Bishop Malone and Buffalo diocese sued by NY AG over clergy abuse

By Matt Hadro

November 23, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

Bishop Richard J. Malone formerly of Buffalo, N.Y. (File Photo/CNA).

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 23, 2020 / 11:40 am (CNA).- The State of New York is suing the Diocese of Buffalo and its former bishops for failing to protect children for clergy sex abuse.

New York’s Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit on Monday in the state’s supreme court against the diocese. The state also named Bishop Emeritus Richard Malone, retired auxiliary Bishop Edward Grosz, and Buffalo’s apostolic administrator, Bishop Edward Scharfenberger of Albany, in the lawsuit.


The state alleges that the diocese, Malone, and Grosz failed to properly investigate claims of clergy sex abuse. The state also claims diocesan leadership did not “refer unassignable priests to the Vatican,” monitor priests with credible accusations, or take necessary action against diocesan priests credibly accused of child sex abuse. Under state laws governing non-profits, the diocese did not act in “good faith” by failing to follow its own procedures on clergy sex abuse.

The state is seeking a court order for the diocese to comply with its own policies and procedures on clergy sex abuse, and for the appointment of an auditor to investigate the diocese’s compliance. In addition, the state is seeking restitution from Malone and Grosz, and a ban on their serving “a secular fiduciary role in a nonprofit or charitable organization” in the state.

A spokesman for the Diocese of Buffalo told CNA that the diocese “will be reviewing this lawsuit just announced by the New York Attorney General and weighing the Diocese’s response.”

“In the meantime,” the diocese said, “we wish to reiterate that there is zero tolerance for sexual abuse of a minor or of sexual harassment of an adult in the Diocese of Buffalo by any member of the clergy, employee or volunteer.”

“The Diocese has put in place rigorous policies and protocols governing required behavior as well as a code of conduct which all clergy are expected to abide by. Moreover, the Diocese has committed to full cooperation with all civil authorities in both the reporting and investigation of alleged crimes and complaints.”

In 2018, then-Attorney General Barbara Underwood launched an investigation into the diocese over allegations of clergy sex abuse and the failure to investigate by diocesan leaders.

The office, now under James, said Monday that the two-year investigation had discovered that although “the diocese’s leadership found sexual abuse complaints to be credible, they sheltered the accused priests from public disclosure by deeming them as ‘unassignable,’ and permitted them to retire or go on purported medical leave, rather than face referral to the Vatican for possible removal from the priesthood.”

The diocese flouted the requirements of the U.S. bishops’ conference in responding to allegations of clergy sex abuse, the state claimed in its lawsuit.

Despite the USCCB implementing standards for responding to clergy sex abuse for dioceses across the country through the 2002 Dallas Charter and Complimentary Norms, the diocese “ignored” the charter “[f]or nearly two decades,” the state said.

The diocese did not conduct proper investigations of clergy sex abuse, as directed by the USCCB, and failed to refer more than two dozen priests with substantiated accusations of abuse to the Vatican.

When the diocese’s “mishandling of specific cases was exposed,” the state claims in the suit, it “misled its beneficiaries about its response to sexual abuse allegations and the measures that its leaders had taken to protect the public.”

The Buffalo diocese has been embroiled in scandal since November, 2018, when Bishop Emeritus Richard Malone’s former assistant leaked records reportedly showing that the diocese worked with lawyers to conceal credible abuse allegations from the public.

While the diocese had reported the names of some priests credibly accused of abuse, it had not reported others, the records appeared to show. Bishop Malone denied claims that he had covered up abuse.

Six months later, Bishop Malone apologized for his handling of the case of Fr. Art Smith, a diocesan priest who faced repeated accusations of abuse and misconduct with minors.

Bishop Malone had written to the Vatican in 2015, in a letter later reported in the press, asking that Fr. Smith be kept in active ministry. He admitted in the same letter that Smith had groomed a young boy, had been accused of inappropriate touching, and refused to stay in a treatment center. Smith was eventually suspended in 2018 after the diocese received a new substantiated allegation of sexual abuse of a minor.

In August of 2019, the diocese was named in a RICO lawsuit alleging that its handling of clerical sex abuse was akin to that of an organized crime syndicate.

