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<\/a>B<\/span>URLINGTON \u2014 Before Vermont Catholic Bishop Christopher Coyne invited questions at a recent press conference pledging cooperation with a current\u00a0local and state investigation<\/a>of past church-related misconduct, he turned to reporters with his own inquiry.<\/p>\n \u201cWant me to mike up?\u201d he asked. \u201cAny problem with the sound?\u201d<\/p>\n You’ll never miss our courts and criminal justice coverage with our weekly headlines in your inbox.<\/p>\n Longtime observers of the statewide\u00a0Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington<\/a>\u00a0couldn\u2019t believe what they were hearing. They remember the church\u2019s muzzling response regarding the late priest Michael Madden, who was charged with sexual improprieties during a 20-year career at five parishes and the local St. Joseph\u2019s Orphanage \u2014 the latter the subject of a recent\u00a0BuzzFeed story\u00a0<\/a>that sparked the new probe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In the 1980s, a county state\u2019s attorney tried to subpoena then-Bishop John Marshall, who served from 1972 to 1992, to testify in court. The diocese, citing the Bible and the U.S. Constitution, argued its leader was immune from such calls.<\/p>\n \u201cIn order for the church, its priests and bishops \u2026 to enjoy the constitutional right to freely exercise their ecclesiastical or religious functions,\u201d one of its lawyers argued, \u201cit is essential that they have independence from state authority.\u201d<\/p>\n A judge went on to rule the diocese had to provide internal information. But the church didn\u2019t comply with that demand either, prompting the state to drop multiple sexual assault charges against Madden in return for a no-contest plea on a single count of lewd and lascivious conduct.<\/p>\n The priest, spared prison with a deferred sentence, opted out of a state Corrections Department sex offender treatment program for a church-run alternative. There he told a therapist he had molested dozens of teenage boys \u2014 only to go on to violate his probation six times and, only because of that, serve two years in jail.<\/p>\n Vermont\u2019s Catholic Church is making headlines this fall by\u00a0agreeing<\/a>\u00a0to work with law enforcement,\u00a0releasing<\/a>\u00a0past child abuse victims from nondisclosure agreements and\u00a0forming<\/a>\u00a0a lay committee to review clergy misconduct files and publicly release the names of abusers \u2014 news in part because the state\u2019s largest religious denomination has a decades-long history of defying court orders and outside review.<\/p>\n The diocese has found itself back under a magnifying glass ever since the BuzzFeed\u00a0story<\/a>, titled \u201cWe Saw Nuns Kill Children: The Ghosts of St. Joseph\u2019s Catholic Orphanage,\u201d spurred authorities to reopen an investigation into the now-closed Burlington facility, which operated from 1854 to 1974.<\/p>\n Back when former orphanage residents first spoke publicly in the 1990s about what BuzzFeed sums up as \u201cunrelenting physical and psychological abuse of captive children,\u201d the diocese offered each $5,000 to waive their right to further legal action. As many as 160 pursued the deal and more than 100 accepted payment, according to news reports a quarter-century ago.<\/p>\n But that was only part of the Vermont Catholic Church\u2019s wider suppression plan. Take the instance of two women who say they were raped as teenage girls by the now deceased priest Benjamin Wysolmerski, who was transferred to eight parishes during his 35-year career.<\/p>\n \u201cHe did it while he was the teacher at the school teaching us catechism,\u201d one woman said in a 1994 court deposition. \u201cHe did it on back roads going to visit people who he was helping in the parish. He did it to me in the attic of my grandmother\u2019s home.\u201d<\/p>\n The woman said Wysolmerski eventually impregnated her and paid for an abortion. She went on to write then-Bishop Marshall, believing he already knew because the priest had showed her a letter other women had sent the diocese about the situation.<\/p>\n Instead, Marshall replied: \u201cMy study has uncovered nothing so far to corroborate your story and some rather strong evidence, which would seem to exonerate the one against whom you have made your allegation.\u201d<\/p>\n Wysolmerski, denying all claims against him, never was charged criminally. But the two women, believing the priest had victimized as many as 25 girls, filed civil lawsuits against him before settling with the diocese for undisclosed sums.<\/p>\n Burlington lawyer Jerry O\u2019Neill, a former federal prosecutor, represented the two in court. He recalls a judge ordering the diocese to share its personnel records, only to watch the church balk until it was sanctioned $5,000 and threatened with a default judgment if it didn\u2019t pay the fine and provide the files.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were absolutely unwilling to produce any of the information whatsoever,\u201d O\u2019Neill says today. \u201cI am sure that the diocese\u2019s settling in secrecy prevented the truth from getting out sooner and thereby ran the statute out on other claims.\u201d<\/p>\n The diocese was continuing to cover up past abuse when the Boston Globe revealed decades of unreported sexual allegations against clergy in the Massachusetts capital in a\u00a0Pulitzer Prize-winning 2002 series<\/a>\u00a0featured in the film \u201cSpotlight.