SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
San Francisco Chronicle [San Francisco CA]
April 16, 2025
By Matthias Gafni, Susie Neilson
A panel that reviews abuse allegations against priests returned more than half of accused clergy to ministerial duties, including a priest who faced five complaints, documents show
A secretive Archdiocese of San Francisco panel tasked with reviewing child sexual abuse allegations against priests has over the past decade returned more than half of accused clergy to their ministerial duties, including a priest who faced five abuse complaints, according to documents ordered released by a federal judge.
The archdiocese has long been one of the most opaque Catholic branches in the country. But the once-confidential Independent Review Board minutes it released provide an unprecedented window into the powerful committee, while raising questions about whether its oversight — designed as a measure to prevent abuse by priests — truly protected its youngest parishioners.
The church turned over the 175 pages of records on Tuesday after a federal bankruptcy judge ordered the release against the wishes of the archdiocese.
“As a Catholic, Easter is the celebration of light, and today, reading these documents, you see darkness and evil,” said Margie O’Driscoll, a 64-year-old San Francisco resident who has sued the archdiocese alleging she was sexually abused by her former teacher at Marin Catholic High School in Kentfield. “Over and over again, you see the archdiocese protecting priests more than the children.”
Peter Marlow, a spokesperson for the archdiocese, said in an email to the Chronicle on Tuesday that the members of the Independent Review Board were “truly independent” and represented “an essential step” in the church’s procedures for handling child sex abuse claims.
“The Archdiocese treats every accusation of sexual abuse seriously, and immediate steps are taken to protect the rights of both the alleged abuse survivor and the alleged abuser,” he said.
Never before has such a wide swath of internal decision making of the Catholic Church seen the light of day. The documents lay bare the San Francisco Archdiocese’s inner workings, including candid comments from Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone and frequent talk about how decisions by the review board would be treated by the media — and potentially blow up into scandal.
The records show:
- At least three priests who by the church’s definition faced credible accusations of sexually abusing minors stayed on the San Francisco Archdiocese’s list of clergy members with full status for years, including one, David Ghiorso, who faced five credible abuse accusations and remains on the good standing list. The other two priests, Lawrence Finegan and Daniel Carter, were taken off the list in 2024 after accusations were sustained, without any public acknowledgment of the church’s findings, according to court records.
- Another priest, Linh Tien Nguyen, remains on the good standing list despite being accused in a lawsuit of abusing a middle-school student and former altar boy between 2005 and 2008. Meeting records show the IRB discussed the case of a priest identified by the initials “LN” with virtually identical details, though the outcome of the board’s discussion was unclear. “LN” denied the accusations, according to the minutes.
- The IRB and the archdiocese regularly visited clergy members with sustained abuse allegations, supporting them financially through monthly pension payments, housing stipends and therapy reimbursements. IRB members discussed at length the impact that perpetrators’ punishment and “isolation” had on them and how to help them, at one point suggesting victims play a direct role in their perpetrator’s “rehabilitation” to promote “further healing.”
- While the San Francisco Archdiocese petitioned for bankruptcy in 2023 after being named in 537 sex abuse lawsuits — many of which were filed after a state law extended statute of limitations requirements — just 49 priests were named in the IRB’s table of investigations into its clergy as of 2022, including several who are now deceased and two dozen priests it cleared of abuse.
- The board discussed publicizing the names of credibly accused clergy members but decided against it because doing so would “stir up controversy.” To this day, the board publishes only a “positive” list of priests authorized to perform ministerial duties on behalf of the archdiocese, but that list includes clergy members like Ghiorso, with multiple accusations of assaulting minors, as long as those allegations are either pending or the board has deemed them “not sustained.”
- Archbishop Cordileone has long denied the existence of lists of credibly accused priests in his organization. But in October 2023, Cordileone, at an IRB meeting, acknowledged the existence of internal lists the archdiocese kept of clergy with sustained accusations of child sexual abuse as determined by the IRB. At each meeting, which the archbishop almost always attended, members discussed modifications to the list.
