CAMDEN (NJ)
NorthJersey.com [Woodland Park NJ]
May 15, 2025
By Deena Yellin
- Clergy abuse survivors and their advocates praised Camden Bishop Joseph Williams for ending the diocese’s legal challenge to a proposed grand jury investigation.
- Bishop Joseph Williams said the reversal was a message to victims and a step to “restore their faith.”
- The New Jersey Supreme Court is still considering the diocese’s arguments over the validity of the grand jury and could still rule against the Attorney General’s Office.
Michael Troiano’s eyes widened in disbelief as he read the message from his bishop.
Joseph A. Williams, recently appointed leader of the Catholic Diocese of Camden, said on May 7 that the diocese would drop its four-year-old legal fight against a statewide investigation of clergy sexual abuse. Williams said he’d informed the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office of “our desire to be partners with them in this public service.”
It was a startling reversal coming just days after diocese lawyers argued before the state Supreme Court that New Jersey didn’t have the right to assign a special grand jury to look into decades of alleged abuse and coverups. The legal fight, kept secret for years under a court order, has prevented an investigation that abuse survivors have urged for all five of the state’s Catholic dioceses.
The Camden diocese’s withdrawal doesn’t mean the process will go forward. Critics noted it came only after the matter was left in the hands of the Supreme Court, which could still rule against the state.
Nonetheless, survivors and their advocates saw Williams’ words as a vindication.
“I got emotional when I read his message,” said Troiano, 54, of Atlantic City, who alleges that he was abused by a cleric from the Camden Diocese while he was growing up in South Jersey.
“When he said he wants to do the right thing, it made me cry,” Troiano said. “I am hoping for accountability. Catholics and non-Catholics all need to know what’s been going on in the church.”
Bishop Williams, who took his post in March, also said in his online statement that a dialogue he had with an unnamed clergy abuse survivor “of deep faith” left him “greatly edified.”
“It helped me to be a better bishop and to work toward a healthier, more transparent church,” he wrote.
Kenneth Lasch, a retired priest from Morris County who now advocates for clergy abuse victims, said he takes the bishop at his word and believes his statement will contribute to the healing of many survivors who’d been infuriated by the court challenge.
“It appears that it is the fruit of much discernment, motivated by a sincere resolve to do the right thing,” Lasch said. “He has set an example to his brother bishops not only in the state of New Jersey, but also across the country.”
Williams, 50, who was previously Camden’s coadjutor bishop, said in his message to the diocese that “the most important goal of this legal change of direction was to show our sensitivity to the survivors of abuse and to make concrete actions to win their trust, restore their faith.”
Troiano said he was an 8-year-old attending St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Elementary School in Pleasantville in the late 1970s when Walter Hicks, a Roman Catholic brother, began abusing him. The unwanted sexual contact and attention went on for three years, according to Troiano.
“I didn’t have the words at the time to explain to anyone what was happening to me,” he said. When he finally told his family that the priest was “bothering me,” their response was that Troiano “probably deserved it,” he recalled in an interview.
The abuse affected him long after he graduated school. The memories kept resurfacing and he suffered from anxiety and PTSD, he said. Troiano said he was unable to hold down a job because of overwhelming feelings of depression and despair.
He turned to alcohol and drugs for comfort and ended up homeless for a time. But when Troiano sought help from attorneys around the state, he was told there was nothing he could do. “The church is a charity, and we can’t sue a charity,” he said he was told.
When New Jersey’s laws changed in 2019, allowing abuse victims to sue their abusers, he thought it marked a new chapter.
A compensation fund was created for New Jersey victims of clergy abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in 2019, but in 2020, Camden pulled out of it and filed bankruptcy. The bankruptcy settled four years later with Camden agreeing to set aside more than $87.5 million for a trust to benefit abuse survivors. But it is under appeal and no settlements have been paid to victims or any claimants. “We are still waiting,” Troiano said.
‘I felt betrayed’
Troiano lost track of Hicks, who was sent to another church. He later discovered through an attorney that he became a therapist who counseled troubled people and abuse survivors at a New Jersey office.
Most recently, Troiano said, he learned that Hicks had died. But the pain lingers.
“I feel betrayed. All I ever wanted was satisfaction and feeling like there was some accountability in the church.”
He doesn’t think he will ever return to church again, he said.
When the state announced its clergy abuse investigation in 2019, Troiano called the hotline established by the Attorney General’s Office as part of its Clergy Abuse Task Force. He met with investigators, he said. At first, he was optimistic there would a grand jury report like that produced in Pennsylvania, which survivors saw as a model for accountability. But years passed without any word on the Garden State’s efforts. Then, in February, Troiano found out from a news report that the Camden Diocese had gone to court and was challenging the state’s right to form the grand jury.
Until its reversal, the diocese had argued that state judicial rules didn’t allow a special grand jury to investigate a private entity such as a church. The diocese also maintained the process would be unfair to clergy members ― many of whom are deceased ― who wouldn’t be able to challenge the grand jury’s findings in court.
The issue landed before the state’s highest court in a packed April 28 hearing, which Troiano attended. The justices have yet to issue a ruling.
“I was at the hearing at the Supreme Court two weeks ago. The church’s arguments didn’t make any sense to me,” Troiano said. “It seems like they are hiding things that everyone knows happened.”
Now, with Bishop Williams in charge of the Camden diocese, he hopes his dreams for justice will finally come true.
“The bishop’s words were very inspiring to me. I really hope it’s not just words.”