BERKSHIRE (MA)
Berkshire Eagle
June 4, 2019
By Larry Parnass
A former member of the board that reviews sexual abuse allegations for the Springfield Diocese says the church is attempting to quash an altar boy’s report of molestation to preserve the reputation of a longtime local bishop.
In a statement in response to an article in The Eagle, the diocese says that when its review board met last year with a Chicopee man who served as an altar boy in the 1960s, that man did not allege sexual abuse by the late Bishop Christopher J. Weldon.
But Patricia Martin and two others who attended that June 13, 2018, session confirmed this week that the victim specifically named Weldon as an abuser.
“We were in the room where it happened and [the man] did say that Weldon abused him,” said Martin, a practicing Catholic who has worked as a doctoral-level clinical psychologist for 35 years. “I heard [the man] say that Weldon brought him in a room and abused him.”
The Eagle is not naming the man, because he is a survivor of sexual assault.
“They are trying to cover [Weldon’s] reputation rather than support a victim,” Martin said. “It’s beyond awful. It makes me so angry that they would deny it now. They’re lying.”
Weldon, who led the Western Massachusetts diocese for 27 years, died in 1982.
In September, three months after meeting with the victim, the review board produced a letter saying it found his allegations “compelling and credible.”
“We want to express our sincere sorrow for the pain and suffering you have endured,” the board wrote to the man.
The letter named Weldon, along with two other priests — the Rev. Edward Authier and the Rev. Clarence Forand. Weldon was bishop at the time the Chicopee man says the cleric abused him sexually.
The Eagle reported the contents of that letter in a May 29 story. The article noted that of the three clerics, only Forand was listed as “credibly accused” by the diocese. The church provides the names of “credibly accused” clergy on its website. The diocese’s policy holds that priests accused after their deaths are not listed because they did not have a chance to defend themselves.
Late Friday, the chairman of the review board released a statement through the diocese challenging the accuracy of The Eagle’s report. It says the victim who came before the board did not accuse Weldon of abuse. The board’s job is to judge whether a complaint of abuse is credible.
“There was no finding against Bishop Weldon as the individual also indicated that the former Bishop never abused them,” said John M. Hale, the review board chairman who presided over the session.
“Let me be clear, the Review Board has never found that the late Bishop Christopher Weldon, deceased since 1982, engaged in improper contact with anyone,” Hale said.
The statement does not question the credibility of the victim’s account that he was sexually abused by priests in the diocese. It focuses, instead, on a claim that Weldon was not accused of molestation.
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