When the Hawaii state legislature passed a law in 2012 that removed for two years the statute of limitations in cases of sexual abuse of a minor, no one knew exactly what to expect. Would there be a flood of lawsuits? A barrage of accusations?
The law did not expressly target the Catholic Church, but lawmakers certainly had the Catholic Church in mind. The church continues to reel from a crisis that erupted a dozen years ago where hundreds of priests nation-wide were found to be guilty of the sexual exploitation of children and teens.
Most of the abuse happened decades ago and the passage of time had made many of the cases immune to civil action in many states. For these, the statute of limitations had passed and the crimes were simply too old to be litigated and punished.
Hence, the Hawaii law. For a two-year window, any accusation, no matter how old, could be brought to court for redress.
The window closed on April 24.
What happened during those two years? All things considered, it could have been worse.
The diocese has not yet seen all the lawsuits filed against it, but according to diocesan attorney Bruce Graham, at last count there are some 61 alleged victims seeking compensation. There are fewer than 61 suits because some of them list more than one plaintiff.
The oldest incident of abuse goes back 65 years. Seventeen of the claims are dated in the 1950s, about 16 in the 1960s, about 13 in the 1970s and the rest in the 1980s. The latest alleged incident alleging abuse by clergy took place 27 years ago, in 1987.
It can be argued that two flagrant features of the clergy abuse crisis on the Mainland — the covering up of cases and the moving around of repeat offenders — were not issues in Hawaii.
All the cases are new to the diocese, or were reported years after the alleged abuse had ended.
About 16 of the Hawaii cases involved one victim, one perpetrator and one location.
About seven of the accused face accusations from more than one person. But none of the lawsuits assert that they were shuffled to different locations in Hawaii to cover up their actions.
Most of the alleged abuse took place at churches or schools. One private Catholic school had a disproportionate number of cases.
The alleged abusers are all male. As far as one can tell there were 15 priests, eight religious brothers, two lay teachers and one seminarian. Some of the names are unfamiliar to present diocesan officials. One plaintiff accuses an “unknown priest.”
All but 10 of the accused are dead. Also dead are all the diocesan bishops during the period of the alleged abuse.
The Diocese of Honolulu has been named as a defendant in all these lawsuits by the contention that its officials “knew or should have known” about the alleged abuse, even though the abuse is only being reported now and much of it fell outside the purview of the diocese anyway. Most of the lawsuits have multiple defendants.
It appears that all except three of the alleged victims are male.
Only three of Hawaii’s more than 40 Catholic schools are being sued, one of them for a single alleged incident by a lay teacher.
Nobody accused remains in active ministry. Those who are still alive are retired, have left ministry or have moved on to other careers.
Clergy sex abuse in Hawaii is not a current problem. Despite aggressive canvassing on the part of victim attorneys and activist groups, the latest allegations against clergy concern events more than 25 years ago.
A DIFFICULT POSITION
The lawsuits put the diocese in an awkward and difficult position, primarily because the diocese’s first concern must be the victims, all the victims. There can be no compromise here. The U.S. bishops were very clear about this in their “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” promulgated in 2006 and updated in 2011.
“Dioceses are to reach out to victims/survivors and their families and demonstrate a sincere commitment to their spiritual and emotional well-being. The first obligation of the church with regard to the victims is for healing and reconciliation. Each diocese is to continue its outreach to every person who has been the victim of sexual abuse as a minor by anyone in church service, whether the abuse was recent or occurred many years in the past. This outreach may include provision of counseling, spiritual assistance, support groups, and other social services agreed upon by the victim and the diocese.
“Through pastoral outreach to victims and their families, the diocesan bishop or his representative is to offer to meet with them, to listen with patience and compassion to their experiences and concerns, and to share the ‘profound sense of solidarity and concern’ expressed by His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, in his Address to the Cardinals of the United States and Conference Officers (April 23, 2002).
“Pope Benedict XVI, too, in his address to the U.S. bishops in 2008 said of the clergy sexual abuse crisis, ‘It is your God-given responsibility as pastors to bind up the wounds caused by every breach of trust, to foster healing, to promote reconciliation and to reach out with loving concern to those so seriously wronged.’”
That’s pretty unambiguous. It is Bishop Larry Silva’s “God-given responsibility … to reach out with loving concern to those so seriously wronged.”
