NEW HAMPSHIRE DIOCESE CAPITULATES


December 11, 2002
New Hampshire Diocese Is First to Settle a Criminal Abuse Case
By PAM BELLUCK


BOSTON, Dec. 10 — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester, N.H., today 
became the first diocese to settle a criminal case by publicly acknowledging 
that it had failed to protect children from sexually abusive priests and 
that it would probably have been convicted under the state's 
child-endangerment law.

"The church in New Hampshire fully acknowledges and accepts responsibility 
for failures in our system that contributed to the endangerment of 
children," Bishop John B. McCormack said at a news conference in Concord. 
"We commit ourselves in a public and binding way to address every weakness 
in our structure."

A 10-page agreement signed today by Bishop McCormack effectively ends the 
plans by the New Hampshire attorney general, Philip T. McLaughlin, to file 
criminal charges against the diocese, which would have been the first any 
diocese has faced. Mr. McLaughlin had planned to present those charges 
before a grand jury on Friday.

Under the settlement, the Manchester diocese must submit to an annual audit 
by the attorney general's office for the next five years to ensure it is 
complying with its obligation to protect children from abusive priests. It 
agreed that all diocesan officials and employees would report allegations of 
sexual abuse to law enforcement authorities, even if the person believed to 
have been abused is not now a minor, a requirement stricter than New 
Hampshire law.

The diocese also agreed to remove any accused priest from any post that 
might put him in contact with minors. And the agreement requires the diocese 
to disclose publicly its records on priests accused of abuse, documents it 
has already given to investigators, under a court order.

"This really, it's mind-boggling to me," said James A. Coriden, a canon 
lawyer and professor of church law at Washington Theological Union. "The 
possibility of criminal action against a diocese, that's big-time stuff. I 
can't imagine what brought them to this admission."

Since February, the attorney general's office has been investigating the 
diocese's handling of the cases of about 60 priests accused of sexually 
abusing children over the past 40 years. Jim Rosenberg, an assistant 
attorney general, said prosecutors had been pursuing an indictment of the 
diocese because they felt the problems were a result of institutional 
decisions and reflected a pattern of behavior by diocesan officials.

"It's quite clear that in the decades we looked at, the diocese's priority 
was to protect the reputation of the diocese in these matters and to avoid 
public scandal," Mr. Rosenberg said. "The diocese put the victims second. 
There was a train wreck of bad decisions in this case that were made by a 
great number of people in the diocese over a great number of years. That 
made it clear that this was the problem collectively of the institution, the 
diocese as an entity, rather than any one of its officials or any one of its 
priests."

Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, president of the United States Conference of 
Catholic Bishops, issued a statement saying: "I understand the pressures 
under which the diocese acted, and I note that this resolution is specific 
to the facts in the Diocese of Manchester and to the laws of the state of 
New Hampshire. It does not in any way indicate agreement on the part of any 
other diocese or of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in the 
legal analysis on which the office of the attorney general of New Hampshire 
has acted."

Bishop Gregory added, however, that "there are elements in the agreement 
which parallel the bishops' own decisions" about how to prevent sexual 
abuse. He said the idea of the state auditing the diocese was something the 
bishops had decided would be "helpful in resolving this terrible problem 
permanently."

No other diocese in the country has ever faced criminal charges, experts on 
church law said today, although other prosecutors are considering the 
possiblity. Since the sexual abuse scandal erupted in January, individual 
priests have been indicted, and a spate of lawsuits have accused dioceses of 
negligence in dealing with allegations of abuse. A grand jury in Westchester 
County conducted an inquiry into the abuse scandal and concluded in June by 
accusing churches of cover-ups and urging state lawmakers to eliminate the 
statute of limitations on child sexual abuse cases that the panel said had 
prevented it from handing up any indictments.

Patrick J. Schiltz, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas School 
of Law in St. Paul who has represented religious institutions of several 
denominations in sexual abuse lawsuits, said he found the New Hampshire 
action "troubling" because "it's a very aggressive use of grand jury power" 
and the provision requiring the diocese to submit to state monitoring 
"raises questions about the separation of church and state."

Professor Schiltz said he did not think other prosecutors and grand juries 
would follow suit because in most cases, although "dioceses have done 
horrible things for which they should be held fully accountable in civil 
courts, none of the dioceses have committed any crimes."

He added, "We're seeing around the country a lot of legal ground broken, and 
it's all sort of swept under the rug of well, the church was horrible so it 
doesn't have any standing any more."

In Boston, the epicenter of the abuse scandal, Attorney General Thomas F. 
Reilly's office has been investigating possible criminal and civil action 
against the archdiocese, but legal experts have said it is unlikely that 
archdiocesan leaders will be subject to criminal action because 
Massachusetts laws require someone to have had a criminal intent, not merely 
to have been negligent.

In New Hampshire, the attorney general's office had intended to file charges 
under misdemeanor provisions of the child endangerment law, under which 
institutions can be punished by fines of up to $20,000 per violation, Mr. 
Rosenberg said.

County prosecutors are continuing to look at the possibility of filing 
charges against individual priests, but many of the accusations against 
those priests date from too long ago for them to be prosecuted.

So far, the Manchester diocese has agreed to pay about $7.7 million to 
settle lawsuits filed by 107 plaintiffs. About 80 lawsuits are pending. 
Today's agreement does not affect civil lawsuits that have been settled, are 
pending or might be filed.

At least one person who says he was sexually abused by a priest was 
distressed by the agreement.

Dennis Horion, 50, who said he was molested for five years beginning when he 
was 7 years old, accused prosecutors of giving diocesan officials "criminal 
immunity."

"They're giving people who are criminals, people who failed to report 
criminal activity, they are giving them immunity," said Mr. Horion, who has 
a lawsuit pending against the diocese. "The priests, starting with the 
bishops on down, should have to explain their culpability in writing, in 
public, personally."

Still, Mr. McLaughlin spoke emphatically about the victims during his news 
conference.

"Understand what it would mean for a 10-, 11-, 12-, 13- and 14-year-old boy, 
and sometimes girl, to be in the presence of a priest who to them seemed to 
have a stature if anything beyond that of mom and dad, something that lay 
beyond mom and dad in God," he said. "These, primarily men today in their 
40's and 50's, have had to suffer us recalling for them and encouraging them 
to speak aloud about events that were in many respects the dominant events 
of their life, a breach of trust and physical and sexual abuse."

Bishop McCormack also addressed the abuse victims, saying "to any victim, I 
say that it is not your fault that this happened and that I will do anything 
I can to help you."

Bishop McCormack has become a lightning rod in the sexual abuse crisis, not 
only as a result of the flood of cases in New Hampshire but because he was, 
until 1998, a senior aide to Cardinal Bernard F. Law in Boston, responsible 
during parts of the 1980's and 1990's for handling cases of priests accused 
of abuse. His name figures in many of the church documents released in abuse 
lawsuits in Boston.

Earlier this year, he stepped down as chairman of the Bishops Conference's 
Committee on Sexual Abuse. And in New Hampshire, some parishioners have 
called for his resignation. The bishop seemed to acknowledge his embattled 
position in his statement today.

"During this year I have been humbled," he said. "I have heard many people 
of deep faith express confusion and dismay about our church, our actions and 
inactions, and about me as a priest and bishop."








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