DETROIT (MI)
Detroit News
June 13, 2019
By Beth LeBlanc
None of the priests facing sexual misconduct charges stemming from Attorney General Dana Nessel’s investigation into clergy abuse in Michigan will get help paying for their legal defense from the Michigan dioceses where they used to work.
Most will, however, continue receiving retirement benefits through their diocesan retirement plans because pensions are protected by federal law.
For others not yet of retirement age, Michigan’s various dioceses are required by canon or church law to provide “sustenance” for their priests leading up to and even after a potential guilty verdict.
In May, Nessel charged five priests who had worked in three Michigan dioceses with sexual misconduct charges as part of the attorney general’s investigation in clergy sexual abuse in Michigan’s seven dioceses. At the time, Nessel said the charges were “just the tip of the iceberg” and more legal action is expected.
The priests charged included the Revs. Neil Kalina, 63, and Patrick Casey, 55, who had served in the Detroit archdiocese; the Revs. Timothy Michael Crowley, 70, and Vincent DeLorenzo, 80, who served in the Lansing diocese; and the Rev. Jacob Vellian, 84, a visiting priest from India working in the Kalamazoo diocese in the 1970s at the time of the alleged incident.
None of the charged priests were involved in active ministry at the time Nessel announced charges. All of the priests, with the exception of Vellian, have been arraigned on their charges and face sentences that carry maximum penalties ranging from 15 years to life in prison.
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