Sex Abuse
Crisis National crisis draws attention to local abuse cases
By ARTHUR JONES
Nationwide the glare of publicity on clergy sexual abuse is
revealing more cases -- not all of them being successfully prosecuted. In San
Francisco the state Superior Court dismissed 224 molestation counts against
Msgr. Patrick OShea due to what County Prosecutor Linda Klee a
hypertechnical interpretation of the law.
A spokesperson for the prosecutor told NCR the decision
will be appealed, and if any other complaints against OShea emerge those
will be prosecuted.
In brief, since 1995 the state has been trying to prosecute
OShea, 67, for molesting nine boys in the 1960s and 1970s. To make this
and similar prosecutions possible, the California State legislature approved a
ruling in 1994 allowing cases to go forward even when the six-year statute of
limitations had expired.
Two years later the state appeals court ruled the law could not be
applied retroactively and dismissed the case.
State legislators agreed on a new law taking the appeals court
decision into account, and San Francisco County prosecutors returned to their
case. Now the state Superior Court has stopped the case from proceeding because
the appeals court has already dismissed the charges.
In March 1994 San Francisco police notified the archdiocese that
OShea was under investigation for child sexual abuse. The complaints, an
archdiocesan spokesperson told NCR, covered a period from the early
1960s to the late 1980s.
OShea was removed as pastor and placed on administrative
leave. The archdiocese issued a news release detailing the events, and
Archbishop John R. Quinn (now retired) sent a Palm Sunday letter to be read at
parishes where OShea had served. Quinn himself read the letter at
OSheas last parish when he encouraged other victims to come
forward.
At the conclusion of their investigation, police charged
OShea with felony child abuse. Currently his lawyers are seeking his
release from jail where hes held in lieu of $5 million bail. He is on
inactive status as a priest and not allowed to resume ministry.
In the Gaylord, Mich., diocese, Bishop Patrick Cooney is defending
Fr. Gerald Shirilla -- who was ousted from the Detroit archdiocese on
molestation charges, and whom Cooney has made a Gaylord pastor.
The bishop told the Detroit Free Press earlier this month,
I believe Father Shirilla made some errors in judgment.
The accusations have a strange history. It was Cooney who, in
1993, originally blew the whistle on Shirilla in Detroit. The Free Press
stated that a parishioner on her sickbed allegedly alerted Cooney, then a
Detroit auxiliary bishop, to the fact that Shirilla had molested the
familys three sons. Detroit archdiocesan officials found credible
evidence of molestations, and in 1994 Shirilla was told -- according to the
paper -- there was no place for him in ministry within the
church.
Last August, Cooney named Shirilla pastor of St. Marys
Church, Alpena, Mich. In the 1993 depositions, Shirilla admitted giving
massages to boys in the church rectory bedroom while they were in their
underwear. He said he had no insight into the fact that the conduct
might be inappropriate or harmful.
The charges were dismissed due to statute of limitations.
In a criminal case in the Santa Rosa, Calif., diocese, a
38-year-old woman has alleged she was raped in 1977 when she was 14 by then-Fr.
Donald Wren Kimball behind the altar at Resurrection Church. She claims that
sexual encounters continued and when she became pregnant, Kimball arranged for
an abortion. The dioceses attorney confirmed to NCR that $120,000
has been paid to the woman for counseling for her and her family.
Arthur Jones is NCR editor at large. His e-mail address
is ajones96@aol.com
National Catholic Reporter, March 29,
2002
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