When Pennsylvania grand jurors penned a devastating portrait of abuse across six Catholic dioceses, they delivered their findings with regrets.
In almost all the documented instances — involving more than 1,000 child victims over seven decades — offenses by clergy were too far removed to permit criminal charges against the sexual predators, many of whom are dead, the report shows.
The time lag and related legal hurdles are sparking national debate over how best to hold abusers, and their enablers, accountable. Some urge eliminating statutes of limitations on prosecuting crimes that were systematically concealed. Others contend the legal system already allows consequences for long-ago abuse and cover-ups.
In southwestern Pennsylvania, two longtime leaders in the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh may not escape prosecutorial scrutiny over their years-long knowledge of suspected or known misconduct, according to several attorneys who represent abuse survivors. It’s possible that prosecutors could consider child endangerment charges for Pittsburgh Bishop David A. Zubik and his predecessor, Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., legal observers told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
The clergymen also could face civil action alleging conspiracy or negligence, especially if the General Assembly relaxes state-imposed limits on litigation by victims themselves, the attorneys said. Bishop Zubik and Cardinal Wuerl have apologized but defended their actions, saying they worked to end the practice of not reporting allegations to law enforcement and instituted reforms ahead of many other dioceses.
Still, the report demonstrates how institutions conceal abuse, said Marci Hamilton, a lawyer and University of Pennsylvania faculty member.
The two men “presided over a system where they did not disclose to the public the names of the perpetrators that they knew about in their files,” said Ms. Hamilton, a Penn law, religion and politics professor and CEO at the Child USA nonprofit. She said they participated in a cover-up.
Ms. Hamilton highlighted the case of former Philadelphia Msgr. William J. Lynn, convicted in 2012 over a supervisory role in a child abuse scandal involving clergy. He wasn’t responsible for individual children, but “the fact that he was part of covering up [a list of accused abusers] made it possible for him to be criminally charged with endangerment,” she said.
An appeals court agreed in 2015 to grant Msgr. Lynn a new trial after his lawyer questioned evidence brought before jurors. That retrial has yet to happen.
Documents obtained by the recent grand jury show the Pittsburgh diocese knew for decades about abuse allegations, with complaints noting nearly 100 priests and brothers of religious orders. In one instance, then-Bishop Wuerl allowed the Rev. Ernest C. Paone to be reassigned in Nevada in 1991, even though the diocese first heard an abuse concern about Father Paone in the early 1960s, according to the report.
Then-Father Zubik, working under Bishop Wuerl, wrote to Father Paone about his assignment as a vicar in the Reno-Las Vegas diocese, the report shows. More abuse allegations materialized over the next decade or so; the Pittsburgh diocese alerted prosecutors to Father Paone in 2002, after a criminal statute of limitations had expired, grand jurors found.
In a response, the church said Bishop Wuerl had not been aware of prior allegations against Father Paone, who had moved out of the diocese many years earlier The diocese tried repeatedly to keep Father Paone from active ministry elsewhere after a new complaint emerged in 1994, the church reported. Father Paone died in 2012.
Bishop Zubik took the diocesan helm in 2007, after Cardinal Wuerl’s appointment in Washington, D.C. Asked about the idea of charging them, a spokesman for Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. deferred to the state Office of Attorney General Josh Shapiro. The AG’s office would not discuss that question, although Mr. Shapiro has said an investigation is ongoing.
Charles Porter, a prominent Pittsburgh defense attorney, said state prosecutors would have brought charges already if they could. In the case of Bishop Zubik and Cardinal Wuerl, he said, the government would have to show they were part of a sustained conspiracy.
“It’s a very difficult proposition,” Mr. Porter said. “You would have to show there was a conspiracy and that [the] conspiracy was essentially never-ending. I think that’s a difficult proposition to establish as a matter of law and fact.”
Civil lawsuits offer another option for families who feel wronged by the church, said Andrew Shubin, a State College-based attorney.
“The reality is that the Catholic church has a history of doing absolutely nothing proactively. They didn’t go to the police except on rare occasions. And even when they did, what they reported to the police did not appear to be comprehensive,” Mr. Shubin said.
Allowing victims an extra opportunity to step forward and file civil litigation is “the only way to hold institutions like the church accountable,” said Mr. Shubin, who represents survivors of child sexual abuse.
Pending state legislation could open that window. Under current law, a survivor in Pennsylvania can be no more than 30 years old before suing an attacker. The same time limit applies to certain parties who failed to report the abuse or endangered the victim, Mr. Shubin said.
Clergy are among those required to tell public authorities about known or suspected child abuse. But the mandate wasn’t as explicit before amendments made in 2012 to a state law, said Jonathan Kurland, an attorney adviser with AEquitas, a legal advisory group in Washington, D.C.
Depending on how legislation takes shape, the General Assembly could grant survivors a two-year window to bring civil litigation against attackers and their enablers, no matter when the abuse happened. Lawmakers also are weighing whether to scrub the statute of limitations on criminal charges, which now must be filed by the time a victim is 50 years old.
Grand jurors advocated both changes in their report, released Aug. 14. In an interview last week, Bishop Zubik said the Pittsburgh diocese supports the recommendations — provided the civil window is open to abuse claimants across society, not only those specific to the church.
Asked about his own legal exposure, he signaled an absence of guilt. Both Bishop Zubik and Cardinal Wuerl “consistently strengthened diocesan child protection policies that removed offending priests from ministry,” Washington archdiocese spokeswoman Chieko Noguchi said in a statement Saturday. The policies addressed survivor needs and led to reporting allegations to law enforcement, she said.
Bishop Zubik said the diocese began reporting every credible abuse allegation to local prosecutors in 2002, then started reporting every allegation — regardless of credibility — under his watch in 2007. Pressed on why the practice didn’t start sooner, he said he could speak with authority only to his tenure as bishop.
“Obviously, I’m not in denial about the findings of the grand jury. I don’t know how much more forthright I can be in terms of addressing the issues there. I’m out there talking with you” and other media, he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
He knows of no deliberate attempts to hide abuse information under his watch or Cardinal Wuerl’s, he said. Bishop Zubik has defended the cardinal as an early adopter of policies and practices to prevent, disclose and stop abuse, including the addition of an assistance coordinator to help victims.
“We’ve continued to build on ways in which we want to help victims who come forward,” he said.
Adam Smeltz: 412-263-2625, asmeltz@post-gazette.com, @asmeltz.
First Published: August 26, 2018, 4:00 a.m.
