Springfield Diocese to Release Report Wednesday on Sexual Abuse Allegations against Late Bishop Christopher Weldon

By Anne-Gerard Flynn
Springfield Republican via Mass Live
June 22, 2020

https://www.masslive.com/news/2020/06/springfield-diocese-to-release-report-wednesday-on-sexual-abuse-allegations-against-late-bishop-christopher-weldon.html

Seen here in a January 7, 1976 file photo, the Most Rev. Christopher J. Weldon, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield from 1950 until 1977.

SPRINGFIELD — A much anticipated investigative report by retired Superior Court Judge Peter A. Velis into sexual abuse allegations against the late Bishop Christopher J. Weldon will be released Wednesday, June 24, by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield.

Mark Dupont, a spokesman for the diocese, said the report will be posted on the diocese’s website at 2 p.m. Wednesday.

Velis, who was hired by the diocese last July to investigate the allegations that date back to the 1960s, will meet members of the press at the time, along with Archbishop-designate Mitchell Rozanski, and retired Superior Court Judge Daniel Ford.

Ford heads a diocesan task force that will review any recommendations contained in the report for improving outreach to alleged survivors and how their clergy sexual misconduct claims are handled.

The briefing on the report, which the advisory said has been delivered by Velis to the diocese, will take place at the Bishop Marshall Center that is connected to St. Michael’s Cathedral and will be live streamed.

Rozanski asked Velis to act as a third party investigator into the claims of sexual abuse an alleged survivor made against Weldon. The allegations reportedly first surfaced during a June 2018 meeting before the diocesan review board for such complaints, though the board later disputed that account. The claims were made again last June during a meeting the alleged survivor requested with Rozanski, during which the person accused to other members of the diocesan clergy of sex abuse.

After that meeting, Rozanski referred the Weldon allegations to the Hamdpen district attorney’s office and announced Velis would investigate the allegations against Springfield’s fourth bishop.

The alleged survivor had a September 2018 letter from the review board thanking him “for sharing details of your abuse as detailed in narrative relating to Bishop Christopher Weldon, Rev. Edward Authier and Rev. Clarence Forand,” and saying it found his “testimony compelling and credible.”

After the Berkshire Eagle published a story last spring about the allegations against Weldon and the other two priests and questioned whether their names would be added to the diocese’s list of credibly accused clergy, the review board’s chairman released a statement through the diocese, saying, “There was no finding against Bishop Weldon as the individual also indicated that the former Bishop never abused them.”

The alleged survivor, whose testimony before the board was witnessed by three individuals who accompanied him and said he did identify Weldon as an alleged abuser, then requested the meeting with Rozanski.

The diocese has said Velis “was provided access to whatever he needed” and was “given the time needed to conduct a thorough review.”