Virginia’s Catholic Bishops Release Names of 58 Sexual Predator Priests

Virginia's Southern Baptists are still reeling from the sex abuse scandal in their denomination exposed by two Texas newspapers over last weekend.  Now Virginia's two Catholic bishops - Bishop Barry Knestout of Richmond and Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington - have released the names of 58 clergy credibly accused of sexual molestation of children and youths, thereby bring home to Catholic Virginians the reality of the abuse scandal is not off in far away cities. 42 of those named were in or had been in the Diocese of Richmond.  The remainder were in the Diocese of Arlington.  Both the Virginian Pilot and the Washington Post look at the releases which may have been spurred in part by the ongoing investigation of the Virginia Attorney General's office which is asking victims of clergy abuse to contact its hotline found here. First excerpts from the Pilot piece:

The Catholic Diocese of Richmond released a list Wednesday of 42 clergy members who "have a credible and substantiated allegation of sexual abuse against a minor."

It follows the conclusion of an independent investigation completed by a third party. Citing the "highly sensitive nature of the information reviewed," diocese spokeswoman Deborah Cox declined to name the independent examiners.

None of the named clergy are listed as active members. Thirteen are deceased. Most are classified as suspended or removed; five were "laicized," meaning they have been removed from ministry.  Past news reports and information on the diocese website show at least six have ties to Hampton Roads.

"To the victims and to all affected by the pain of sexual abuse, our response will always be about what we are doing, not simply what we have done," Bishop Barry Knestout wrote in a letter published along with the list.

A diocese spokeswoman did not respond to a reporter's requests for comment.

Attorney General Mark Herring announced in October the state would investigate the diocese. A spokesperson for the office said Wednesday the investigation is ongoing. Survivors are encouraged to reach out through their clergy hotline.  

[O]n the list is John E. Leonard, who served as principal of Norfolk Catholic High School from 1987 to 1992. According to an Associated Press story from 2004, he had been on the faculty at St. John Vianney Seminary in Goochland in the early 1970s, when he was convicted of assaulting two teenage boys. He was sentenced to two consecutive 12-month jail terms, which were suspended. Leonard was instead placed on lifelong probation.  The diocese website says Leonard was removed from the diocese in 2004 before his death in 2015.

Another local pastor was Eugene John Teslovic, who, according to a 2002 story published by The Pilot, was expelled from active ministry while serving at St. Luke Catholic Church in Virginia Beach, where he had become pastor in 1991. He previously served at the Church of Resurrection in Portsmouth. Teslovic is listed as removed on the diocese website.

The piece in the Washington Post looks at both dioceses and adds details on the Diocese of Arlington action and notes the larger scandal in the United States that intensified again last summer.  Here are excerpts:

Virginia’s two Catholic dioceses Wednesday released lists of clergy whom officials say were deemed “credibly accused” of sexually abusing youth, the latest in a slew of U.S. dioceses to make public such names amid a national crisis over clerical abuse and coverups.

The diocese of Arlington, which covers the northeastern corner of Virginia, released a list of 16 names. It said the list was the product of two former FBI agents contracted by the diocese and given access to clergy files and information dating to its founding in 1974. It wasn’t immediately clear if any of the names were completely new to Catholics of the diocese.

The diocese of Richmond, which covers the rest of the state, released 42 names.

A local survivor-advocate on Wednesday criticized the Virginia lists, noting that they don’t include the names of the parishes where the men served nor when they were removed.

“The church has been in crisis . . . and this is something they think will make them look good? To me this is reactive, not proactive,” said Becky Ianni, who said she was abused beginning at age 8 in 1965 by Alexandria priest Rev. William Reinecke, whose name appears on the Arlington list.

The Catholic Church has been under the gun since last summer, when a top D.C.-based cardinal — Theodore McCarrick — was suspended amid charges of abuse and extensive coverup. He later resigned as cardinal and a decision is awaited any day from Rome about his fate within the church. A grand jury report out of Pennsylvania about dioceses there led to the early resignation of D.C. Archbishop Donald Wuerl as well as additional civil investigations, bills calling for expanded statutes of limitations so clergy victims could sue, and more lists like the ones Wednesday out of Virginia.

Virginia’s attorney general, Mark Herring, is among the state prosecutors who recently opened an investigation into Catholic dioceses and whether there have been abuse and coverup.

Arlington includes 458,000 Catholics and 70 parishes. Richmond includes 222,000 Catholics and 142 parishes. The reason for the apparently lopsided numbers wasn’t immediately clear but the Richmond diocese covers a far larger, spread-out territory. Richmond was established in the early 1800s while Arlington was formed out of that in the 1970s.

The sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church is a topic this blog has covered for many years.  With the Diocese of Richmond belatedly revealing at least a portion of its dirty linen (there could well be more names not released), I  am reprinting a portion of my February, 2002, guest editorial piece in the Virginian Pilot:

Bigotry Claim Is Disingenuous

As a life long Catholic, former altar boy, and a 4th Degree Knight of Columbus, I was dismayed by Bishop Walter F. Sullivan’s letter to the editor (Virginian Pilot, January 30, 2002) decrying the editorial cartoon carried by the Virginian Pilot on January 21, 2002, focusing on the Catholic Church’s track record in respect to pedophile clergy. Bishop Sullivan would have readers believe the cartoon is “pure bigotry” against the Catholic Church. The reality is that the Catholic Church hierarchy is most vigorous in instilling guilt and a sense of sinfulness in its members on a host of topics ranging from birth control, divorce (on January 28, 2002, Pope John Paul II directed all Catholic lawyers and judges to refrain from taking divorce cases, Associated Press), remarriage by divorced Catholics, and in-vitro fertilization, to attendance at non-Catholic church services. Yet, the Catholic Church hierarchy has shown little vigor in weeding out pedophile priests or disciplining high Church officials who knew of sexual abuse problems but did not act to stop it.

The editorial cartoon carried by the Virginian Pilot surely arose from the on-going scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston where, due to unrelenting reporting by the Boston Globe on the lawsuits against former priest, John J. Geoghan, it has been disclosed that over the last 10 years, the Archdiocese has quietly settled child molestation claims against at least 70 priests. Church records turned over under court order, document that five (5) bishops and two (2) cardinals knew of Geoghan’s child molestation, yet he was repeatedly reassigned to new, unsuspecting parishes (Boston Globe, January 31, 2002). Unfortunately, the situation in Boston is not an isolated incident as shown by a very brief search on the Internet . . . 

Sadly, my words back then understated the huge global scale of the problem and the culpability of high Church officials. 

Virginia AG Launches Investigation of Sexual Abuse by Catholic Clergy

As long time readers know, I was raised Roman Catholic and once was a member of the Knights of Columbus and achieved the 4th Degree.  After the Boston Globe blew open the systemic, worldwide sex abuse scandal in 2002, I decided that I could be longer in good conscience be a part of such a corrupt and morally bankrupt institution.  In February 2002 I did a guest editorial in the Virginian Pilot in response a letter to the editor by then Bishop Richmond, Walter Sullivan's January 30, 2002, decrying a January 21 2002, editorial cartoon and claiming that the stories about the Church were "pure bigotry against the Catholic Church.''  The cartoon in question focused on the Catholic Church's track record in respect to pedophile clergy. 

Subsequently, I was attacked in letters to the editor, including a letter from a subordinate of Bishop Sullivan.  Time has proven the accuracy of the Globe story and sex abuse cover ups have been exposed virtually worldwide as numerous blog posts have reported.  Moreover, the cynical and dishonest hypocrisy of Bishop Sullivan was made clear when  Sullivan himself was implicated in the cover up of sexual abuse by a diocesan priest in the Diocese of Richmond that was among Sullivan's favorites.   The tenaciousness of a personal friend of mine and other victims of the priest in question finally resulted in a criminal prosecution against the priest and a plea deal.  

It would be nice to believe that this one priest was an anomaly, but given what has been seen in dioceses literally across the globe, such is likely wishful thinking.  Thus, in the wake of the Pennsylvania grand jury report and the launching of investigations of the Catholic Church by the U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia and the Attorney General of the District of Columbia, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring has launched an investigation of the Catholic dioceses in Virginia.  The Virginian Pilot looks at this development.  Here are article highlights:

Attorney General Mark Herring announced Wednesday he is launching a hotline dedicated to "rooting out" possible clergy abuse in the commonwealth.

It's "part of an ongoing investigation into whether criminal sexual abuse of children may have occurred in Virginia’s Catholic dioceses, and whether leadership in the dioceses may have covered up or abetted any such crimes," according to a news release. 

The announcement comes a day after the District of Columbia's attorney general said his office will open an investigation into sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in the local archdiocese. 

Virginia is now one of at least 13 states that launched investigations after a shocking grand jury report out of Pennsylvania this summer. That report identified thousands of victims and their abusers following a two-year investigation of Catholic dioceses in that state. It also revealed that leaders of the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania helped cover up the child sexual abuse going back several decades.

Herring said at a press conference Wednesday that his office started the probe a few days after the Pennsylvania report came out.

