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Diocese takes documents case to Supreme Court
Aug. 03, 2009
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(AMZ)
Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF versionIn a last-ditch effort to keep sealed thousands of pages of records dealing with 23 clergy sex abuse lawsuits, the Bridgeport, Conn., diocese is taking its case to the Supreme Court.
Most legal experts say the possibility that the high court, which annually chooses to hear only a tiny fraction of potential cases, would select the Bridgeport case is extremely slim. The court, currently in recess, will not consider the request until it begins its next term in October.
Even so, the move, which follows patterns of extended legal resistance in other key dioceses, highlights the lengths to which the church is willing to go to avoid public disclosure. The documents include letters and testimony indicating how its officials handled the sex abuse crisis.
The move also highlights anew the clash of First Amendment claims between those who contend that the community has a fundamental right to know in cases involving alleged criminal activity, and those who fear that courts, by demanding that the church reveal the documents, are intruding on the guarantee of religious freedom.
At the center of the dispute are more than 12,600 pages of depositions, exhibits and legal arguments relating to some 23 lawsuits involving seven priests. The records were sealed in 2001 when the cases were settled for undisclosed amounts.
Following the settlements, four newspapers -- the Hartford Courant, The Boston Globe, The New York Times and The Washington Post -- petitioned to have the documents released. The documents would presumably reveal details of how Cardinal Edward Egan, recently retired as archbishop of New York, handled the sex abuse crisis during his tenure as bishop of Bridgeport from 1988 to 2000.
Bishop William E. Lori succeeded Egan in Bridgeport in 2001. Egan, testifying in an abuse trial, once famously explained that the diocese could not be held responsible for the activities of clerics because priests were independent contractors.
Interest in documents surrounding the sex abuse crisis is keen, especially among newspapers and abuse victims, because such documentation in the past has often established that bishops were more aware of the nature of the crisis and the danger of sexually abusive priests than they had originally professed.
That was the case in Boston in 2002 when a judge there ordered the release of thousands of pages of documentation regarding the crisis in that archdiocese. Information contained in the published documents enraged Catholics and the wider general public and led to the removal of Cardinal Bernard Law as head of the archdiocese.
A similar furor erupted in Philadelphia after the release of a grand jury report that quoted extensively from volumes of documentation that the archdiocese had kept regarding accused priests who escaped criminal prosecution because the statute of limitations had run out.
In Los Angeles, the church has fought the release of documents for years, even though a settlement in 2002 involving more than 500 abuse cases stipulated that the material would be made public.
In the Connecticut case, the church has failed in its attempts in the state court. The Connecticut Supreme Court, in a 4-1 decision in May, upheld a lower court ruling calling for the release of the files.
The church appealed that decision and asked the state Supreme Court to reconsider, but the diocese was turned down again in July and later that month announced it would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In a statement announcing the appeal to the land’s highest court, the diocese said, “The case and the settlement were exhaustively reported on by the media. The attorneys and victims had access to the sealed documents at issue.”
Joseph McAleer, a spokesman for the diocese, had earlier told The New York Times, “Sadly, the history of this case has been about access by the secular media to internal church documents of cases more than 30 years ago to suggest, unfairly, that nothing has changed.”
Marci Hamilton, a church-state specialist who teaches at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York, says the church has no First Amendment protection in this case. “There is no First Amendment right of religious organizations to keep such documents secret,” she said in an e-mail response to a question from NCR. “The bishops have repeatedly argued in clergy abuse cases around the country that they should not have to produce records in response to discovery requests because of such an alleged First Amendment right. The courts have routinely rejected such far-reaching claims. The First Amendment was not intended to be a refuge for illegal or licentious behavior.”
Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center in Washington, is less certain and is concerned that a decision requiring the church to release documents could cross into the area of state entanglement in religion.
In an interview with NCR, he said there are “real questions that have to be raised” in this case regarding both the establishment and the free exercise clauses having to do with religion in the First Amendment. “Under the establishment clause, the government shouldn’t be entangling itself with the church and its internal affairs. Under the free exercise clause, is this interfering with the church’s right to practice its faith the way it chooses without governmental interference? Internal documents are part of what the church is doing as part of its mission. There are serious questions under both clauses.”
He concedes, however, that the church has not done well in the courts with the First Amendment argument when it comes to keeping such records concealed.
The argument from the other side of the First Amendment, that made by newspapers and other groups interested in disclosure, is that “the public has a right to know, and that there’s a high public interest to know what went on -- what role the leadership of the church played given the significance of the cases and how many people were affected by this.”
