Catholic Sexual Abuse

Bishop Accountability.org

This site offers help for abuse victims, a searchable list my name and region of accused priests, and much more helpful information for those interested.

Man sues Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Cardinal Mahony and ex-priest at center of abuse scandal Los Angeles Times By Richard Winton February 12, 2020

“Mahony went on to reassign Father Michael Baker to several other Roman Catholic parishes, where he was accused of abusing more boys, many of them immigrants. The lawsuit is one of the first cases filed against Mahony, formerly the archbishop of Los Angeles, since California enacted legislation last year that sets aside the statute of limitations and provides more time for victims of childhood sexual abuse to seek civil damages. Baker has been accused of molesting at least 23 boys during his decades in the priesthood. He was convicted in 2007 of abusing two boys and sentenced to 10 years in prison.”

The nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese has agreed to pay $720 million to clergy abuse victims over the past decade and released internal files that showed Cardinal Roger Mahony shielded priests and ordered a surrogate to withhold evidence from police, yet Mahony and other archdiocese leaders are unlikely to face criminal charges.

With the final $13 million settlement of existing old cases announced Wednesday, Mahony has emerged from the scandal with his reputation tarnished, but his place in the church intact — even after being publicly rebuked by his successor for internal church files showing that he and others worked to protect priests, keep parishioners in the dark and defend the church’s image.

L.A. Cardinal’s Deposition Released In Sex Abuse Case  NPR by  A Los Angeles court on Tuesday released hours of videotaped depositions by Cardinal Roger Mahony of the L.A. Archdiocese, regarding how the organization he heads handled a sex abuse scandal. The depositions reveal a system that, intentionally or not, protected priests over children. Mahony’s deposition was taken in a lawsuit involving Father Michael Baker, who is believed to have abused two dozen children over a quarter century. Baker didn’t hide his predilections — he told Mahony back in 1986 that he had been abusing two boys for the past 8 years.”

Pope names conservative Hispanic to succeed Cardinal Mahony in L.A. Opus Dei member Jose H. Gomez: Opus Dei member Jose H. Gomez  The Christian Century May 4, 2010 “This an epic moment in the life of the church,” exuded Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, the most populous U.S. Catholic archdiocese. The prelate was speaking of his projected successor to lead 4.18 million Catholics in heavily Hispanic southern California. Pope Benedict XVI on April 6 named Mexican-born Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of San Antonio, Texas, to replace Mahony, who will reach the retirement age of 75 in February and step down in 2011.”

Mexican Opus Dei Archbishop to Replace Cardinal Mahony in Los Angeles Apr 6, 2010 “As a priest in Mexico he did work for a Fatima youth group.” Italian Press Release

Camp Ped: Long after Roman Catholic leaders knew pedo-priests couldn’t be cured, Cardinal Roger Mahony kept packing off his worst offenders to a notorious New Mexico rehab center. By Ron Russell Los Angeles New Times August 15, 2002 Father Michael Baker: “Instead of notifying the cops, Mahony—in typical fashion—quietly packed his pal off to a remote corner of New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains. There, near the village of Jemez Springs, at a secluded retreat operated by a little-known Roman Catholic religious order called the Holy Servants of the Paraclete, Baker joined other priests receiving “therapy” for pedophilia. It was an exercise that Mahony—and, indeed, fellow bishops from coast to coast—already knew, or should have known, was a sham…Since at least the early 1970s Catholic scholars had collectively provided an unambiguous warning to the church hierarchy that too many of its priests suffered from sexual disorders. One of those experts, Father Michael Peterson, a clinical psychologist who in 1982 founded St. Luke Institute in Maryland, had sought to provide a more professional approach to treatment than ever existed at Jemez Springs…In 1985, on the heels of a notorious case involving a Louisiana priest, Peterson and two other highly respected Catholic insiders issued a secret 92-page report on priestly sex abuse that dismissed the church’s attempts to rehabilitate pedo-priests as a colossal failure. The report, which came to be known as “the manual,” was delivered to every bishop in the United States…From the time the Paraclete brothers—over the objections of the order’s founder—began treating pedophiles there in 1965, Camp Ped was little more than a recycling center for child-molesting priests…The late Father Ted Llanos, who molested at least 35 altar boys to become the L.A. Archdiocese’s most notorious child abuser, had pulled time at Jemez Springs in the early ’70s under Mahony’s predecessor, Cardinal Timothy Manning…Father John Salazar…In 1995, he spoke before a large gathering of Promise Keepers, an evangelical men’s movement (whose ranks include growing numbers of Roman Catholics) who emphasize moral rectitude and family values. Telling the men to value themselves because they were made in the image of God, he added, “That is the [message of] Jesus Christ we need to bring, especially to other men and to young men.” Something else had also changed about him. In Los Angeles, he had been known simply as John Salazar. In Texas, he took to using his full name. He became Father John Anthony Salazar-Jimenez. Salazar enjoyed popularity with Matthiesen until the bishop’s retirement in 1997, and afterward with his successor, current bishop John Yanta. From the outset, Yanta was privy to Salazar’s criminal background”...Father Nicholas Aguilar Rivera (26)…”newly installed L.A. auxiliary bishop G. Patrick Zieman…, a longtime protégé of Mahony’s, is the disgraced former bishop of Santa Rosa who was accused of extorting a subordinate priest for sex in 1999 and who looms as a key figure in Mahony’s coverups of sex abuse in the L.A. Archdiocese.“

Brooklyn Bishop Silent on Handling of Sex Scandal New York Times By Daniel J. Wakin. January 26, 2002 Roman Catholic bishop Thomas V. Daily of Brooklyn hid the abuse of priest “John J. Geoghan, the Archdiocese of Boston, and bishops who served there…While Cardinal Bernard F. Law of Boston has publicly apologized for the archdiocese’s handling of the case, Bishop Daily has declined to discuss it.”

Catholic Church Backs Bill on Child Molesting New York Times By Fox Butterfield August 8, 2001 “Under mounting public pressure, the Roman Catholic Church here announced today that it would support a bill in the Massachusetts Legislature that would add priests and other members of the clergy to the list of people who must report suspected child sexual abuse to the authorities. The move came after the disclosure that Cardinal Bernard F. Law had transferred a priest [Father Geoghan] accused of child molestation to other parishes, where the priest was charged with molesting dozens more…Gerald D’Avolio, executive director of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, the church’s public policy arm, said the church had waited to support the bill until it was sure that the bill exempted what was said to priests in confession or during religious counseling…In addition, 11 states, including Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio and Texas, provide no exemption for priests who learn in the confessional about child abuse, according to the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information, which is maintained by the federal Department of Health and Human Services. In another recent case here, Christopher Reardon, a former Catholic youth worker at a church in Middleton, pleaded guilty on July 9 to 75 counts of child rape involving 24 boys, ages 7 to 14. Mr. Reardon could get up to life in prison at his sentencing on Aug. 17. And in the Fall River Diocese, James Porter, a former Catholic priest in North Attleboro, is serving an 18- to 20-year sentence after pleading guilty to 41 counts of raping and molesting 28 children, many of them altar boys.”

Web Archive on the Wayback Machine of Sex Abuse by (Some, Not All) Catholic Clergy compiled by Joe Giardina