"Like so many Americans, I read the grand jury report on clergy abuse in the Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania, and I felt sick," Herring said in a statement. "It made me sick to see the extent of the damage done, the efforts to cover it up, and the complicity and enabling that went on by powerful people who should have known better and should have done more to protect vulnerable children."

"It's certainly an unusual step (in law enforcement) to announce an ongoing investigation," he said, "but in this instance ... we need the public's help to get to the truth."

People can report incidents of clergy or faith leader abuse anonymously through the new Virginia Clergy Abuse Hotline at 1-833-454-9064 and www.VirginiaClergyHotline.com at any hour of the day. It will be staffed by Virginia State Police investigators during business hours, according to the release.

Virginia is home to two Catholic dioceses: Richmond, which includes 153 parishes statewide, and Arlington, which includes 69 in Northern Virginia. Hampton Roads is part of the Richmond diocese.

Herring said the dioceses have been "cooperative at this point" and the investigation will "take as long as it needs to ... no matter how long it takes."

I will not be surprised to learn that Virginia's dioceses were no different that others around the world where crimes against children and youths were routinely covered up and predator priests protected.  We know for certain that Sullivan protected at least one predator priest.  I suspect many more may be revealed.  Kudos to Herring.

Hate Is A Learned Phenomenon; Will Southern Baptists Again Choose Bigotry?

Allison Mackey of Hanover, Pennsylvania, with her five sons - one an Eagle Scout, three now active in scouting and an 8-year-old who had planned to join. All the sons said they were willing to abandon the Boy Scouts if openly gay members were allowed.

An earlier post today noted the hysteric and spittle eruptions coming from the  Christofascists in the wake of the Boy Scouts of America's half measure to allow openly gay scouts although still institutionalizing bigotry against gays over the age of 18.  But a revisit was needed given the continue displays of hate and hypocrisy coming from the "godly Christian" crowd which is neither godly or, I would argue, even remotely Christian.  What I find most disgusting is the adults who are eager to teach children and youth hate.  Pictured above is one such foul individual who is indoctrinating her sons with her own sick, hate filled bigotry.  I suspect her descendants will be less than proud of her legacy of hate.  I can't help but also wonder whether Ms. Mackey refers to blacks by way of the "N word."  

Its also note worthy that many members of the Southern Baptist Convention ("SBC") - a denomination that came into being because of a desire to continue slavery and the treatment of other humans as chattel property - are now threatening to launch an alternate organization to the Boy Scouts.  One a racist and a bigotry, apparently always a racist and a bigot. Here are highlights on reactions from bigots from the New York Times:

Leaders of the conservative faction predicted that lawsuits would soon force the Boy Scouts to allow openly gay leaders, and they accused the top leaders of ignoring the beliefs of their members. 

“The fallout from this is going to be tremendous,” said Robert Schwarzwalder, a senior vice president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group, and a father of two scouts in Northern Virginia. “I think there will be a loss of hundreds of thousands of boys and parents.”

“This great institution is going to be vitiated by the intrusion of a political agenda,” he said. 

After the decision was announced Thursday, John Stemberger, an evangelical leader from Florida who organized a campaign to block the change, said that like-minded groups and parents would meet next month in Louisville, Ky., to discuss creating what he called a new “character development organization for boys,” an alternative to scouting.

Bob Felton at Civil Commotion elaborates on the SBC's foul history:

Founded in 1845 because northern Baptists refused to appoint missionaries from slaveholding states, the Southern Baptists are now leading the charge to break from the Boy Scouts over gay membership and create an alternative organization.

 Leader hopes to bring coalition together to discuss creating a new youth organization centered on biblical values http://ow.ly/lloKm

Why Louisville? Because it is the home of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, headed by Albert Mohler.

“Politics,” Otto Von Bismarck once said, “is the art of the possible.” For a private, widely-watched, quintessentially American organization to reverse a longstanding policy on such a contentious issue by a greater than 60% margin, leaving gays’ chief antagonists in disarray, and in a way that makes leadership roles for gays a not-far-off inevitability, is a huge win.

The SBC, by the way, finally apologized for its racist origins in 1995 — but it doesn’t appear that they actually learned much from the experience.

Christianity is in decline in the developed world largely because of the hate and bigotry that best define the godly folk.  Thankfully, a large majority of the younger generations are walking away from organized religion and Al Mohler, Tony Perkins, the Catholic Church hierarchy and many others are hastening Christianity's much deserved decline.

P.S., The SBC doesn't have a monopoly on anti-gay bigotry.  As the Washington Post reports, Bishop Paul Loverde, the leader of the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, issued a statement saying the vote would likely force the diocese to reconsider sponsoring troops in about 50 of its parishes.