EUREKA (CA)
North Coast Journal
February 7, 2019
By Thadeus Greenson
Earlier this month, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa took an unprecedented step — for the church, anyway — releasing a list naming 39 of its priests who have been accused of sexually abusing minors. While the North Coast began publicly grappling with predatory clergy earlier than most communities — the arrest of Rev. Gary Timmons, a former St. Bernard priest who founded Camp St. Michael in Leggett, on 17 counts of child molestation came more than six years before the nation became aware of the growing crisis in the church. But the diocese’s list — which critics charge is an incomplete effort at damage control — reveals that the extent of such abuses in Humboldt County was far beyond what anyone outside the church likely knew.
Consider this: Of the 39 priests on the diocese’s list, at least 10 worked in Humboldt County, together comprising an almost consistent 45-year stretch when a priest who had been or would face allegations of abuse was working in a local church. Five of them worked at St. Bernard, four at St. Mary’s in Arcata, three at Humboldt State University’s Newman Center. And, coupled with the Santa Rosa bishops’ history of extensive efforts to protect and even enable the accused, that’s led some advocates to draw a very dark conclusion.
“Humboldt County and Eureka, unfortunately, was one of the ‘dumping grounds’ for abusive clergy, and the church is not going to reveal the true depths of depravity that has existed there,” says Joey Piscitelli, who was abused by a priest in the Bay Area and is now a member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). “What I can say without reservation is that the Catholic Church in Northern California was inundated with child rapists, pedophiles and depraved molesters for decades, and depraved bishops who harbored them, shuffled them, shielded them and enabled them without any regard for children’s safety.”
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