Marlow defended the archdiocese’s decision not to publish a list of credibly accused priests, arguing that to do so would violate the “due process” of those with pending or unsustained findings. So did the Vatican: After two abuse survivors filed complaints with the Holy See alleging Cordileone’s refusal to publish a credibly accused list violated the church’s procedures for combating sexual abuse, the church’s central governing body disagreed, according to a letter Cordileone sent to the survivors.
Ghiorso, in an email, called the accusations against him “false.”
“All the evidence was presented to the IRB and they found the accusations not credible,” he wrote.
The Independent Review Board was created shortly after the Catholic Church’s priest sex abuse scandal exploded in 2002. Each archdiocese in the U.S. was required to have such a board to comply with the church’s Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, also known simply as the “charter.”
The boards, tasked with independently investigating credible claims of sexual abuse by members of a diocese, are typically composed of five to 10 people of “outstanding integrity and good judgment in full communion with the Church.” The archbishop appoints the boards, which usually include laypeople, one priest, another archdiocese member and one victim of priest child abuse.
In San Francisco, the board’s voting members have included retired San Francisco police officers, therapists, doctors and lawyers. In addition, Cordileone, an archdiocese attorney and other staff attend the meetings, but without votes. Members serve five-year terms and are replaced after two terms.
Abuse complaints go through the diocese’s administrative office for review, with staff members forwarding complaints deemed credible to the review board to determine if “reasonable suspicion of child abuse exists.” If so, the allegations should be reported to “civil authorities,” according to bylaws, and the archdiocese is supposed to launch an independent investigation.
The board reviews reports and makes formal recommendations to the archbishop, including “sustained” or “not sustained” findings. The board advises whether clergy should return to ministry or if steps should be taken to remove the member from ministry.
As part of the bankruptcy judge’s order, the archdiocese redacted the names of accused priests, leaving only initials as identification, with clergy removed from ministry identified by a single letter.
Lawyers representing alleged victims identified one of the accused priests in the San Francisco archdiocese as David Ghiorso. Plaintiffs have alleged that he abused them as young boys in the 1980s and 1990s at a Sonoma County summer camp and at St. Vincent’s School for Boys, a Catholic group home for troubled boys in San Rafael.
The internal records show that the IRB discussed Ghiorso, referred to as “DG,” at multiple meetings.
During a December 2021 meeting, Monsignor John Talesfore, a pastor at a San Mateo church and member of the IRB, said that “he comes from a mindset that he can never comprehend the claims made against the priests,” according to the minutes. A therapist serving on the board said that if the claims were credible, she’d expect to see “additional allegations brought by others.”
The board voted unanimously to reinstate Ghiorso and ended the meeting by reminding members not to speak to the media.
Five months later, a special meeting was called after a new allegation surfaced against Ghiorso, but the board agreed another investigation was not needed. The board, in an official findings sheet, marked “not sustained” and wrote: “This allegation came about as the result of a previous unsubstantiated allegation. The Board recommended that it falls within the scope of the previous allegation and that (redacted) not be removed from ministry.”
In November 2022, the board received three new allegations against Ghiorso related to his work at St. Vincent’s Home “decades ago,” and again found insufficient evidence.
Other accusations appeared to be not fully investigated, or the alleged behavior not viewed as abuse, the newly released documents show.
In one case, a girl in ninth grade reported having troubling dreams after a clergy member at her Sunday school asked her about her experience with masturbation, as well as “what she watched online,” during confession. When confronted, the priest said he was trying to help students by “mentioning specific sins to them, and thus, guiding them.” The board told the priest he could have handled the conversation better, but otherwise accepted his explanation without further follow-up. One board member said it was a “good sign” that the daughter had shared the incident with her mother.
