Archive of Franciscan Sex Abuse in the Province of St. Barbara

Bishopaccountability.org
May 23, 2012

http://bishopaccountability.org/franciscans/


This page provides the entire archive – over 8,500 pages of priest files and other documents – obtained by survivors of sexual abuse committed by Franciscan priests and brothers, as stipulated in nonmonetary provisions of a May 25, 2006 settlement. This is by far the largest release of religious order documents in the history of the sexual abuse crisis.

Objections by the accused friars to release of their personnel and confidential files were rejected in a June 18, 2007 opinion by Judge Peter D. Lichtman, and he ruled on specific objections from the accused perpetrators and Franciscan officials in his April 2, 2009 order with detailed exhibits on the objections of the Franciscans, alleged perpetrators, and "bystanders," including Franciscan managers. His decisions were affirmed on September 10, 2010 by the California Court of Appeals, and on January 19, 2011, the California Supreme Court declined to review the appeals court decision, allowing the release of the documents to proceed.

Although the attempt to prevent the release of documents ultimately failed, the defendants did succeed in aggressively redacting the documents. The names of the provincial ministers and other managers on whose watch the abuse occurred have been redacted from the record. Moreover, redactions and claims of privilege have turned the priest files into a patchwork: complaints documented in the depositions of survivors are frequently not represented in the priest files as released. While names of managers have been redacted, their titles have not. We have compiled a staff list for the provincial office, schools, and houses that readers might find useful. See also our list of provincial ministers.

Despite these issues, the Franciscan Sex Abuse Archive is a major new source of information on the abuse of children by Franciscan priests and brothers, on the enabling of abuse by Franciscan provincial ministers and managers, and on the Franciscan culture within which the abuse of children has thrived for decades.

Below we provide: 1) the Archive of Franciscan Sex Abuse, with links to over 8,500 pages of priest files, depositions, and exhibits; and 2) Selected Documents.

NOTE: We are continuing to update the selected documents portion of this page. Please refresh the page to view recent additions.

THE ARCHIVE OF FRANCISCAN SEX ABUSE

The archive contains the files of nine priests and brothers: Cimmarrusti, Van Handel, Johnson, and Krumm; Cabot, Carriere, Connolly, McKeon, and Pacheco. Information about the first four priests was also contained in the depositions of survivors and managers. Those depositions and exhibits were bundled with the relevant priest file. In a final section, we provide links to all the depositions. They offer important information on the culture of St. Anthony's Seminary and the managerial practices of the Franciscans.

BishopAccountability.org obtained these files from Timothy Hale, Esq., who had redacted the files to comply with all agreements. We optimized the files using Adobe Acrobat to make them smaller and easier to download, and if the resulting file was still larger than 5 megabytes, we split it up, and offered it both as a single file and as a number of smaller files. These are still large files and will take time to download on some connections. We are adding server capacity to ensure good download performance.

When the defendants requested that entire pages be redacted, and the court did not grant the request, Mr. Hale retained the blank Xed-out page, indicating that there had been a difference of opinion about the redaction. We deleted the blank page to make the documents more readable, but we provided a "With Blanks" version of the file, so that interested readers can see what redactions were not allowed by the court. Light shading in the documents indicates smaller redaction requests that were disallowed.

In order to provide context for the documents, we offer links to Mr. Hale's useful narrative history of abuse in Santa Barbara. We will also provide links to assignment histories and other biographical sources.