The Diocese Of Palm Beach

Intrigued by the reference in yesterday's post to the removal of Bp Anthony O'Connell from the Diocese of Palm Beach for abusing seminarians, I did some more searching in The Rite of Sodomy. It seems to me that we urgently need a more easily searchable guide to who promoted whom and who went where. Just for starters, although most recent attention has centered on McCarrick, his style of abuse and harassment, as was the case with Anthony O'Connell, was common throughout the US and probably much of the world, and it had been going on for decades.

The Diocese of Palm Beach itself was a center for this sort of activity, as Engle points out:

In 1990, when Bishop Thomas Daily, the first Bishop of the Diocese of Palm Beach, Fla. went to the Diocese of Brooklyn, the Vatican chose Joseph Keith Symons as his successor.

Born on October 14, 1932 in Champion, Mich., Symons was a graduate of St.Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore. He was ordained a priest of St. Augustine, Fla. on May 18, 1958. Later records would show that he began preying on young boys shortly after his ordination. (p 777)

Since the turn of the 20th century, Palm Beach has been a focus of an "anything goes" lifestyle among the wealthy, which gradually filtered down as prosperity and tourism increased. Symons, in the meantime, rose in the hierarchy of the Diocese of St Petersburg, FL, which became a dumping ground for pederast priests transferred from other dioceses. Symons became known as a team player who would cooperate in these transfers, even though the chancery was often notified in writing of the priests' problems.

His final ecclesiastical promotion came in July 31, 1990, when he was made Bishop of Palm Beach at the age of 58.

During Symons’ eight years as Ordinary of Palm Beach, the diocese gained a reputation as being both “gay friendly” and a dumping ground for criminal pederast priests from other dioceses on the East coast.

According to John Holland, staff writer for the Sun Sentinel, bishops from the Dioceses of New York, Brooklyn, Camden, Orlando, Charlotte and Rockville Centre, N.Y. transferred errant priests guilty of sexual misconduct to the Diocese of Palm Beach.

Bishop John R. McGann of Rockville Centre sent four accused clerical sex molesters to Palm Beach including Father Peter Duvelsdorf who arrived in 1991 after being accused of molesting two brothers on Long Island. Duvelsdorf continued to serve as a priest in Palm Beach until he was arrested for public masturbation in a St.Lucie County park.49 Duvelsdorf has since retired. (p 778)

Symons followed a now-familiar pattern of promoting pro-homosexual groups and public events in his diocese, in addition to covertly allowing the transfer of priests in who had known records of abuse. But this came to an end soon enough:

On June 2, 1998, Bishop Robert Lynch of the Diocese of St.Petersburg took the podium at a press conference staged at the Cathedral of St. Ignatius Loyola in Palm Beach to announce the resignation of his colleague, Bishop Joseph Symons. The resignation followed the revelation that Symons had molested at least five teenage boys during the early years of his priesthood. Pope John Paul II accepted Symons’ resignation and assigned Lynch the role of Apostolic Administrator of Palm Beach until a successor to Symons was selected. (pp 780-81)

But the press, local and national, minimized the problem and was complicit in a coverup.

Bishop Lynch got the credit for the quick defusing of the Symons scandal. The local media praised his candor and honesty. The Tampa Tribune called his handling of the case “impressive” and the Miami Herald hailed the Church’s new openness as “refreshing.” According to Silk, Lynch told reporters that it had taken five weeks from his receiving the complaint to securing Pope John Paul II’s acceptance of Symons’ resignation.

. . . Twila Decker of the St.Petersburg Times reported on July 30, 1998 that Symons’ initial accuser had actually brought the molestation to the attention of Church authorities three years earlier than previously supposed. . . . The initial victim was paid off as were the later victims that came forward and the court records were sealed.

. . . When the Decker story broke, Bishop Lynch immediately announced that he was appointing a retired judge to look into how the 1995 complaint was handled in order to “restore some credibility to the diocese” (and presumably himself). (p 782)

Lynch himself was the subject of a gay sexual harassment scandal, as well as allegation of financial impropriety with another man, in 2002, but held on to his seat due to the bigger scandal across the state in Palm Beach.

in November 1998, Bishop Anthony O’Connell was informed by Archbishop Agostino Cacciavillan, the Apostolic Pro-Nuncio in Washington, D.C., that he was to relieve Bishop Robert Lynch, the Apostolic Administrator of Palm Beach who had taken over the diocese when Bishop Symons resigned in June.

O’Connell’s installation as Bishop of Palm Beach took place on January 14, 1999. Catholics of Palm Beach breathed a little easier having been assured by the new bishop that he would bring a higher moral order to the scandal ridden diocese. The illusion lasted three years, two months, and seven days. (p 786)

But a familiar pattern reasserted itself:

On March 8, 2002, the popular bishop with the Irish lilting voice appeared at a news conference flanked by two dozen priests and staff. He announced his resignation and confessed that he had molested a teenager (Dixon) at St.Thomas Aquinas Seminary 25 years ago, but he only “touched” him. . . . When asked if there might be similar accusations from other persons, O’Connell said one might surface “of a somewhat similar situation in a somewhat similar time frame.” (p 787)

What then followed was the usual death watch, with the pontiff dithering over whether to accept a resignation while new allegations of sexual misconduct and stories of secret payoffs continued to emerge. The odd thing is how we're beginning to see that none of these stories is unique, and they involve misconduct by bishops, not marginal pedophile priests, but so far, there's been no serious effort by either bishops or responsible authorities in Rome to address the actual problem.