In Illinois, the lawyers issue their own report on (alleged) abusers, and the Chicago Archdiocese responds

The shock waves continue to spread outward from last year's Pennsylvania grand jury report on the abuse of minors in dioceses in that state.  Attorneys General in a number of other states have followed Pennsylvania Attorney General Joshua Shapiro's lead by initiating their own investigations.  Among them was my state, Illinois; here at NewGathering, we looked at that agency's preliminary report a few months back.  The Illinois report made headlines by announcing that the Attorney General's office had identified over 500 allegedly abusive priests whose names previously hadn't been made public by Illinois dioceses; but that preliminary report did not name any of those previously-unnamed priests.

This week, a new sort of report was issued: two leading attorneys for victims of clerical abuse, Jeff Anderson and Marc Pearlman, have published their own list of priests and other Illinois diocesan employees who have been accused of abuse - and they name names.

And one of those dioceses, the Chicago Archdiocese, responded rapidly.

Writing in the Chicago Tribune, Elyssa Cherney and Anna Kim report what happened this week:

Attorneys who represent victims of sexual abuse by priests have released what they say is the most comprehensive list yet of Catholic clergy with ties to Illinois who have been accused of misconduct against children. 

The list includes about 400 priests and lay people who at one time served in parishes or schools or otherwise worked in the state, with accusations spanning more than a half-century. That number far exceeds the roughly 200 priests who already have been publicly identified by Illinois’ six Catholic dioceses, including the Chicago Archdiocese.

Cherney and Kim also describe the criteria that the new report's attorney-authors used:

Many of the priests named in the new report already have been publicly identified in news stories and court records, even if they don’t appear on dioceses’ official lists. The dioceses generally used different standards for publicly identifying priests, in some cases omitting clergy when claims against them could not be substantiated or when an allegation was made after the priest died. 

The new study, called the Anderson Report, takes a broader approach, including any priest, seminarian or religious employee — in some cases of Catholic orders outside the dioceses — who has ever been accused of child sexual abuse, regardless of whether the claim was found credible or the alleged abuse occurred in Illinois. The authors note that in many cases settlements were paid to victims, but in numerous other cases the alleged abuses were never substantiated in court, sometimes because a statute of limitations prevented lawsuits or criminal investigations from moving forward.

It seems that the Chicago Archdiocese was prepared for the release of this report.  Stories in local media included quotes from archdiocesan sources:

A statement Wednesday from the Chicago Archdiocese said it found 22 clerics named in the Anderson Report who are not included in the list the archdiocese has provided online. Of those, 20 already were reported to civil authorities, one came to the attention of the archdiocese when the priest was arrested and one involved an allegation of misconduct involving an adult, not a minor, the statement said.

That statement, which is available on the archdiocese's website, is pretty interesting in its own right.  In fact, I'm going to paste the entire statement here, because it's an interesting mixture of refuting the new report, defending itself and pointing to religious orders as being among the problems for the church when it comes to this controversy.

Here is the archdiocese's statement:

Statement of the Archdiocese of Chicago on the List of Accused Priests Released by Anderson & Associates 

Anderson & Associates released the names of clerics and laypeople they say have been accused of the sexual abuse of minors and have served in one or more of the six Illinois dioceses. The Archdiocese of Chicago reports all allegations we receive to the civil authorities. In addition to the priests listed on the archdiocese’s website, we have identified 22 priests of the Archdiocese of Chicago on Anderson & Associates’ list. 

The archdiocese has reported 20 of these clerics to the civil authorities; in one of the remaining two cases, the archdiocese first received notice when the cleric was arrested, and in the other it was an allegation of misconduct with an adult, not a minor. The attached chart details the circumstances surrounding these 22 allegations and disposition of those cases. 

Priests with substantiated allegations are listed on the archdiocese’s website. 
The Archdiocese of Chicago reports all allegations to the civil authorities, regardless of the date of the alleged abuse, whether the priest is a diocesan priest or religious order priest, and whether the priest is alive or dead. 

When an allegation against an archdiocesan cleric is made and before any investigation begins, the archdiocesan Office of Assistance Ministry promptly reaches out to the person making the allegation and offers therapy at archdiocesan expense from a licensed therapist of the person’s choosing. The archdiocese withdraws the accused priest from ministry pending investigation of the allegation and publicly announces this action. 

After the civil authorities have completed their investigation, the archdiocese conducts its investigation. 

