US Legal Updates

My own view continues to be that proceedings under secular law, especially in the US, will be the most effective short-term factor to curb an ingrained worldwide culture of Catholic sex abuse. Christine Niles mentioned the case of William Jeffrey Paulish of the Diocese of Scranton, PA in yesterday's Church Militant Headlines YouTube broadcast, but there was no equivalent print story on the site. However, it seems to have been well covered in local Pennsylvania news:

Paulish, 61, was transferred from one unsuspecting parish to another 11 times and granted two leaves of absences before he landed at St. Mary’s Church, now known as the Prince of Peace Parish, in Old Forge in October 2006, Williams said. He immediately began abusing Williams’ client.

“While Paulish, we have alleged, is the direct abuser of our client ... the diocese was responsible for having Paulish where he was in direct proximity to children,” Williams said. “It was clearly known by the diocese he was an abuser.”

The lawsuit, filed in Lackawanna County Court, names as defendants the diocese, Paulish, current bishop the Most. Rev. Joseph C. Bambera and retired bishops James C. Timlin and Joseph F. Martino.

This is yet another example of how we need a much better and more searchable index to chains of paternity. Engel in The Rite of Sodomy discusses an earlier problem in the Diocese of Scranton in which Bp Timlin protected a flagrant predator, Fr Carlos Urrutigoity, an SSPX priest who had been transferred repeatedly among seminaries for known abusive conduct with teen boys.

In February 11, 1999, Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X sent a formal communication to Bishop Timlin informing him that Father Carlos Urrutigoity had been accused of molesting a seminarian under his spiritual care at the SSPX’s St.Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Winona, Minn.

Bishop Fellay also indicated that in 1987, prior to Urrutigoity’s acceptance by the Winona seminary, Fr. Andres Morello, Rector of Our Lady Co- Redemptrix Seminary in La Reja, Argentina had accused the priest of homosexual practices.

According to Fr. Morello, he had intended to expel Urrutigoity from the La Reja seminary because of his significant pride, his habit of forming “particular friendships,” his formation of a faction of seminarians acting under his influence and grave denunciations regarding moral matters. (p 963)

Despite these warnings, Urrutigoity was able to leave Winona and find a place at St Gregory’s Academy in the Diocese of Scranton. Timlin discounted the allegations against Urrutigoity, but he resumed his abusive activity at the new academy, where abuse was in fact widespread.

By early 2002, Bishop Timlin was aware that Fathers Urrutigoity and Ensey were accused of sexual molestation. The District Attorney’s office of Lackawanna County had launched a criminal investigation into the accusations of sexual misconduct by the two SSJ priests, but was forced to abandon the case because of the statue of limitations. (pp 968-69)

Bishop James Timlin retired from the Scranton Diocese on July 25, 2003, with civil litigation in the case still pending. In September of this year, one of his successors,

Bishop Joseph Bambera of the diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania announced he is forbidding Bp. Emeritus James Timlin "from representing the Diocese of Scranton at all public events, liturgical or otherwise."

Bambera maintains he is acting in response to a recommendation by the diocesan independent review board, the membership of which is confidential and "put in place to advise a bishop on the assessment of allegations of abuse."

However, Bambera was at the center of a controversy earlier in 2018, in which Cardinal Roger Mahony, under equivalent restriction in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for the same offenses, nevertheless was appointed by Pope Francis to be his special envoy to the Catholic Diocese of Scranton’s 150th anniversary Mass.

“We are most grateful to our Holy Father for appointing Cardinal Mahony to be his personal envoy for this special celebration, and we are honored that the Cardinal has so graciously accepted this invitation,” Scranton Bishop Joseph C. Bambera said in this press release. “This expression of the Pope’s pastoral support is another blessing as we mark the founding of our Diocese, and we look forward to welcoming His Eminence Cardinal Mahony to celebrate this historic milestone with us.”

Local Catholics then promised to protest the event and expressed to media outlet Church Militant their frustration that the Holy See was sending the disgraced cardinal as its representative.

“Bishop Bambera was informed late last week that his Eminence, Roger Cardinal Mahony, is unable to attend the Mass commemorating the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Diocese of Scranton Mass on March 4, 2018,” Bill Genello, the diocese’s executive director of communications, told LifeSiteNews on Monday.

Mahony himself is an interesting case which, barring more important news, I'll take up tomorrow.

Meanwhile,

Police have raided the chancery of the Galveston-Houston archdiocese for evidence about a priest charged with sexually abusing minors.

Several law enforcement agencies showed up at the archdiocese's offices in downtown Houston around 10 a.m. Wednesday morning to comb through the "secret archives" — the confidential documents that every diocese keeps about its personnel.

Authorities are looking for documents related to Fr. Manuel La Rosa-Lopez, a priest of the archdiocese who was arrested in September on charges of sexually abusing minors. Father La Rosa-Lopez was accused of sexually abusing two teenagers — one boy and one girl — between 1998 and 2001.