And he has, with the few who have come forward to him or other diocesan officials.
The diocese, for several years, has publicly invited victims to come forward, both through its own media and through the secular media. But the reality is nearly all the alleged victims have introduced themselves to the bishop as anonymous John Roes on the coversheets of lawsuits. They have answered the “outreach” of litigation attorneys rather than that of the church. They have defined “reconciliation” as “general, special and punitive damages.” In other words, money.
So what’s a bishop to do? Forced out of his pastoral environment into the legal arena, he has to defend himself and the diocese, however unseemly that may look. The advice of seasoned defense attorneys and Pope Benedict’s instructions are not entirely compatible.
The bishop faces several responsibilities here. They include the defense of clergy and church institutions that might have been falsely accused, and the proper stewardship of church resources entrusted to him.
Through these lawsuits, Hawaii Catholics are being asked to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in compensation for alleged crimes newly reported, but committed before today’s generation was born, by dead priests it never knew.
Where will the money come from? Most likely from the collection plates.
The church is not a business. It’s a community of believers whose work is sustained by the donations of its members. We have seen how large settlements have impoverished some Mainland dioceses to the point of bankruptcy. Some have resorted to selling church properties to pay claims. Payments have also been siphoned from programs that support families, assist the poor, teach children and comfort the aging and dying.
Doesn’t the diocese have insurance? Now it does. But 40, 50, 60 years ago is another story.
STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS
The law that did away with the statute of limitations for two years was a popular one with Hawaii’s lawmakers. Nearly all voted in favor of it.
The way the old law worked, a plaintiff had two years after he or she turned 18 to file a lawsuit. In fact, the courts were lenient about this deadline, finding various exceptions that allowed lawsuits to proceed. Legislators, however, heard arguments from plaintiffs’ lawyers and others that the statutory period, even with the exceptions, was too short a time for this particular crime because, committed against children, it is particularly heinous in nature and can cause severe, lasting, hidden psychological injury, and that it is not unusual for the abuse to remain unacknowledged for years.
The lobbyists argued that a child abused by a priest or religious brother in the 1950s, 60s and 70s would have had at the time few, if any, options because sexual abuse is a solitary private crime on a victim too young and too vulnerable to understand what was going on.
Moreover, even if a child had awareness enough to report the incident, the advocates for a new law asserted that the child may not have been believed and that only years later, and often only through the sympathy and support of another, can the adult mind come to comprehend what was inflicted on the child’s body and psyche.
So the dropping of the statute of limitations was seen by many as a compassionate path in the pursuit of justice. But the pursuit of justice in a court of law requires more than compassion. It needs actual witnesses, evidence and memories — elements of a trial that disappear, erode and fade with the passage of time.
Trying to defend against a 50-year-old claim is like trying to find justice in a courtroom of ghosts.
To borrow the legal analysis of the state’s attorney general’s office, which strongly opposes the elimination of the statute of limitations, this could “severely prejudice the defendants.”
On top of that, it is easy to see how laws that allow people to extract money from the living to pay for the sins of the dead can tempt other kinds of abuse. Money is as much a corruptor as sex. Could some of these plaintiffs be stretching the truth? It’s a rude question, but it has to be asked.
THE ATTORNEYS
The two-year lawsuit-filing window attracted a handful of Hawaii lawyers. But the big guns came from Minnesota.
Jeff Anderson, who has made litigating against clergy sex abuse his specialty, represents most of the alleged victims. He set up shop here with an “abusedinhawaii” website, the recruitment of local attorneys, and a public relations operation adept at dramatic news conferences and sensational press releases. He is the one behind the purchase of full-page rogues’ gallery newspaper ads with mug shots and lists of priests and brothers beneath the bold uppercase headline that shouts, “DID YOU KNOW THESE MEN?” — whether all the men were actually accused of abuse or not.
On his website, Anderson lauds himself as being “widely recognized as the most prolific and successful litigator of clergy sexual abuse cases against churches and other institutions.”
He’s “smart, tough and relentless,” he says. But he says the “virtue” that makes him different from the rest is his “compassion.”
As one famous for getting multi-million dollar settlements, it’s a well-compensated compassion.
Another Mainland interest flying in to join the effort with public demonstrations and postcard campaigns has been SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), a once worthy advocacy group for victims of clergy sex abuse whose more recent hyperbolic turn has cost them much credibility and respect.
