ARIZONA
Gallup Independent
Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, NM, May 11, 2013
By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent
FLAGSTAFF — Another Arizona man has filed a clergy abuse lawsuit in Coconino County Superior Court against the Diocese of Gallup alleging he was sexually abused by two priests at Winslow’s Madre de Dios Catholic Church in the 1970s.
The priests named in the lawsuit are the Rev. Clement A. Hageman, who died in Winslow in 1975, and the Rev. Raul N. Sanchez, who replaced Hageman in Winslow. Sanchez, a former Air Force chaplain who retired as a lieutenant colonel, is believed to be living in Mexico.
Phoenix attorney Robert E. Pastor filed the lawsuit in April on behalf of the plaintiff, identified in court documents as John V.F. Doe, a resident of Maricopa County, Ariz. In September 2012, Pastor filed a similar lawsuit naming both Hageman and Sanchez on behalf of another plaintiff, John G.H. Doe, of Navajo County.
In 2010, Pastor filed his first clergy abuse lawsuit against the Gallup Diocese alleging sexual abuse by Hageman in the 1950s in Holbrook, Ariz. That case, filed on behalf of a Phoenix man, is now slated for trial in Flagstaff in February 2014, according to Pastor.
Altar boy victims
The last two lawsuits claim the alleged victims were sexually abused by both Hageman and Sanchez when they were altar boys in Winslow. Pastor’s legal argument in all three cases is that diocesan officials should be prevented from “alleging the statute of limitations as a defense because they fraudulently concealed” the clergy sex abuse from the public for decades.
As part of Hageman’s alleged sexual abuse grooming process, the most recent lawsuit alleges, “John V.F. Doe was invited to Father Hageman’s living quarters where he was allowed to drink wine and eat the host.”
Hageman’s replacement, Sanchez, is alleged to have taken John V.F. Doe, a boy under the age of 15, on trips as part of his grooming tactics. “Father Sanchez took Plaintiff and other altar boys on special trips including camping, fishing, swimming at lakes in northern Arizona and to Phoenix, Arizona,” the complaint states.
The John V.F. Doe lawsuit also includes a new allegation about Hageman: that between Hageman’s church assignments in Holbrook and Kingman, where sex abuse accusations prompted his removal, the priest worked briefly with Catholic missions that served Yaqui Indians.
In an email Friday, Pastor said he was shocked to learn Hageman had been sent to a primarily Native American congregation. “It is yet another example of the Bishop of Gallup allowing pedophile priests to work with communities that historically have not had a voice in our community,” Pastor said. “This fact, coupled with all of the other priests who were assigned to poor, rural parishes in Northern Arizona confirms that the Bishop of Gallup was using those poor, rural parishes as a dumpster for his garbage.”
Bishop Bernard T. Espelage was the Gallup bishop in the 1950s when Hageman worked at the Holbrook, Kingman and Yaqui parishes. Bishop Jerome J. Hastrich assigned Hageman and Sanchez to Winslow in the 1970s.
Current Bishop James S. Wall and his chancellor, the Rev. Kevin Finnegan, were sent a list of emailed questions about Pastor’s lawsuits. They declined to respond to the media request.
Sanchez’s record
According to the Official Catholic Directory, after a brief period in Winslow, Sanchez was sent to live and study at Casa Santa Maria Via Dell’Umilta in Rome in the late 1970s. By 1980, Sanchez returned to Gallup as a canon lawyer and served as the chancellor and taught local seminary students. In 1987, the directory shows Sanchez as joining the Air Force as a chaplain. After retiring from the military, Sanchez did not return to the Gallup Diocese and is now listed in diocese directories as absent.
Pastor said an attorney for the diocese did give him a handwritten note with an address for Sanchez. “The city and state is illegible,” Pastor said, “but we were able to identify that he was last known to be living in Mexico.”
Since Sanchez is still alive and Arizona law enforcement officials have criminally prosecuted a number of alleged clergy sex offenders, Pastor was asked if his clients have filed police reports.
“My clients who were sexually abused by Fr. Sanchez have not reported the acts of sexual abuse to police,” Pastor said. “They are considering that option if we can find Fr. Sanchez. I find it hard to believe that the Diocese of Gallup does not know where one of its priests is living. I suspect the Diocese of Gallup is deliberately ignoring his whereabouts and making no attempt to locate him because of the possible criminal and civil liability.”
Pastor said he is waiting to receive a copy of Sanchez’s personnel file from the Gallup Diocese, which he said diocesan officials have promised to produce.
Regarding his first clergy abuse lawsuit filed in 2010, Pastor said he has had unproductive settlement discussions with the diocese.
“Although the parties have discussed settlement,” he said, “the Bishop of Gallup is either ignorant of the harm that victims of abuse suffer when a priest sexually abuses them or he refuses to accept the damage his priests have caused to so many Catholic children including the Plaintiff.”
Pastor said he is preparing to take that first case to trial. “The victim in this case hopes the Diocese of Gallup will comply with court orders allowing victims to conduct discovery regarding the secrets of clergy sexual abuse that the Diocese of Gallup has been desperately trying to hide,” he said. “He also hopes that the Bishop of Gallup will one day soon sit for a deposition to answer the many questions that surround the Diocese of Gallup and the unusually high number of pedophile priests who were dumped into the small rural towns of Northern Arizona.”
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