Pope Paul kept priest sex abuse under cover.
Records: Vatican knew of scandal coverup in 1973
by Jack Sullivan
Thursday, May 16, 2002
Previously sealed records in the case of defrocked pedophile priest James A. Porter show Catholic church officials - including Pope Paul VI, Humberto Cardinal Medeiros and top aides to Richard Cardinal Cushing - knew of and took part in the coverup of cleric sexual abuse as far back as 1964.
It is believed to be the first time records show Vatican officials were aware as long as 30 years ago that priests were molesting children and bishops were shuffling the pedophiles around the country and covering up their acts. It also is the first time involvement by the Boston archdiocese under Cushing has been documented.
``It's not shocking to me in the slightest,'' said the Rev. Thomas Doyle, who worked at the Vatican on priest sexual misconduct issues 20 years ago. ``There was even more coverup in days past than there has been in the past 15 to 17 years . . . What we're seeing now with Bernard (Cardinal) Law, (New York's Edward Cardinal) Egan and others is not isolated and not uncommon. It is something that has been going on for decades.''
The file, obtained by the Herald through a court order, also reveals that diocesan officials are required by canon law to maintain ``secret archives'' that have over the years become a hidden repository for sexual abuse allegations.
The documents contain hundreds of pages of Porter's personnel file, including details of his assignments and attempted treatments for his sexual assaults on young boys. The entire, previously secret file, along with a 17-page letter from Porter to Pope Paul VI, was forwarded to the Vatican when Porter petitioned for laicization in 1973 after being caught in Minnesota with a young boy.
In the letter addressed to ``Most Holy Father,'' Porter wrote, ``It became known and reported to (Fall River) Bishop (James) Connolly that I had become homosexually involved with some of the youth of the parish. Bishop Connolly decided to send me home to my family for a short while until the scandal of this affair died down . . . A short time later Bishop Connolly gave me another chance and assigned me to Sacred Heart Parish in Fall River. I can't recollect much about my stay there except that after a short time I again fell into the same situation that plagued me in North Attleboro.''
Porter also indicates he knows after he is laicized, he would no longer be protected by church officials ``should I fall again.''
The records also include scores of letters and memos written by Connolly, many based on conversations with Medeiros, then a monsignor and the Fall River Diocese's chancellor.
In a memo dated March 21, 1964, Connolly wrote about a meeting he had with Medeiros where Medeiros said there were ``30 or 40 (boys) involved'' in the molestation allegations against Porter and there was ``much concern among parents.'' Medeiros even told Connolly the nickname students at Bishop Feehan High School had given Porter.
``At Feehan they call him the horn,'' Connolly wrote. Medeiros told Connolly students would ask one another, `` `Has the horn tackled you yet?' ''
In 1966, when Porter was ``on retreat'' at his parents' home in Revere following his latest sexual assault, two Revere police officers approached James D. Bono, then associate pastor of Immaculate Conception Church, charging that Porter had molested the son of another officer.
Bono, in a 1993 affidavit, said he began reporting the information to higher-ups and was ``shocked'' at the response he received.
``I immediately called the Chancery of the Archdiocese of Boston to notify them Porter had admitted molesting a young boy,'' Bono stated. ``Officials at the Archdiocese directed me to speak with officials at the Diocese of Fall River.
``I then called Humberto S. Medeiros, who at the time was Chancellor,'' Bono testified. ``When I informed Chancellor Medeiros that Porter had admitted to me Porter had molested a young boy, Chancellor Medeiros responded, `Yes, we know.' ''
In 1973, the same year Vatican officials received Porter's file that graphically detailed Medeiros' complicity in covering up Porter's case, Pope Paul VI elevated Medeiros to cardinal.
In another deposition, Monsignor Reginald M. Barrette, who succeeded Medeiros as Fall River chancellor, confirmed the Porter records were part of a ``secret archive'' Connolly kept in his bedroom.
``The bishop kept all correspondence that had to do personally with priests he did not want to be known,'' Barrette testified in the deposition.
The records show Porter was sent to the Servants of Paraclete in New Mexico for treatment of his pedophilia at least twice, including the first time in 1967 on the advice and recommendation of the Rev. Paul R. Shanley, now being held on three counts of child rape.
Law, in his public apologies, has said part of the problem in handling priests such as Shanley and convicted pedophile John J. Geoghan was the lack of knowledge about abuse and its effects on victims. But Doyle, who coauthored a report for American bishops on predatory priests in 1985 that was never formally presented, said the Paracletes were well-known even in the 1960s for their approach to dealing with sex offenders.
In the Porter personnel file that was forwarded to the Vatican, the Rev. Fred Bennett, a clinical psychologist with the Paracletes, clearly stated the harm sexual abuse by a priest could cause.
``People often suffer psychological difficulties later in life whose origins seem to be found in sexual approaches made to them during their childhood by adults of the same sex,'' he wrote in 1970. ``I have reason to believe that the trauma of such experiences may be further intensified when the adult involved is a priest.''
In 1985, after a notorious case of a pedophile priest in Louisiana became public, American bishops made their first acknowledgement of the problem, promising a unified policy that has still not been articulated. In 1993, Pope John Paul II made his first public statement on cleric sexual misconduct and last month, during the extraordinary summit of American cardinals, the pontiff declared child sexual abuse a crime and a sin.
``(The documents) are illustrating the fact it didn't start in 1985,'' said Doyle. ``The bishops first said in 1985, `This is the first we're hearing about this.' That's hogwash. They knew.''
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