continue at Post CrescentThe Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay says its First Amendment rights protect it from liability in a civil lawsuit filed by two childhood victims of clergy sex abuse.[....I can't believe this]
Brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield were awarded $700,000 in May by an Outagamie County Court that found the diocese committed civil fraud. The brothers claimed the diocese knew of the Rev. John Feeney’s illicit sexual history when it installed him as a priest at Freedom’s St. Nicholas Church and misrepresented him as safe while knowing he was a danger to children.
The Merryfields, then 12 and 14, were molested by Feeney in 1978. Feeney was sentenced to prison in 2004 for the assaults.
Sarah Fry Bruch, an attorney for the diocese, said the jury verdict should be overturned, arguing the court is constitutionally barred from reading any meaning into Feeney’s assignment to a pastoral role. The Merryfields didn’t show evidence the diocese represented Feeney as safe.
“Nor could they, as the assignment of a priest is a canonical act which the civil courts may not evaluate or explain,” she wrote. The First Amendment gives broad latitude to religious organizations in the conduct of their internal affairs.
.... so hypothetically, said diocese assigns a member of the KKK to an all black parish and he kills several of the parishioners. Diocese claims that civil lawsuits for their own misconduct do no apply????? I'm speechless.
8 comments:
Dear Heavens! Could the diocesan attorneys come up with anything that could look WORSE??? May the Lord have mercy on their insane little souls. It's too much to hope, I suppose, that Bishop Rickens didn't know about this or sign off on it? And I had so much hope for him. How very sad for the Church in Wisconsin. Yet another self-inflicted black eye! :(
I agree Father. Particularly with real religious liberty being attacked today, this is the worst time to make such a ludicrous claim.
Yikes. I think I can see why they need to appeal it, despite the fact that it's really, really not good policy on the PR front or possibly the moral front.
Essentially what they're saying, if I'm reading this correctly, is that the state doesn't have a right to interfere in the "ministerial exemption" of religious employers. Or, at the very least, how far the state is allowed to go in interfering must be delineated. I can see their point -- if the diocese at large is "punished," or even a precedent set that it could be, for making employment decisions in the case of a (technically, at the time) non-criminal person, it could have broader effects. At least, that's what my non-legal-eagle brain can figure out.
Personally, though, this makes me a bit queasy. The best all-around solution, IMHO, should have been to go after the individuals who made the assignment decision -- that's who should be determined to have acted with criminal negligence. As in, they suspected/knew of a crime and didn't go to the police.
That whole friend-of-a-cousin-of-the-mother thing, though, should probably not be made into an issue, though. That's a little petty.
(Brian from Illinois): We've always seen Bishop Ricken as one of the more solid Bishops in our country, especially in light of recent events. What I've heard from people who live in the G.B. Diocese is that there are some bad people in the Chancery office there. That being said, I don't understand why Bishop Ricken would agree to something like this. I'll keep praying daily for him and everyone else involved in this.
WOW!
I agree with Kat that they are aiming for the "ministerial exemption" recently affirmed by SCOTUS 9-0, and if successful could lead to the turning back of the other diocesan abuse cases (that still have time to appeal).
HOWEVER, they are playing a very dangerous game, esp. with the phrase "The Merryfields didn’t show evidence the diocese represented Feeney as safe." They are placing all bishops in the position of saying their priests are not presented to be safe and should not be assumed to be safe! That really bites into the bishops' calling to govern and sanctify (and to teach). Tough to argue that a bishop is either governing properly or sanctifying by presenting an unrecommended priest. If I were the Merryfield's, I'd file through the Church tribunals and let the bishop try to defend saying that to the Roman Rota. I've felt for a long time that the only way to get any justice in the Church these days is force the case through both law systems at the same time, so that evidence presented at either one can be submitted in the other. It would keep the bishops honest.
Overall though, this is the problem with bishops using secular lawyers for defense. Secular lawyers think from a purely legal point of view and relish the opportunity to stretch precedent with case law. They don't think with Catholic minds.
After Levada was appointed CDF prefect, it came out that one of his diocesan lawyers had defended Levada's diocesan in a seminarian paternity suit by claiming it was the woman's fault for getting pregnant since she didn't use contraception.
How long Lord, until you send us Catholic bishops?!!!
(Brian from Illinois): I caught a news blurb that opening arguments have started this morning in the G.B. Diocese's appeal. One of the reasons given for the appeal was that there may been biased comments made by one of the jurors against the Diocese during the trial. This was reported to the court by another juror after the trial was over. I'll keep praying for everyone involved in this.
Feeney was transferred 18 times in 30 years within the Green Bay Diocese. Not only did he prey on young people in each place but he returned to previous assignments to "groom"others. There are psychiatrist reports and letters from the Bishop at the time stating that Feeney was indeed a pedophile and that he had no remorse. After Green Bay finally sent him away to Las Veags (with a pension and health care) he was finally caught and sent to prison. There are probably hundreds of men in Wisconsin who have grown up with the trauma of having been sexually abused by a priest. In the 50s and 60s there was no where to turn (as the Catholic church knew and took advantage of). The diocese needs to save its money to buy legislators who will keep the statute of limitations at 35 thus denying most victims restitution. And now they want to say that the US Constitution makes their actions okay. I hope one day that all Feeney victims will write their stories and that those stories will shame Catholics into leaving the church. Until then, they are all complicit. A sexual predator is bad enough but one who is supported and hidden in the name of Christ? Hell awaits eagerly.
(Brian from Illinois): This afternoon, the judge has ordered a new trial for the G.B. Diocese based primarily on the biased comments of one of the jurors. Praying!
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