They Hoped the Catholic Church Would Reveal Their Abusers. They Are Still Waiting.

By Rick Rojas
Law Offices of Joseph C. George
May 21, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/nyregion/catholic-church-sexual-abuse.html

Janet Cleary Klinger, pictured here as a teenager, said she was sexually abused by a priest in the Diocese of Rockville Centre. She has been pushing for the diocese, on Long Island, to name alleged abusers.

She has watched as diocese after diocese has identified Catholic priests accused of sexually abusing children. She saw the victims who, after confronting decades of church silence, could edge toward a sense of closure as bishops apologized and publicly named clergy members who abused them.

Yet for Janet Cleary Klinger, the silence has continued.

She said she had been abused as a teenager by a priest from her family’s parish in the Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre, which sprawls over the suburbs of Long Island.

But the Rockville Centre diocese — one of the largest in the country with an estimated 1.5 million Catholics — has resisted publishing the names of priests credibly accused of abuse. It is the only diocese in New York that has not released a list. Miami, San Francisco and St. Louis are among the others nationwide.

Church leaders in many dioceses have hailed the release of lists of accused priests as a move toward transparency that will help quell tensions with followers.

But the dioceses that have declined to name priests are calling into question the church’s broader efforts to make amends for the abuse scandals, stirring a growing backlash from victims and their supporters.

They argue that the lack of disclosure creates another impediment toward understanding the church’s handling of the sex abuse epidemic across the nation and makes it more difficult to hold its leaders accountable.

“I, along with a lot of other people, have waited a long time to feel validated, and we continually cannot get that from the Diocese of Rockville Centre,” Ms. Cleary Klinger said. “We get nothing from the Diocese of Rockville Centre.”

Officials in dioceses that have not released names contend that declining to make such a disclosure does little to stand in the way of their pursuing a robust effort to help victims and prevent abuse.

“The Diocese of Rockville Centre, as a longstanding practice, works closely with law enforcement to make certain that all accusations of child sexual abuse against clergy — credible or not — of which the diocese is aware are reported,” Sean P. Dolan, a spokesman for the diocese, said in a statement.

He added: “The relevant civil authorities have the names of all clergy known to the diocese who have been accused of sexual abuse of minors.”

As a child, Ms. Cleary Klinger worshiped at St. Pius X, a Roman Catholic parish in Plainview, N.Y., where she said a priest assigned to the church abused her.

Opponents of the church’s handling of the abuse scandal said some bishops’ reluctance to release more details underscored what they considered a major flaw in the flood of disclosures: It is a hodgepodge response, where each bishop operates at his own discretion in choosing what, if any, information to share.

The church’s leadership in the United States has not adopted any kind of formal standard for disclosure. Some bishops have provided work histories and even photographs of accused priests. Others listed only names, the year of their ordination and their status with the diocese. And some have declined to take part at all.

“There’s no incentive to act in good faith,” said David Clohessy, a victims’ advocate. “There’s no incentive to put out anything other than a small amount of information.”

Bishops across the United States started publishing the lists at a rapid clip after the damning grand jury report in Pennsylvania last August that unfurled decades of allegations, including efforts by church officials to discourage victims from reporting abuse and pressure the authorities not to investigate.