Cardinal Cupich And The Gonzaga Twenty

There's been a puzzling story over the past week about a number of Jesuit priests, apparently about 20 to 24, who had been credibly accused of sexual impropriety and had theoretically been confined to Cardinal Bea House, a Jesuit-owned residence on the Gonzaga University campus in Spokane, WA. According to the Register,

The sexual-abuse accusations against the priests living on Gonzaga’s campus were not made known publicly by the university, the Jesuit province or the diocese. Most of the accused priests were reported to be living at the Gonzaga residence in retirement or due to declining health.

The house is a residence owned by the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus and not overseen by the university. The credibly accused priests living there were reportedly subject to “safety plans” that forbade them from engaging with students.

According to the media reports, at least some credibly accused priests had regular unsupervised access to the university campus and unsupervised visits with students and were permitted to lead prayer services in other settings, including on Native-American reservations.

The Diocese of Spokane went into more detail in a December 21 press release:

According to files given to the Diocese of Spokane by the Oregon Province of Jesuits, these credibly accused priests were living on campus with safety plans requiring such things as chaperones for any trips out of Cardinal Bea House and restricting their public ministry. The reporting by Reveal and the Center for Investigative Reporting indicates that these credibly accused Jesuits were free to come and go on campus. This was an unacceptable situation.

In June of 2011 the Jesuit Provincial, Father Patrick Lee, informed then-Bishop Blase Cupich that seven priests with safety plans in place were living at Bea House.

Bishop Thomas Daly—who was installed in 2015—was not informed by the Jesuits or Gonzaga University that these men were living at Cardinal Bea House.

It's likely that some of the Jesuits in question were aged and infirm, unlikely to go far or do mischief. But others were in a different position. According to Complicit Clergy,

Rev. James Poole had at least 20 victims during his career with the Catholic Church. Court documents show one victim was only six years old. Another, who was impregnated by him at the age of 16, was forced to get an abortion before Poole blamed her father (who later went to prison).

. . . . Rev. Frank Case, the chaplain for the school’s famous basketball team, apparently “recommended a pedophile priest for a job at a Tacoma hospital three decades ago.”

That priest? James Poole. Case said he was unaware of Poole’s litany of abuses, but after working at that hospital for over a decade, he “retired” on Gonzaga’s campus in 2003. (Poole died this past March.)

Case resigned in the wake of the revelations, along with another Gonzaga administrator, Rev. Pat Lee. Lee informed then-Bp Cupich of the accused priests' presence at Cardinal Bea House in 2011. According to the Diocese of Spokane,

Bishop Thomas Daly—who was installed in 2015—was not informed by the Jesuits or Gonzaga University that these men were living at Cardinal Bea House. After May 2015 any Jesuits assigned to the Diocese of Spokane or problems with Jesuits living in the Diocese of Spokane were discussed in the regular communications between the current Jesuit provincial, Father Scott Santarosa, and Bishop Daly. None of the Jesuits on safety plans were ever a topic of discussion."

Other sources report that the Jesuits were "migrated" away from Bea House to a facility in California in 2016, while the diocese itself had been updating its policies "for religious order priests and extern priests. The changes to the policy were approved by Bishop Daly in November 2018." Among other things, they must present letters of suitability from their superiors and ordinaries, request faculties from the diocese, and get the approval of Bp Daly.

This suggests that Daly had been well aware of the issues before they became public, and at least he was on top of them when the news broke. In fact, I would estimate that this was an excellent set of crisis management responses by the diocese -- once the issue became public, it had been fully addressed, and the resignations of complicit parties were coordinated with the release.

I would guess, though, that the public information is just the tip of an iceberg, and more could come out, likely to Cupich's discredit, at any time. The tone of the diocese's release suggests Cupich didn't leave warm and fuzzy feelings behind.