LOUISIANA
The Advertiser
By Ken Stickneyk stickney@theadvertiser.com August 23, 2014
Public scandal surrounding priest molestation cases in the mid-1980s struck the Diocese of Lafayette at a time when it was woefully ill-prepared to deal with it.
But court papers reviewed by The Daily Advertiser in recent weeks suggest diocesan leaders should have seen trouble coming years earlier.
Those papers were made known recently after Minnesota Public Radio investigated sex abuse in the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis, uncovering a wealth of documents about numerous priests in the Diocese of Lafayette who had been accused of sexual misconduct since the 1950s. The link between the dioceses — what led MPR to the court files stored in Texas — was Bishop Harry Flynn, who served in both dioceses.
The court papers, which included legal depositions of key diocesan figures in Lafayette, suggest strongly that former Bishop Gerard L. Frey, who served from 1973-1989, lacked the knowledge, savvy and judgment he needed to address sexual misconduct among his priests. One psychologist who worked with the diocese said simply, “It appeared to me that Bishop Frey was hit with a truck.”
But Frey wasn’t alone. Depositions show little communication between diocesan clergy and the diocesan leadership about the onset of trouble. The bishop and clergymen testified under oath that they had little knowledge of myriad, isolated incidents from around the diocese, although the legal papers suggest otherwise in many cases. Priests’ files reportedly contained few specifics, diocesan leaders testified, perhaps intentionally.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.