Priest says hes innocent, fights for his
job
By MARGOT PATTERSON
Fr. George Spagnolia wont let himself be sidelined without a
fight and is vigorously defending his reputation and ministry. Suspended from
the Boston archdiocese Feb. 21 after being accused of sexually abusing a minor
31 years ago, Spagnolia denies the charge recently lodged against him and is
refusing to step down as pastor of St. Patricks Church in Lowell,
Mass.
Evil is the word Spagnolia uses to describe Cardinal
Bernard Laws new policy of turning over the names of priests accused of
sexually abusing minors to the media and to prosecutors without a
thorough prior investigation.
The policy does not allow for due process as its being
implemented, Spagnolia told NCR. It goes totally against the
Code of Canon Law, which protects priests and pastors, and which has due
process formulas. Those have been totally abrogated by the cardinal archbishop
of Boston to the detriment of the church of Boston and the church universal as
well as to the priesthood.
One of 10 priests that the archdiocese of Boston removed from the
pulpit in February because of allegations of sexual abuse, Spagnolia is the
only priest to proclaim his innocence. He was removed from his pastoral duties
five days after a man told church authorities he had been assaulted at age 14
when Spagnolia was vicar at St. Francis de Sales Church in Roxbury, Mass., in
1971.
The priest sent a certified letter to the cardinal informing him
he would remain as parish priest at St. Patricks Church, but agreed he
would not say Mass or perform the sacraments until the investigation was
completed.
I have done nothing, Spagnolia told hundreds of
supportive parishioners at St. Patricks Church on Feb. 25.
On Feb. 27, Spagnolia was served an eviction notice from Law
requiring him to vacate St. Patricks rectory. The notice did not specify
the date by which the priest must leave.
Even before the Spagnolia case highlighted concerns about due
process and the right to privacy, some people were beginning to question
whether zero-tolerance policies such as Boston put in place recently represent
the swing of the pendulum from one extreme to another.
Everyone has the right to their good name, said Fr.
Robert Silva, president of the National Federation of Priests Councils.
If theres an allegation, its an allegation. The release of
names of the accused without substantiation is questionable to my
mind.
With many priests feeling they are now under a cloud because of
the pedophilia scandal, Silva said the National Federation of Priests
Councils is issuing a letter to presbyteral council chairs. The Feb. 28 letter
encourages priests to discuss among themselves the issue of sexual abuse, to
learn more about the nature of pedophilia and its effects on both the victim
and the perpetrator so that better policies can be put in place, and to probe
and discover what is life-giving in the way priests live and what is not.
Silva said the National Federation of Priests Councils will
be meeting March 13 with the executive director of the Priestly Life and
Ministry Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, with
the president of the National Office for Continuing Education of Roman Catholic
Clergy, and with Fr. Steve Rossetti, president of St. Luke Institute, to
discuss how to help presbyteral councils get their priests to come together for
reflection, discussion and healing.
Right now, many good and faithful priests are feeling devastated
and demoralized, Silva said. The letter released by the National Federation of
Priests Councils urges priests not to withdraw from people but to bond
more closely with them and to examine the system in which priests live to see
whether it is supportive of their ministry. The councils letter is
accompanied by a letter from Rossetti, who notes that the scandal is tainting
St. Luke Institute as well. The institute assists religious who are suffering
from a wide range of emotional and psychological problems. Rosetti said
formerly some people thought priests were better than others. Now some are
going to the opposite extreme and suggesting priests are more disturbed than
others.
An ongoing discussion
With different dioceses around the country having different
policies for how allegations of sexual abuse should be handled, discussion over
what constitutes a fair policy probably will not end soon. Recently, the
Portland, Maine, diocese attracted attention when it released the names of two
priests in active ministry who were guilty of sexual misconduct with a teenager
20 years earlier. Both priests had received psychiatric treatment in the 1990s
after victims had come forward in 1991 and 1993 with accusations of misconduct.
Neither priest was diagnosed as a pedophile. The two priests had disclosed
their past history to parishes, in one case before the entire parish and in the
second case to a core group involved in running the parish. The diocese then
asked the priests to go before their new parishes and disclose again.
We want to make sure that each and every parish where these
people are put know the background and have the right to refuse the priest if
they want to. Its very different and novel that the parish has the right
to say no. The decision is not just left to the bishop. Bishop [Joseph] Gerry
has said he wants the parish to be part of the decision-making process,
said Sue Bernard, communications director for the Portland diocese.
