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Pennsylvania Charges Ex-Leaders of Catholic Order With Aiding Sexual Predator
Attorney: Hiding Sexual Abuse Is Over
Kathleen G. Kane, Pennsylvania's
attorney general, spoke after three former Franciscan leaders were
charged with allowing a known sexual predator to take jobs that allowed
him to molest scores of children.
Three
former leaders of a Franciscan religious order in Pennsylvania were
charged with felonies on Tuesday for allowing a friar who was a known
sexual predator to repeatedly work with children, including as a high
school athletic trainer who massaged students naked, and pull some out
of class for what a grand jury report called “private physical therapy
sessions.”
Tuesday’s complaint was the first time members of a Roman Catholic religious order have been charged with aiding an abuser. While the church has faced thousands of lawsuits over sexual abuse by members of the clergy in the past decade, criminal prosecutions of the supervisors accused of covering up for abusers have been rare.
The
complaint, filed by the state’s attorney general, Kathleen Kane,
charged three leaders of the Franciscan Friars, Third Order Regulars —
Giles A. Schinelli, 73, Robert J. D’Aversa, 69, and Anthony M.
Criscitelli, 61 — with conspiracy to endanger children.
The
three are accused of knowing about accusations of abuse against the
friar, Brother Stephen Baker, but of not reporting him to the police or
removing him from positions where he had access to children. In one, he
was an athletic trainer for nearly a decade at a school where he
regularly told students to undress for massages.
“They
were more concerned with protecting the image of the order and more
concerned with being in touch with lawyers than with the flock that they
served,” Ms. Kane said at a news conference Tuesday.
Lawyers
and victims groups said the prosecutions were a stark warning to the
church that covering up abuse could lead to jail time.
“This is the missing piece,” said David Clohessy, the director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
“For years, there have been pledges of reform, but we still see the
same deceitful practices because those who stay silent or lie to cover
up have not been held accountable.”
Brother Baker, who is accused of assaulting more than 100 children, stabbed himself to death in 2013, leaving a note apologizing for his actions.
Document: Grand Jury Findings Against Franciscan Order in Pennsylvania
The charges against his supervisors came two weeks after the attorney general released a scathing report
by a grand jury, which found at least 50 priests and other church
employees molested hundreds of children in a small Roman Catholic
diocese in central Pennsylvania over four decades. In many cases, the
report said, their superiors, prosecutors and the police knew of the
abuses but did not act.
Brother
Baker joined the order in the early 1970s and was a teacher, coach and
athletic trainer in Roman Catholic schools in Michigan, Minnesota and
Ohio before coming to Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown, Pa., in
1992.
Father
Schinelli, the minister provincial there from 1986 to 1994, was
notified of past accusations of sexual abuse against Brother Baker in
Ohio, and recommendations to keep him away from children, but assigned
him to the high school anyway, the grand jury found.
“They
knew who he was, and yet they put him in a place where he was like a
kid in a candy store,” said Richard M. Serbin, a lawyer who has
represented 88 victims of Brother Baker’s abuse.
The
next minister provincial, Father D’Aversa, removed Brother Baker from
the school in 2000 after new allegations, the report said, but did not
notify school officials or law enforcement.
Father
Criscitelli took over in 2002. He allowed Brother Baker to hold
overnight retreats at a local college even though, the complaint said,
the supervisor knew Brother Baker was to have no contact with children.
The
province issued a brief statement on Tuesday apologizing to the
victims. The three accused live out of state, and investigators expect
their preliminary arraignments to be scheduled in the coming days. The
current minister provincial and a lawyer for the province did not
respond to interview requests.
For
decades, prosecutors in Pennsylvania were hesitant to go after sexual
abusers and their abettors in the church, longtime lawyers in the field
say. In 2012, however, the state convicted Msgr. William J. Lynn, a high-ranking official in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, of child endangerment for covering up a priest sexual abuse case.
Monsignor
Lynn appealed the conviction to the State Supreme Court, which ruled
against him in 2015, broadening the definition of child endangerment in a
ruling last April to include even officials who had no direct
supervision. That case opened the door for the grand jury to bring
charges in this case, said Marci A. Hamilton, a professor at the
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University.
“There
was a time,” Ms. Kane said, “when the Catholic Church put a lot of
pressure on prosecutors. A prosecutor didn’t want to be seen as going
against the church or going against God. Times have changed.”