\u201d<\/p>\n In response, the Vermont diocese said it would investigate statewide claims of misconduct, although it only would specify the number and nature of complaints as \u201ca few\u201d and said it didn\u2019t plan to give prosecutors the names of accused priests.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do have a policy in place,\u201d an aide to then-Bishop Kenneth Angell, who served from 1992 to 2005, explained to the press in 2002. \u201cWe think that it is working.\u201d<\/p>\n Then-state Attorney General Bill Sorrell disagreed and demanded the church\u2019s personnel files. That Easter, the bishop voiced \u201crenewed determination that victims will find justice and healing.\u201d But two months after the state\u2019s records request, the diocese had yet to deliver anything and said it would only provide files since 1982, knowing the majority of allegations occurred before then.<\/p>\n In the spring of 2002, Angell placed six unnamed practicing priests on leave and provided paperwork on them and 13 unidentified former clergy to the state. By summer, the attorney general\u2019s office was investigating charges against nearly 40 recent or retired clergymen. By fall, the first of what would be 40 civil lawsuits would be filed against the diocese. By winter, a county superior court judge had ordered the diocese to hand over all its clergy misconduct records since 1950.<\/p>\n A year later, however, the church had done so little the Globe published a\u00a0story<\/a>\u00a0headlined \u201cVt. Diocese Called Slow to Respond to Abuse\u201d that reported the church\u2019s flouting of court orders and failure to reconcile with victims.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re revictimizing these people,\u201d O\u2019Neill, representing all the accusers, was quoted. \u201cWe want to know what the diocese knew in relation to specific priests and whether they knew what the size of the problem was and what they did about it.\u201d<\/p>\n Assistant Attorney General Cindy Maguire told the Globe the diocese hadn\u2019t reported any of the misconduct claims to the state before the Boston scandal broke nor had it placed any of the accused priests on leave until her office announced its investigation. Ultimately the state didn\u2019t charge anyone criminally, but only because credible claims found were too old to prosecute under statutes of limitations.<\/p>\n The diocese, for its part, began to settle the first of its lawsuits.<\/p>\n \u201cI am very confident we would have won these cases in court on the basis these events are just so old and the plaintiffs waited too long to come forward, but obviously we\u2019re dealing with a new era in terms of handling these claims,\u201d one of its lawyers said at the end of 2003. \u201cWe\u2019re going to do our best to put all of these cases behind us as quickly and fairly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n The church, however, was anything but conciliatory. In one case, its lawyers sought unsuccessfully to introduce one accuser\u2019s entire sexual history, including that with his wife. In another, they argued state statute at the time of one reported aggravated sexual assault called a rape victim \u201ca female person\u201d and \u201csince plaintiff is male, his alleged rape could not have violated\u201d the law.<\/p>\n That caused many accusers to settle with the diocese.<\/p>\n \u201cBesides what happened to me, I didn\u2019t need to be revictimized by them dragging their feet and trying to wear me down,\u201d one man said upon wrapping up a case in 2004 rather than continue to wait for the church to comply with a motion holding it in contempt of court. \u201cWith the money they spent on defense, they could have settled a long time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n Making matters worse, O\u2019Neill had to file court papers to ensure the settlement after the diocese didn\u2019t pay his client as scheduled.<\/p>\n Little changed when Angell made way in 2005 for another bishop, Salvatore Matano. On the one-year anniversary of the new leader\u2019s ordination, headlines reported the diocese had yet to fully comply with a tougher sex abuse policy at the same time a court was selecting a jury for the first of a string of Vermont misconduct trials.<\/p>\n By then, a judge had ordered the attorney general\u2019s office to give O\u2019Neill most of its findings \u2014 including transcripts of interviews with people claiming priest misconduct; correspondence between the state, the diocese and clergy; and church personnel files \u2014 because, in his opinion, \u201cthe release of these materials to the plaintiff is clearly in the \u2018public interest.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The resulting 500 pages of photocopied paperwork revealed not only abuse but also the fact the diocese knew certain priests were problematic when it transferred them from one local parish to another. Not wanting that information publicized in court, the church settled the first trial case just before its April 2006 opening gavel. The sum: A record $965,000.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was much more than we wanted to pay,\u201d a church lawyer said at the time. \u201cBut we decided that it would be the best to minimize the cost.\u201d<\/p>\n In response, O\u2019Neill released the information anyway. The most incriminating came in a 1978 letter in which Bishop Marshall acknowledged the church knew now defrocked priest Edward Paquette had molested boys in two states when it assigned him to parishes in Rutland in 1972, Montpelier in 1974 and Burlington in 1976.