The cardinal of Los Angeles, the largest Roman Catholic archdiocese in the United States, covered up the case of a confessed paedophile priest for 16 years, local press reported this week.
The priest, Michael Stephen Baker, confessed his paedophilia to Cardinal Roger Mahony in 1986, and was then transferred to another parish.
He is presumed to have continued his pattern of sexual abuse of minors during more than a decade, according to the Los Angeles Times, citing documents and interviews with anonymous sources.
Some time later, Mahony made a secret payment of $1,3-million to two men who said they had been raped by the priest between 1984 and 1999, said the daily, adding that the cardinal had prepared a quiet retirement for Baker at the end of 2000.
”No one at the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, including Cardinal Mahony … reported Baker’s sexual abuse of children to the authorities, to the parents of the abused children or to any other foreseeable victims. Nor did they attempt to find out all the children that he had molested,” said lawyer Lynne Cadigan in a letter that prompted the $1,3-million payout.
Baker (54) is alleged to have raped at least nine minors since 1976, according to victims, family members and their lawyers. Pressed by public demands to publish the names of a group of priests fired by the archdiocese after accusations over past sexual abuse, Mahony recently informed police of the Baker case along with those involving other priests.
In a March letter to more than 1 200 of his archdiocese, Mahony said he had erred in the case.
”As your archbishop, I assume full responsibility for allowing Baker to remain in any type of ministry during the 1990s. I offer my sincere, personal apologies for my failure to take firm and decisive action much earlier,” he wrote.
The US branch of the Roman Catholic Church has been shaken in recent months by an unfolding scandal of paedophilia among its priests that it had concealed from the public for decades.
Meanwhile, a priest accused of sexual misconduct was found hanged at a psychiatric hospital, the second apparent suicide of a clergyman since the sex abuse scandal engulfed the Roman Catholic Church.
The priest, identified by church officials as the Reverend Alfred J. Bietighofer, was sent to the hospital to undergo psychiatric evaluation after the allegations surfaced and he resigned from his parish in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Bietighofer (64) was found hanging in his room at St. Luke Institute in suburban Washington, according to local police. The Reverend Stephen Rossetti, a psychologist who directs the centre, said a nurse found the body.
”I am profoundly saddened by the tragic death of Father Alfred Bietighofer,” Bridgeport Bishop William Lori said in a statement on Thursday. ”To parishioners and to all those whom Father Bietighofer assisted during the course of his priestly ministry, I extend my sincere sympathy and prayers.” Last month, two men told Bridgeport Diocese officials that Bietighofer abused them when they were boys in the late 1970s and early 1980s, church officials said. Bietighofer, who was assistant pastor of St. Andrew Parish in Bridgeport, resigned April 29.
”The allegations from the two gentlemen were credible enough to warrant immediate action, in line with our policy,” Lori said at the time the priest resigned.
Father Robert J. Crofut, pastor of St. Andrew Church, declined comment on Thursday night.
The Connecticut Post reported that the men accused Bietighofer of fondling them when they were children when he was assigned to Blessed Sacrament Church in Bridgeport.
Bietighofer told the newspaper he didn’t know anything about the allegations. Church officials said they weren’t aware of the allegations until seeing the newspaper’s story.
Church officials did not report the allegations against Bietighofer to authorities, but said they would cooperate if asked for information. At the time, Connecticut law required victims to report abuse by age 20.
Bietighofer had served in the Bridgeport diocese since he was ordained in 1965, except for two yearlong stints in Peru in the 1970s and 1980s.
St. Luke Institute treats priests and nuns for a variety of mental health problems, including alcoholism, depression and paedophilia. About a quarter of the institute’s 65 beds are used by clergy undergoing treatment for sexual abuse problems. Its residential programs are open to the religious; outpatient programs
are open to anyone. It has become one of the best-known treatment centres and is used heavily by US and some international dioceses.
Rossetti said every incoming patient is screened to determine if he is a suicide risk. Those deemed at risk are placed under ”steady surveillance,” he said.
More than 100 priests have been dismissed or resigned across the country since the sex abuse scandal erupted in Boston early this year.
Last month, a priest in Ohio shot himself to death after being accused of molesting a girl. On Monday, a priest was shot and seriously wounded outside his Baltimore home by a man who accused him of abuse nine years ago. ? Sapa-AP, Sapa-AFP