Bernard said the diocese has a zero-tolerance policy for
pedophiles, but for other cases of sexual misconduct it handles matters on an
individual case-by-case basis. Right now, the diocese is pleasing no one with
its policy, she said.
The response from the very faithful and those who have come
to love these two priests is they feel theyve already paid their dues.
They feel bad that the priest has to talk about something that has happened
more than 20 years ago and as far as we know neither priest has exhibited this
behavior again. On the other end of the spectrum, people in southern Maine who
dont know these priests feel the bishop is being far too lenient,
Bernard said.
In Lowell, Spagnolia is vowing to take his case to Rome if
necessary. He has expressed some of the bluntest public criticism of Law that
has been heard from priests in the Boston archdiocese.
The bishop is supposed to be the priests advocate but
he is giving us all away, Spagnolia said. Hes gone from
extremes, from the extreme of protecting his priests, because in protecting the
priests he is protecting the institution, to an equally wrong stance of zero
tolerance because zero tolerance as its being implemented does not
guarantee justice. It cloaks fear and arrogance in the mantle of
righteousness.
A statement put out by the Boston archdiocese notes that a
delegate of the archdiocese met separately with the victim and with Spagnolia
and determined that there was reasonable cause to believe abuse of a minor had
occurred. The statement said the actions the archdiocese took in relieving
Spagnolia of his position as pastor should not be construed as a
conviction of the accused cleric.
Fr. James Coriden, canon lawyer at Washington Theological Union,
said that the Spagnolia case raises two questions: the endangerment of a
priests reputation and his removal as pastor. Coriden noted that canon
law provides for certain procedures to be followed when a pastor is removed.
These include a legitimate inquiry, a discussion with the pastor in question,
and then a discussion with two other pastors. The pastor threatened with
removal is supposed to be given two or three opportunities to answer and
respond to accusations.
Does Coriden have concerns about the justice of turning over names
to prosecutors and the public?
Absolutely, I do. Its hard to know how much
investigation has taken place. Its virtually unheard of on the basis of
an unproven or uninvestigated allegation to turn over someones name to
the civil authorities, especially when its 30 years ago. That
doesnt seem to be fair in ordinary human terms and its certainly
not fair in canonical terms, Coriden said.
In the sixth week of a fast of reparation for the sins of the
church revealed by the pedophilia scandal, Spagnolia said public outrage over
the Boston archdioceses sheltering of pedophile priest John Geoghan, now
defrocked, followed by the establishment of new policies on sexual abuse of
minors that assume a priests guilt is affecting the entire
priesthood.
A frenzy out there
Its a frenzy out there now and priests are frightened
and they should be, Spagnolia said. Just think of what this is
doing to seminarians seeing what is going on. Why are they even thinking of
going on, given that they could be dismissed summarily without due process?
Based on an accusation, I had my parish taken away from me and I had my right
to function as a priest taken away from me just on an accusation.
Spagnolia spoke of the human costs to relationships the pedophilia
scandal in the church is causing. When I was in high school, we had a
priest in the parish who had a summer home near the Cape, and he would pile
four or five high school kids into the car and we would go down to the beach
and have a cookout and go for a swim and stay overnight and we had a wonderful
time, he said. That made a lot of us see the priest in a totally
different light and made the priesthood attractive to us and made us start
thinking of the priesthood as something we would want to do. That kind of
normal, filial connection has been severed and is certainly severed more by the
policy that is being implemented here in Boston. The times have just been so
terrible. Its making an awful lot of the human kind of contacts that we
would just do naturally become inappropriate and that is just so sad.
Sr. Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman at the Catholic bishops
conference, said she knows of no plans on the part of the bishops to come up
with a nationwide policy for handling instances of sexual misconduct with
minors. Spagnolia thinks that is a mistake.
Weve got to set some standards that are fair and just
and Christian on a national level, he said. This is what the
bishops should be discussing. Mother of God, they spent four days discussing
whether Ascension Thursday should be moved to a Sunday!
Since taking his stance, Spagnolia said hes been getting a
lot of support. My fellow priests have been calling me. Im not
trying to be a true altruist because my life is at stake here, but I also feel
what Im doing is for every priest, he said.
Margot Patterson is NCR senior writer. Her e-mail
address is mpatterson@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, March 8,
2002
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