In another case, a woman said she entered into a sexual relationship with a lay director at St. Anthony in San Francisco in 2005, when she was 16. She said she reported what happened to a priest in 2020, but nothing was done. Cordileone reminded the priest he was a mandated reporter, according to the minutes.
In addition to determining whether priests should be punished, the board spent a significant amount of time lobbying for better treatment of clergy members removed from the ministry due to sustained sexual abuse allegations.
At a January 2018 meeting, the board discussed eight priests who had been removed from the ministry due to alleged child sexual abuse. The vicar for clergy, the Rev. Raymund Reyes, had been visiting them, and met with one fallen priest’s Alcoholics Anonymous and Sexaholics Anonymous sponsors. Reyes would later say he felt a “growing connection” to the priests.
“Fr. Reyes expressed his concern that there are far fewer opportunities for reconciliation for those men who were the alleged offenders,” according to the minutes. “Many protections have been initiated for victims, and much has been done to assure that offenders are held accountable.” But, he added, not enough was being done to help these priests reconcile with God. He asked how they could further help these men, while not yielding any responsibility to the victims.
Cordileone said at the meeting that efforts to bring victims and perpetrators together for reconciliation have been “marred by lawsuits.”
“Victims have asked to bring in their attorneys, which has been counterproductive to reconciliation,” the archbishop said.
Reyes said that some of these priests had stopped celebrating Mass themselves, as sitting in pews made them “depressed.” He said, “It is not who they are.”
“There is no collective effort on our part to help them,” Reyes said, other than by paying for their housing. “It is our obligation to direct our actions toward reconciliation where it can be accomplished, for the sake of their souls and our own.”
When one board member wanted to bring a former East Bay friar who had been removed due to alleged sex abuse to a San Francisco dining hall, neighboring a school, the board talked him out of it, arguing that the move could open the board and archdiocese to “scandal.” Cordileone stressed how the Catholic church was working to “regain credibility.”
During another board meeting, Reyes discussed meeting with an allegedly abusive priest, identified as “Fr. W,” who expressed his hope that “one day distinctions could be made between levels of abuse so that some Charter priests could undertake ministry on some level again.” One board member said he agreed with this idea, later saying that the “zero tolerance” policy for perpetrators outlined by the Charter should be “questioned and challenged.”
This does not appear to have been undertaken, however, due to board members’ fear that relaxing the rules would look like “backsliding” to members of the public, who might feel “that bishops have sold them out.”
“There will be public anger,” said board member the Rev. John Ryan, according to the meeting minutes.
O’Driscoll, the San Francisco resident who alleged she was sexually assaulted in 1976 by her marriage and sexuality teacher at Marin Catholic High School, Father Guy Murnig, said in an interview Tuesday that she hopes the release of the minutes moves the archdiocese to become more open.
“It’s up to the archdiocese to essentially set the atmosphere of transparency, and this archbishop has done everything to be as closed as possible,” she said. “If we don’t tell our stories, they are not going to be told, and we want this to stop.”
Reach Matthias Gafni: matthias.gafni@sfchronicle.com; Reach Susie Neilson: susie.neilson@sfchronicle.com
April 16, 2025
Investigative Reporter
Matthias Gafni is an investigative reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. He investigates stories on corruption, child and adult sexual abuse, criminal justice, aviation, healthcare and more. In 2017, Gafni won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for his work on the Ghost Ship fire. In 2018, he was named SPJ Reporter of the Year in Northern California. The following year, he was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for his work covering the Camp Fire. In 2020, he won a Polk Award for military reporting of a COVID-infested aircraft carrier and in 2020 he won an IRE award for his coverage of an East Bay hospital. He was born and raised in the Bay Area and graduated from UC Davis.
Investigative Reporter
Susie Neilson is an investigative reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle. Previously, she spent three years on the Chronicle’s data team, where she covered topics including criminal justice and housing from a quantitative lens. She is a graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and Northwestern University.