In the preparation for the trials, which are scheduled to begin next year, the church is fully cooperating with the process of civil discovery in litigation. The diocese has opened its confidential, so-called “secret” personnel files to the victims’ lawyers who were allowed to spend hours identifying records for duplication.
The diocese even turned over Hawaii Catholic Herald files.
THE BISHOPS’ CHARTER
The sexual abuse of children by clergy was a tragedy of the recent past, but it does not have to be a problem for the present and future. To prevent it from ever happening again, the U.S. bishops’ “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” has given dioceses a strict 17-point code of conduct to follow.
The Diocese of Honolulu has welcomed these directives.
It has established procedures to respond promptly to any allegation. It has on staff a safe environment coordinator who oversees obligatory criminal background screenings for clergy and new employees. In addition, the bishop requires that all priests coming to work in Hawaii from elsewhere have a “letter of suitability” from their home bishop or religious superior. (see sidebar below)
The diocese requires safe environment training for all church workers, school teachers and volunteers who deal with children. More than 3,500 volunteers and 2,500 employees in Hawaii parishes, Catholic schools and diocesan offices have completed adult safe environment courses since the training went online in 2007, and many more attended training workshops before the online training.
The safe environment program also has a training curriculum for children and youth in parish programs and Catholic schools.
The diocese has a victim assistance coordinator who is the primary point of contact between the diocese and anyone reporting abuse and who is also responsible for reporting to police any allegation that involves a crime.
The diocese has established a confidential, mostly lay, independent review board to advise the bishop and investigate allegations as they surface. Hawaii’s review board has eight members with expertise in law, psychology, counseling and other areas.
The safe environment programs of the diocese are audited every three years by an independent Mainland agency. The diocese has always passed its audit.
Any credible accusation of sexual abuse of a minor by a church worker must be reported to the police. The person is immediately removed from ministry while the church investigates the charge.
A priest or deacon found guilty of sexual abuse, even a single incident, no matter when it happened (the church has no statute of limitations in this regard), is permanently removed from active ministry. If warranted, he may also be laicized, that is removed from priesthood itself.
OLDER LAWSUITS
When the clergy sex abuse crisis broke nationally more than a decade ago and people became aware of the scope of the problem, several victims in Hawaii came forward, some for counseling and healing. For some of them, the existing statute of limitations would have invalidated any chance of a lawsuit.
But there was an exception to the rule. If victims could claim that all the new talk of clergy criminality “awakened” the repressed memory of their own abuse, that moment of “recovered awareness” would then start the statute of limitations clock ticking. The alleged victim would then have two years to file. A handful of lawsuits resulted from this way around the statute.
In all, the diocese faced eight lawsuits from 2004 to 2012, the year the statute of limitations law changed. Of these, six were settled out of court with no admission of liability on the part of the diocese. Most of the payment amounts were kept confidential at the request of the plaintiffs. The diocese would have preferred to make the sums public, as is required by the U.S. bishop’s Charter requirement of transparency.
One of the lawsuits ended with a summary judgment in favor of the diocese and the accused priest. Another was dismissed because of the statute of limitations, but was later re-filed when the window opened.
Here is a sample letter the bishop’s office requires when a new priest comes to work in Hawaii. It must be signed and dated by the priest’s bishop, religious superior or vicar and include the seal of the priest’s diocese or religious order.
To be filled out on stationery of the sending bishop or religious superior.
This is to certify that Reverend ________ is a priest in good standing of the Diocese of ________ [Congregation of ________].
After reviewing his personnel file and from my personal knowledge, I am able to certify without qualification that Reverend ________ has:
1. Never been suspended or otherwise canonically disciplined;
2. Never had criminal charges brought against him;
3. Not manifested behavioral problems in the past that would indicate he might deal with minors in an inappropriate manner;
4. Never been involved in an incident which called into question his fitness or suitability to fulfill the responsibilities and duties of his priestly ministry due to alcohol abuse, substance abuse, or other causes;
5. No other particular mental or physical attribute, condition, and/or past situation which would adversely affect his performance or priestly ministry.
I am able to state without qualification that Reverend ______ is of good character and reputation and qualified to perform his priestly duties in a ministerial position in any diocese that welcomes him.
_____________________________
Bishop, religious superior or vicar
