Study: 22 'credible' accusations against priests in past 50 years

By Adam Gorlick
Associated Press, carried in the Cape Cod Times
February 20, 2004

http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/update/sfldabuse20.htm

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - In the past half century, 30 priests have been accused of sexually abusing 70 minors in the Springfield Diocese, already reeling from recent allegations that its bishop molested two boys when he was a parish priest, according to figures released by the diocese on Friday.
Church officials say they determined that eight of the allegations were not credible, and six of the accused priests were under the supervision of religious orders outside the diocese.

The report was released a week after former Bishop Thomas Dupre retired amid allegations that he molested two boys while he was a parish priest in the 1970s and 1980s. Church officials have said they were unaware of the claims against Dupre while the report was being compiled.

The information is part of a nationwide accounting of abuse claims compiled by the John Jay School of Criminal Justice. CNN this week reported that 4,450 of the 110,000 U.S. clergy who served since 1950 have been accused of molesting minors. The draft report also said 11,000 abuse claims have been filed against the clergy during that period, according to CNN.

Those figures are higher than previously estimated by some victims' groups, the media and church officials. Researchers who conducted the national survey on Tuesday said the draft was incomplete.

The final report is due to be released Feb. 27 by the National Review Board, the lay watchdog panel the bishops formed in response to the molestation crisis.

"There can be no greater sadness than failing our children," Springfield Monsignor Richard Sniezyk wrote in a letter introducing the report, published Friday in The Catholic Observer. "We, as a church, have failed our children and this has been acknowledged by the U.S. bishops."

According to the study, 1.6 percent of the 1,003 diocesan priests who served during the 50-year period faced credible accusations of abuse.

The last reported abuse incident was in 1993, and half of the 70 people who say they were abused claimed to have been abused by a single priest.

Former priest Richard Lavigne, who was recently defrocked by the Vatican, pleaded guilty in 1992 to molesting two altar boys in parishes in western Massachusetts.

In the 1990s, the diocese settled lawsuits for $1.4 million with 17 men who accused Lavigne of abusing them as children. Within the past two years, at least 15 other people have filed lawsuits accusing Lavigne of abuse.

The diocese has been named in more than 30 lawsuits by people who say they were abused by priests.