GALLUP (NM)
Gallup Independent
First in a three-part series
By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
[View the Burns file in searchable, easily downloaded form.]
GALLUP — When the Rev. James M. Burns died in 2010, he left a disastrous legacy in the Diocese of Gallup.
Burns, a convicted sex offender, left untold numbers of Catholic families still struggling to recover from the sexual abuse he perpetrated on their children. In addition, Burns helped push the Gallup Diocese into its current bankruptcy because of the numerous legal claims related to his decades of sexual abuse.
Now Burns has an additional legacy: His priest personnel file has been publicly posted on several Internet websites. Although the file has huge chunks of information missing — many pages are completely redacted — the 564 page file is brimming with evidence of Burns’ crimes and the sometimes frantic attempts by Gallup chancery officials to cope with abuse allegations.
Burns’ file was publicly released in October as part of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ 2007 settlement with hundreds of clergy sex abuse survivors. A decade ago the Gallup Diocese and the Los Angeles Archdiocese were named in a civil lawsuit by an Arizona man who said Burns sexually abused him as a teen in the 1980s, on trips to Los Angeles and in his hometown of Winslow, Ariz. The man also filed a police report with the Winslow Police Department, which resulted in prosecution by the Navajo County Attorney and a criminal conviction and brief prison stint for Burns.
. . .
Burns’ file opens with a crime story: a two-page account of the priest’s alleged sexual assault of a 19-year-old Arizona man in 1974. Written April 3, 2002, as a memo by Gallup priest Larry O’Keefe to the late Bishop Donald E. Pelotte, O’Keefe relates the alleged victim’s story.
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