

The New York archdiocese’s counterparts in Newark, Hartford and Brooklyn made their own disclosures this year. The Brooklyn diocese, which also includes Queens, named more than 100 accused priests in February. The Jesuit province that includes New York also identified accused priests, including many who had served in the order’s schools within the archdiocese’s territory.

Some abuse survivors have welcomed the disclosures as validation, believing that the church was starting to acknowledge, after years of silence, what they endured. But a recurring criticism has been the limits of the church’s transparency, as bishops have operated at their own discretion and shared less information than many advocates had wanted.

“What I will say is that we are grateful that the archdiocese is finally taking this step, belated though it may be,” said Zach Hiner, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP.

The New York archdiocese listed 53 priests and deacons who were credibly accused of abuse, admitted to it, were convicted of a crime related to it, or were involved in a civil settlement. Most of them were either defrocked or have died. Included on that list was Theodore E. McCarrick, the former cardinal who was one of the highest-profile leaders in the church to be accused of abuse and was recently expelled from the priesthood.

Nearly 60 other clergy members named had died or left the ministry before being accused in cases that led to financial settlements from the archdiocese’s Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program. The list also includes eight priests who have been removed from ministry and are awaiting final canonical or archdiocesan disposition of allegations against them.

Most of the alleged abuse took place between the 1950s and the 1990s, according to a graph provided by the archdiocese. The archdiocese also said that since the 2002 overhaul of the church’s practices surrounding abuse claims, two cases had been found credible.

“Please be assured,” Cardinal Dolan said, “there is not a single priest or deacon of the Archdiocese of New York against whom there has been a credible and substantiated claim of abuse against a minor currently in ministry.”

Still, critics pointed out that, unlike other dioceses, the archdiocese did not include details about the priests’ work histories, nor did it include clergy from outside orders who worked in the archdiocese. Advocates also encouraged the archdiocese to share when the allegations were reported to the church and its response. (The archdiocese disclosed the clergy members’ name, year of ordination and status.)

“Only by knowing what went wrong to enable abusers in the past,” Mr. Hiner said, “can we best know how to prevent similar situations in the future.”

Read more about the Catholic Church’s handling of abuse