FLORIDA
Tampa Bay Times
By Waveney Ann Moore and Leonora LaPeter Anton, Times staff writers
Friday, December 2, 2016
ST. PETERSBURG — Bishop Robert Nugent Lynch stood under the dome of the cavernous cathedral he rebuilt and looked out at the faces of priests he had ordained over the years. The sun was setting; the sky changed color through the glass walls he had commissioned. If ever there was a physical apex of his legacy, in his last year at the helm of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, this was it.
It had been 20 years to this day, Jan. 26, that he lay prostrate at this altar at St. Jude the Apostle, inheriting a flock of more than 325,000 Roman Catholics in five counties stretching north to Citrus. That day, in 1996, he thought he knew what this job would bring. …
Lynch had been bishop less than a month when he was forced to address revelations that the Rev. Rocco Charles D’Angelo had admitted to sexually abusing altar boys in South Florida in the late 1960s and implicated in similar abuse against two boys in the Tampa Bay area in the early 1970s. His first year as bishop, two priests were accused of sexual misconduct, another of embezzlement and another had been married for 15 years and was living a double life.
“I wish to express my personal sorrow to anyone who has been victimized at any time by any representative of the Church,” Lynch wrote at the time, “and I promise to do all in my power to see that it never happens again.”
But the cases kept coming, with dozens of men and at least one woman accusing local priests of abusing them as children. The Rev. William Lau resigned. Robert Schaeufele, a priest in the diocese for 27 years, went to prison. Nine priests in all, not including those from religious orders, have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor.
“The harm and hurt doesn’t lend itself to a simple, ‘I’m sorry,’ ” Lynch said last May, during the only interview he gave the Times.
In 2002, the Diocese of St. Petersburg refused to release its priest records and acknowledged it had previously handled sex abuse complaints without contacting authorities. That same year, however, Lynch ordered a review of all active priests to ensure allegations were properly investigated. He hired a victims’ assistance minister and enforced new rules forbidding priests from entertaining unchaperoned youths in their cars or personal living quarters.
The diocese spent $5.6 million to settle claims.
A Times reporter once asked what he would say to a parishioner questioning how to trust the bishop.
“You have to trust me by getting to know how I live, what priorities I place in my life,” he said. “My life kind of has to be an open book. That is to say, there can’t be any secret part to it.”
• • •
But soon Lynch was the one fending off allegations after the church’s spokesman accused him of sexual harassment.
In 2001, Bill Urbanski accused Lynch of forcing him to share a room when they traveled, grabbing his thigh and showering him with expensive gifts. At one point when they were in a Santa Fe, N.M., hotel room, Urbanski said Lynch asked to take pictures of him without a shirt so he could superimpose his head on Urbanski’s muscular body for Christmas cards. The married father of two said he did as he was told, then vomited in the lobby.
The diocese gave Urbanski $100,000, a sum characterized as severance. Church officials also insisted that Lynch — who had socialized with Urbanski and his wife, and was their children’s godfather — had done nothing wrong.
Urbanski, who has spoken in the past about the allegations, would not talk on the record for this story.
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