Haynes said he thinks the possibility that the Supreme Court will consider the case is “very remote.”
“I could be mistaken, but the court takes very few cases to begin with, especially one that has fared so poorly in lower courts. ... I think in the end the church will be forced to release the documents.”
Tom Roberts is NCR editor at large. He can be reached at troberts@ncronline.org.
I think that the diocese has
I think that the diocese has a fiduciary responsibility to ensure that this information remains confidential. This information has been examined in court. To force a release of all information will do more harm than good...
Thank God we have a free
Thank God we have a free press willing to look under the proverbial "rock" to discover what lurks thereunder.
All the documents should be
All the documents should be released. The reason the sex scandal in the Catholic Church continues is because these "men of god" have been hiding the truth. The First Amendment does not grant the Catholic Church the right to allow pedophiles to have free reign in the diocese. Release the documents now and sort out who obstructed justice and allowed children to be at risk.
Abuse thrives in an environment of secrecy.
There should be no hiding the
There should be no hiding the sex abuse crimes information.
Secrecy led to continued abuse, abuse of thousands of children and abuse of thousands of seminarians too. Crimes should not be covered up, allowed to continue. If priests and bishops are criminals who abuse children and youths they should not be allowed to continue abusing the vulnerable or escape prosecution because they are clergy.
That is disgusting to try to get clergy exempt to be criminals. It is criminal behavior and the worst possible betrayal of the innocence of others and of the religion to sexually abuse children.
Oh, how ever interesting how
Oh, how ever interesting how the institutional Church and its "leaders" want to hide and cover up their crimes, and resort to the secular authorities to become their allies as fellow enablers of sexual crimes of pedophile priests. Ever so interesting, as they also insist on the duplicity of putting secular authority down any chance they have the opportunity, or it getting the laity behind their choice of leader, and use and exist in such a system and would design laws to reflect their own venomous desire to punish their political adversaries in hypocrisy and bent for being abusive and judgmental toward humanity in general.
Oh, come hither dear Bishops in the USA and religious authorities in Rome to the truth and expose the evil deeds that you have committed. Expose it to the world if you are ashamed and truly sorry for what you did to allow pedophiles to sexually abuse innocent children for decades and decades. Oh, abuse and shame it shall not be hidden forever. You are exposed. You are naked in your hypocrisy as you speak from your pulpits and Encyclicals and tell the laity that masturbation is wrong, that birth control is wrong, being pro-choice is wrong, women-priests are wrong, married priests are wrong, gays are wrong, while you are scurrying around in your dresses and raping children or aiding and enabling your buddy pervert priest-friends to rape children, aiding and abetting hateful and fascist groups such as Opus Dei. You tell the laity they are sinners at every chance, to come clean and confess these sins to you, yet when you sin you deny it and hire lawyers to condemn others, bribe them to silence, and to prevent exposure of your evil deeds! Hypocrites!
Oh, come hither dear Bishops in the USA and religious authorities in the Vatican to the truth of your hypocrisy. Sexual abuse has nothing to do with religion or faith, and you can no longer hide behind the mask of religious authority, religious institution, the First Amendment or separation of Church and State to cover up the truth of your wicked deeds.
Who would really believe that you are a religious authority anymore after witnessing your institutional hypocrisy and contempt for human beings enough to enable the laity's innocent children to be sexually abused? For sure, I do not believe in religious authority that really has no business being in religion at all, nor in being in authority of any kind, for you have turned religion into a lie and distortion and into utter hypocrisy.
Woe to you hypocrites!
A "fiduciary responsibility?"
A "fiduciary responsibility?" To cover up criminal conduct and/or the protection of criminals from criminal and civil prosecution?
What about a bishop's "fiduciary responsibility" to protect children and vulnerable adults from the sexual predations of the clergy whom he supervised?
What about the Church's "fiduciary responsibility" to make public their conduct during the time they and their institution were supported by the funds of the faithful, of which funds they were the custodians?
Does a mob boss's consigliere have a legally binding "fiduciary responsibility" not to reveal his organization's wrong-doings?
That we should even be having a debate about whether an arm the Church of Rome, which proclaims itself to be the arbiter of both temporal and heavenly morality, has some sort of duty to block the release of records that are evidence of criminal and administrative wrong-doing and irresponsibility is rather aburd, is it not?