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite the demands of two sets of irate parents that \u2018something be done about this,\u2019 Father Paquette\u2019s pastor and I are determined to take the risk of leaving him in his present assignment,\u201d Marshall wrote to a treatment center working with the priest. \u201cOur thinking is that, knowing the awareness of others, concerning his problem, Father Paquette will have reason for \u2018self-control.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Even with a torrent of negative news reports, the diocese wasn\u2019t done fighting. A month after agreeing to the nearly $1 million settlement, its lawyer called for the removal of the judge who oversaw the case from future ones. The bishop, for his part, aimed to shield the church from having to pay out too much money by placing all its local parish property in charitable trusts.<\/p>\n \u201cIn such litigious times,\u201d Matano wrote in a May 2006 letter to the state\u2019s Catholics, \u201cit would be a gross act of mismanagement if I did not do everything possible to protect our parishes and the interests of the faithful from unbridled, unjust and terribly unreasonable assault.\u201d<\/p>\n In response, O\u2019Neill charged the diocese with waging a \u201ccampaign of intimidation\u201d that was part of a \u201cpower play\u201d aimed \u201cto interfere with judicial independence.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis harsh language,\u201d the lawyer said in court papers at the time, \u201cwould seem to be intended to send a message to those who the diocese\u2019s priests sexually molested as children that their efforts through the civil justice system were an \u2018unbridled, unjust and terribly unreasonable assault\u2019 on the diocese.\u201d<\/p>\n O\u2019Neill also believed the move to shield local parish assets broke Vermont\u2019s fraudulent conveyance law.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t take property you have, transfer it and then say it\u2019s beyond the reach of your creditors,\u201d he told the press at the time. \u201cIt is a slap in the face to the victims. It\u2019s saying to them, \u2018Although we let our priests abuse you, we will not be fair and compensate you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n For its part, the national\u00a0Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests<\/a>\u00a0said the diocese should be helping rather than blaming victims.<\/p>\n \u201cYou and your brother bishops often settle cases just before top church officials are forced to disclose under oath, in open court, how much they knew and how little they did about dangerous predatory priests,\u201d then-SNAP director David Clohessy wrote Matano. \u201cWhen absolutely forced to do so by courageous victims, bishops will pay money to avoid accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n The church didn\u2019t change. Shortly after, O\u2019Neill charged the diocese with concealing nearly three decades of personnel records on George Paulin, an accused former priest in Ludlow, Newport and North Troy. At first, the church denied the files existed. A month later, after court pressure and press coverage, it announced it had found them after all.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were misfiled,\u201d a church lawyer said.<\/p>\n In the first trial in 2007, a prosecutor testified that Bishop Marshall tried to intimidate lawyers investigating charges against Alfred Willis, a onetime priest accused of abuse in Burlington, Montpelier, Milton and places out of state.<\/p>\n Recounting a 1979 meeting, a colleague of then-Chittenden County State\u2019s Attorney Mark Keller recalled Marshall saying that abuse was \u201cgravely wrong,\u201d the priest was \u201cvery remorseful\u201d and the parents involved didn\u2019t want any public action so to protect their children and the church.<\/p>\n When Marshall learned the state\u2019s attorney still wanted to pursue felony charges of lewd or lascivious conduct, Keller\u2019s colleague said the bishop\u2019s \u201cattitude changed\u201d from \u201cextremely gracious\u201d to saying \u201cthis could be viewed by the church as Mark (a Catholic who graduated from St. Michael\u2019s College and the University of Notre Dame) committing the sin of scandal.\u201d<\/p>\n (Keller went on to testify he met with church officials but couldn\u2019t remember whether Marshall was there, adding \u201cI don\u2019t recall ever hearing the term \u2018sin of scandal.\u2019\u201d)<\/p>\n The same case also featured national researcher\u00a0A.W. Richard Sipe<\/a>, who reviewed the personnel records of 102 Vermont priests accused of abuse since 1950 and found the diocese had reassigned almost 60 percent to another church, usually without reporting their sexual histories.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was handled as secretly and silently as possible,\u201d Sipe said. \u201cVictims were paid to go away. And this diocese, like many others, minimized what happened. What lay people would term a \u2018rape\u2019 would be \u2018improperly touched.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cReal intervention did not come easily and did not come early,\u201d he continued. \u201cPriests were sent for treatment only if there was danger of scandal or the problem couldn\u2019t be contained.\u201d<\/p>\n Shortly after Sipe\u2019s testimony, a bishop\u2019s aide acknowledged the church had shielded accused clergy for years by keeping allegations secret.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, we wanted to protect the priest\u2019s privacy,\u201d the aide said on the witness stand.