The Independent Review Board, which considers the results of such investigations, was established in 1993. The majority of its members are laypeople. The Independent Review Board is the primary adviser to the archbishop on issues of risk to children and fitness for ministry.  

Anderson & Associates conflates people who have been accused, but may be innocent, with those who have substantiated allegations against them, referring to all as perpetrators. Their list includes:

• a priest whose allegations were investigated by the public authorities and were determined to be unfounded. The Archdiocese’s Independent Review Board also investigated and determined that the allegations were not substantiated. The priest was then returned to ministry/

• two priests whose cases are under investigation; their cases were reported to the authorities and they have been withdrawn from ministry, pending the outcome of the investigation.

• a seminarian (who was a transitional deacon) who was never ordained a priest.

• a priest who was accused of misconduct with an adult, not a minor.

Many of the names listed by Anderson & Associates are religious order priests. We provide the following information to help clarify their governance: 

Dioceses and religious orders are separately governed entities in the Roman Catholic Church. Bishops govern dioceses; religious superiors govern religious orders. The bishop selects, trains, and supervises diocesan priests. The religious orders select, train, and supervise their priests. The diocesan and religious order priests often do similar work, but each group is responsible to its own chain of authority (Canon 586). Disagreements between a bishop and a religious superior are referred to the Holy See for resolution. 

A bishop and a religious superior work cooperatively such as when a bishop grants faculties (a license) for a religious priest to work in a diocesan institution, such as a parish (Canon 678). Nevertheless, the religious order priest is still under the authority of his religious superior. Similarly, a bishop may revoke a religious order priest’s faculties (a license) to work in the diocese. In that eventuality, the supervision and management of the order priests also remains the responsibility of his religious superior. In brief, a diocesan priest is the responsibility of the diocese and a religious priest is the responsibility of the religious order. 

If the Archdiocese of Chicago receives an allegation that a religious priest has engaged in sexual misconduct with a minor, the archdiocese reports it to the civil authorities, publicly withdraws the priest’s faculties to work in the archdiocese, and refers the matter to his religious superior. 

Religious superiors have the same obligation and responsibility as bishops to adhere to the terms set forth in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

For more information about the archdiocese’s response to clergy sexual abuse, please visit: https://heal.archchicago.org/.

The statement is accompanied by a chart which provides some details on the 22 clergy who have been named by Anderson and Pearlman but do not appear on the archdiocese's list of clergy with substantiated allegations.  I'm not tech-savvy enough to know how to directly insert the entire chart into this post, but here is a snip of the first of its three pages, providing details on nine of the 22 clergy in question:

As you can see, the two primary justifications from the Archdiocese not previously releasing the names of the priests on this list are:

• The priest died before any allegations were received by the Archdiocese
• The Archdiocese had received allegations but was not able to substantiate them

Subsequent pages state that, not only was the Archdiocese unable to substantiate particular claims, but neither were government investigators.

It's noteworthy, perhaps even impressive, that the Archdiocese had this detailed and reasonably credible response prepared for the release of this report.  Inasmuch as the customary reaction by church authorities to new accusations is to be caught flat-footed, this rapid-response approach seems new - and it's been shown to be effective in the realm of politics.

So in this battle between Anderson and Pearlman on one side, and the Archdiocese on the other, who does one believe?  Perhaps I'm too cynical altogether, and I'm very sorry to say this, but the church authorities squandered, a long time ago, whatever benefit of the doubt they might have claimed at one time for telling the truth and the whole truth.

But on the other hand, whenever I see a lawyer, not excluding Anderson, speaking in public, I take whatever he is saying with a grain, or even a pound, of salt; my default assumption is that he's advocating on behalf of a client or a cause. 

The case in this case is most likely to be a suspension of statutes of limitations, to open up a window to allow victims to file lawsuits against the church for abuse that happened too long ago to be tried today.  That is the practical value of dredging up these cases from several decades ago; and presumably that is one of the main reasons that church authorities are reluctant to publicize allegations against already-deceased clergy.  I understand the church leaders' thinking here, but I think it's best if leaders publish comprehensive lists of substantiated accusations, whether or not the cleric is still alive.

Rage is a powerful political motivator these days, and my reading of the signs here is that, by releasing these lists, victims' advocates and their attorney allies are looking to stir up enough rage to motivate state legislators and governors to open a window for new lawsuits.  I am very sorry for the victims, but I hope any initiatives to suspend statutes of limitations fails.