W.Va. suit: Diocese ‘knowingly employed pedophiles’
The West Virginia attorney general filed a lawsuit against a retired top bishop and the state’s only Roman Catholic diocese Tuesday, saying that they “knowingly employed pedophiles.”
The civil suit also alleges that the diocese of Wheeling-Charleston and Bishop Michael Bransfield, who was recently restricted from ministry, “failed to conduct adequate background checks” for employees of Catholic camps and schools, and that they did not disclose “the inherent danger to parents who purchased its services for their children.”
In an unusual approach to pursuing the Catholic Church over sexual abuse and misconduct, the lawsuit claims that the diocese and the bishop violated the state’s Consumer Credit and Protection Act. Criminal prosecutions of individual abuse cases have often been hampered by statutes of limitation, but the West Virginia lawsuit is a civil action and is directed at the church’s handling of the problem.
Pope Francis accepted Bransfield’s resignation in September amid allegations that the bishop had sexually harassed adults. U.S. church officials were instructed by the pope to investigate the allegations.
Earlier this month, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, who has been overseeing the church in West Virginia since Bransfield’s resignation, announced that the preliminary investigation had been completed. He said that Bransfield would be restricted from ministry in West Virginia and the archdiocese of Baltimore pending a final judgment by the Vatican.
The West Virginia attorney general, Patrick Morrisey, began an investigation in September after an explosive grand jury report on child sexual abuse in the church in neighboring Pennsylvania. The lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges that in multiple instances over several decades, the diocese put credibly accused priests back into ministry with children, or failed to conduct proper background checks on school employees. In one case, the Rev. Patrick Condron, who was employed at a diocesan school in the 1980s and later admitted to sexual misconduct against a student, was returned to ministry at an elementary school from 1998 to 2001, without parents of children at the school being informed of his history.
Morrisey said he was seeking a permanent court order to block the Catholic church from continuing such conduct, and that one goal of the lawsuit was to “dramatically increase transparency” within the church.
“We believe that every parent who paid tuition for a service that falls under consumer protection laws deserves to know the schools their children are attending are safe,” Morrisey said in a phone interview. “The church itself advertised that these children would be in a safe environment.”
In West Virginia, the office of the state attorney general does not have the authority to prosecute criminal cases, only civil ones. Morrisey did not rule out the possibility of additional criminal action by the state; he said that any evidence of criminal wrongdoing would be passed on to appropriate law enforcement officials.