<\/p>\n But the biggest shock came in June 2007 when a judge declared a mistrial after a church lawyer disregarded an agreement about what questions couldn\u2019t be asked in front of the jury.<\/p>\n \u201cI have never seen anyone so explicitly violate the order of the court,\u201d O\u2019Neill told the press at the time.<\/p>\n The diocese, for its part, said it disagreed with the decision, although one of its lawyers added, \u201cPerhaps now on retrial we will have a different judge with a different perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n That strategy backfired a year later when a 2008 jury ruled the diocese should pay a record $8.7 million for negligence in hiring and supervising Paquette, the priest with the most incriminating information in his file. The verdict was almost nine times the previous record $965,000 the diocese paid two years earlier.<\/p>\n A former Vatican canon lawyer went on to deem the Vermont church \u201cirresponsible\u201d and \u201cnegligent\u201d in dealing with the priest.<\/p>\n \u201cThey knew that this man had repeatedly acted out in every assignment in spite of intervention, but I didn\u2019t see any indication that either the pastors or communities were informed,\u201d said the\u00a0Rev. Thomas Doyle<\/a>, who left his position in 1986 to assist victims and co-author the book \u201cSex, Priests and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church\u2019s 2,000-Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n But that didn\u2019t stop the diocese from appealing the $8.7 million figure and subsequent verdicts of $3.6 million in December 2008 and $2.2 million in October 2009 to the Vermont Supreme Court. Its lawyers questioned everything from evidentiary rulings to whether the diocese should be subject to punitive damages because of the First Amendment\u2019s separation of church and state.<\/p>\n Everything changed in 2010. A civil court judge, facing 25 more abuse lawsuits, proposed merging a majority of them into an unprecedented joint trial. The diocese, still awaiting a Supreme Court decision and facing a winner-take-all future, announced it wanted to settle many if not all of the cases by selling its historic 32-acre Burlington headquarters overlooking Lake Champlain and its 26-acre Camp Holy Cross property along Malletts Bay in Colchester.<\/p>\n That May, the diocese agreed to drop its Supreme Court appeals and pay more than $20 million to settle almost 30 outstanding lawsuits. Three years later in 2013, the church settled a dozen more for $6.75 million to end a near-bankrupting 11-year, 40-case saga that would cost it a total of more than $30 million.<\/p>\n After, the press invited Matano to offer his opinion about the Vermont diocese\u2019s future. His office declined \u2014 in part, it said, because some outlets had published stories about church scandals on a Sunday while others had printed comments by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.<\/p>\n \u201cBased on our past experience with your articles, and other reporters and news agencies in Vermont, I have no well-founded confidence that your article will be unbiased,\u201d a bishop\u2019s aide emailed this writer in 2010. \u201cIn the future, please God, this confidence can be restored.\u201d<\/p>\n Current Bishop Coyne shattered the diocese\u2019s silence upon his arrival in 2015. He developed a different take on public relations as the Archdiocese of Boston\u2019s spokesman shortly after its 2002 abuse reports and since has served as communications chairman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and\u00a0Pope Francis\u2019 media aide<\/a>\u00a0during the pontiff\u2019s 2015 visit to New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was in Boston, one of the largest mistakes we made was that we let the lawyers drive the bus,\u201d Coyne said of the church\u2019s earlier public relations strategy. \u201cThat was not the pastoral thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Coyne, who has a social media presence that includes at least 15,000 followers on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0(@bishopcoyne) and his own website,\u00a0bishopcoyne.org<\/a>, has released more public statements about church misconduct this year than his predecessors had collectively since the start of the scandal.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m getting emails from people saying, \u2018You should close the orphanage,\u2019\u201d he said at a recent press conference. \u201cI\u2019m saying, \u2018It\u2019s been closed since 1974.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s why, for the first time, a Vermont Catholic bishop is opening up.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile I rely obviously upon legal counsel, the best way to respond to this is as a pastor,\u201d Coyne said. \u201cPastors try to talk to people. You don\u2019t want to get defensive. You don\u2019t want to make excuses. I don\u2019t know where this is going to go. I just trust in God that we\u2019ll find the truth as much as possible.\u201d<\/p>\nGet all of VTDigger’s criminal justice news.<\/h3>\n
<\/a>\u2018Prevented the truth from getting out sooner\u2019<\/h3>\n
<\/a>\u2018They\u2019re revictimizing these people\u2019<\/h3>\n
<\/a>\u2018They could have settled a long time ago\u2019<\/h3>\n
<\/a>\u2018It would be the best to minimize the cost\u2019<\/h3>\n
<\/a>\u2018Bishops will pay money to avoid accountability\u2019<\/h3>\n
\u2018Handled as secretly and silently as possible\u2019<\/h3>\n
<\/a>\u2018They knew that this man had repeatedly acted out\u2019<\/h3>\n
<\/a>\u2018I just trust in God that we\u2019ll find the truth\u2019<\/h3>\n
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