But beyond the moral imperative, as soon as clergy as agents of the Church crossed the line into criminal behavior against children and as soon as the diocese attempted to deal with that behavior on its own, rather than involving the civil authorities, things changed. At that point, the State has an over-riding interest in disclosure--- and there is no right of privacy which extends either to criminal behavior or the cover-up of same.
Forcing Bridgeport to release documents does not intefere with its right to freely practice the Catholic religion within the constraints of lawful behavior in society. But the First Amendment does not guarantee the right to break the law--- you cannot, for example, declare that in your religion 10-year-old girls are supposed to marry and consumate marriages with men decades their senior, and claim First Amendment protection. Nor can you declare that payment of taxes violates God's will and that you therefore have a First Amendment right not to do so.
Once criminal activity became involved, and it was involved from the first instant that the first priest touched the first child inappropriately, then ALL records pertaining to how such cases were handled became Caesar's. By extension they became the public's, because in a democracy "the people" ARE Caesar.
It's all about RICO: the
It's all about RICO: the "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act" of 1970. The hierarchy has to make a last ditch effort to protect THEMSELVES (i.e. WHAT did they know? and WHEN did they know it?), not the abusers, and certainly not the ABUSED!
Like former Oklahoma governor Frank Keating said when he resigned from the USCCB's oversight board in 2003:
"To act like LA COSA NOSTRA and hide and suppress, I think, is very unhealthy. Eventually it will ALL come out."
Cardinal Egan and Bishop Lori are simply afraid -and rightly so- that the sealed documents will make Cardinal Law's ejection/promotion from Boston look like a Sunday school picnic, compared to their own; not to mention the "protection" they have received from the highest echelons of the Vatican. Somebody, somewhere, sometime is gonna nail them all in an international court of law. Deus vult! In ch'Allah!
All the more reason for the
All the more reason for the case for implementing an appropriate solution to the global clergy abuse crisis as this shows why it is the most compelling issue facing us today.
Why do outlets such as this continue to provide such blatant promotion for a church riddled to the core with sexual problems, human rights abuses, rape and murder, do they wish to feed us the unrealistic expectation that this charade will magically heal itself. An entirely irresponsible and delusional notion together with an action carried out against the children of society in an attempt to uphold an obviously fatally flawed Catholic church when there are appropriate options available.
The September 1 initiative aims to set the global clergy abuse crisis on the political agenda for the first time in our history as a part of the upcoming elections.
September 1 says that after repeated failed attempts to engage either government or religions into a conversation as to how they are intending to identify and rectify the ills such a crisis brings with it has been prompted to undertake initial work without the support of either government or religious bodies.
The group has forged ahead and has implemented what it says is the best available response to the clergy abuse crisis available today. We back that up with a soon to be $20 million US dollars to anyone who can implement an improved response.
The September 1 initiative says it has a growing membership of people from all walks of life joining up simply because they wish to see an end to the abuses and the infringements on everybody's human rights because of it.
Australian convener John Brown said the September 1 initiative is the most responsible and appropriate response we have been able to put together with available resources, we are open to constructive input from any sector of society.
Recently we resolved to commercialize our site through making available premium web space to truly responsible corporates who wish to see an end to what affects so many children on a daily basis. We felt pushed to this end due to the lack of responses from both government and church and to the obvious large scale advertising across the spectrum of church and religious groups on the Internet. Our group felt that there should be at least one place on the planet even if it is only on the Internet for the moment where different sectors and individuals in our community can publicly show their support for an end to this crisis.
Mr Brown said we are keen to publicly debate Politicians and clergy on their responsibilities to their electorates and to the people in their care so we can remind them of their responsibility towards the children of society and impress upon them the very real need to take this first step in much needed healing, restoration, justice and respect for human rights processes on September 1.
We have undertaken preliminary studies and are currently developing the first ever global survey covering all known and identified aspects of this pox in our society. The design of this survey is quite substantial and it is to this end that we envision a minimum of 90% of income derived from sales would be put to work on developing and deploying this survey.
We are currently investigating a number of open source technologies and have identified several of major interest, our increased income would permit us to employ the full-time development staff this project truly requires.
The aim of the September 1 initiative is simply to bring to the world a definitive and appropriate solution to the current global clergy abuse crisis and can be found online at http://www.september12009.com/s
Perplexed! I still don't
Perplexed!
I still don't understand, once the judge issues a court order to release the records of those who sexually abuse these innocent children who were in the church's pastorial care....how can the RCC weasel out of turning over the records once a court order has been given?
The gavel can't swing fast enough in eradicating these child predators!
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