In September, 2019, Bishop Malone’s former secretary leaked audio of conversations where Malone appeared to acknowledge the legitimacy of sexual harassment accusations made against a diocesan priest months before the priest was removed from active ministry.

In Oct., 2019, a Vatican-ordered apostolic visitation of the diocese commenced, and in December, Pope Francis accepted Bishop Malone’s resignation.

The Buffalo diocese filed for bankruptcy in February of this year, after it was named in hundreds of clergy sex abuse lawsuits filed in New York courts.

If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.

Related Articles

No Picture
News Briefs

Religious liberty report highlights China’s repression of Muslims, Christians

April 29, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

Washington D.C., Apr 29, 2019 / 05:02 pm (CNA).- The majority of the world’s worst violators of religious freedom are found in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, according to a report from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom released Monday. The report’s introduction focused on abuses against China’s Uyghur Muslims.

USCIRF released April 29 its 20th annual report documenting the world’s worst violators of religious freedom. With the exception of Cuba— the only majority Chirstian country listed, other than Russia— all the countries identified as the worst offenders are located in the eastern hemisphere.

“Our goal is not only to call out the offenders, but to provide concrete actions for the U.S. government to take in working with these countries to get off our lists,” USCIRF Chair Tenzin Dorjee said in a release accompanying the report.

Each year the group identifies “countries of particular concern” using the criteria of “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations” of religious freedom.

Non-state actors are given the designation “entities of particular concern” using similar criteria.

Some of these violations include torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; prolonged detention without charges; causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction or clandestine detention of those persons; or other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of persons, the report says.

Among the 16 countries designated as CPCs for 2019 are ten flagged by the state department in November 2018: Myanmar, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. The list also includes six other countries: Central African Republic, Nigeria, Russia, Syria, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

In addition the group identified 12 countries that meet either one or two of the three criteria for a CPC, placing them on the “Tier 2” list. These include Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, and Turkey.

Among the non-state entities of concern this year, USCIRF identified the Islamic State, the Taliban in Afghanistan, al-Shabaab in Somalia, and, making their first appearance on the list this year, the Houthis in Yemen and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist militant group in Syria.

The Houthis are a Shiite Muslim tribe that took control of a key territory and chased the president from the capital city in 2015, and Saudi Arabia and some Arab allies intervened on behalf of the opposing faction. Iran continues to back the Houthis, who are battling the Saudi-led coalition for control of the country, especially the strategically important port city of Hodeidah.

The resulting three-year long Yemeni civil war has left between 13,500 and 80,000 people dead and millions displaced, with an estimated 14 million or so people facing pre-famine conditions.

The report particularly highlights the plight of the Uyghur Muslim minority in China. To date, between 800,000 to 2 million Uighurs— or about 10% of their population— have been detained and sent to “re-education camps” to be subjected to abuse and political indoctrination.

The report calls on the US government to sanction those in the Chinese government responsible for the detention of the Uyghurs. It also recommends the appointment of a special advisor to the president on international religious freedom.

The commission noted that while the Vatican reached a provisional agreement with China on the appointment of bishops in September, “nevertheless, repression of the underground Catholic Church increased during the latter half of the year.”

Among the report’s inclusion of commissioners’ “individual views” were those of Johnnie Moore, who called the Vatican-China deal “one of the most alarming incidents as it relates to religious freedom in the entire year.”

“Within days of the Vatican negotiating its deal, the Chinese used it as cover to embark upon the closure of several of the nation’s largest and most prominent unregistered church communities,” Moore wrote.

He believes the Vatican “now bears a significant moral and legal responsibility to help solve the problem which it helped created—albeit inadvertently—by providing China license to viciously crack down on Christian communities (as cited in this report), and by providing the Chinese government further cover to continue its incomprehensible, inexcusable and inhumane abuses of Muslim citizens in the western part of the country.”

“While I am entirely for direct engagement on these issues, including with the most severe violators in the world, that engagement must not result in these types of unintended consequences, as has been the case in China. The Vatican made a terrible mistake, which it must take seriously. This debacle must be dealt with urgently and seriously.”

USCIRF is a bipartisan commission that advises the President, Congress, and the Secretary of State on international religious freedom issues.

[…]

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*