clergy abuse

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Lawsuit alleges Boston’s Cardinal O’Malley failed to prevent abuse at Catholic high school

May 25, 2023 Catholic News Agency 0
Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA / null

Denver, Colo., May 25, 2023 / 14:55 pm (CNA).

Three former students at a Massachusetts Catholic high school have filed a lawsuit against Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley and other Church leaders because of alleged abuse committed by the school’s vice principal.

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian on Monday announced that he had filed a May 5 lawsuit in Suffolk County Superior Court on behalf of three former students at Arlington Catholic High School in the northwest Boston suburb of Arlington.

The plaintiffs, who are not named in court papers, allege that former vice principal Stephen Biagioni abused them from about 2011 to 2016, the Boston Globe reported. The former students were between the ages of 15 and 17 at this time, they told reporters on Monday, according to WBUR News.

Biagioni, who became principal of Arlington Catholic High School, was placed on administrative leave in April 2016 pending the outcome of an investigation into alleged events at Sunday detention. At the time, vice principal Linda Butt said they had no reason to believe it involved allegations of sexual abuse, WCVB News reported.

The Archdiocese of Boston said that the allegations were reported to law enforcement when the high school became aware of them.

“We generally do not comment on active litigation,” Archdiocese of Boston spokesperson Terrence Donilon told CNA in a May 25 statement. “That said, we understand that certain of the allegations in this lawsuit were brought to the attention of Arlington Catholic High School in 2016 and were reported to the appropriate law enforcement and child welfare authorities at that time as part of Arlington Catholic’s ongoing commitment to provide a safe environment for young people at the school.”

“The administrator in question was subsequently removed from his position, and personnel from Arlington Catholic and the Archdiocese of Boston cooperated fully with the investigating authorities,” Donilon said.

The three have similar accounts. They said that during detention, Biagioni would wrestle students and during these incidents would force their heads up against his crotch area, including part of his genitalia. This was “explicit sexual behavior and lewd and lascivious conduct,” the lawsuit charges. The alleged victims suffer consequences including anger, flashbacks, and sleep problems.

“There is no doubt that the antennas of the Archdiocese of Boston should have been raised very high because of their history, allowing sexual abuse to occur for decades upon decades,” Garabedian said, according to the Boston Globe. “[O]ne would think by now they would have the proper safeguards in place to protect children.”

He said Church leaders should have done more to prevent abuse given their awareness of the history of abuse in Boston and because O’Malley since 2014 has held a significant role in the Catholic Church as head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

Besides O’Malley, the lawsuit was filed against Bishop Robert Deeley and Bishop Peter Uglietto as defendants as well as three other Church leaders. Biagioni, the former principal, is not named in the suit as a defendant.

Deeley, who now serves as the bishop of Portland, Maine, served as vicar general and moderator of the curia for the Boston Archdiocese from 2011 to 2014, according to his biography on the Portland Diocese’s website. Uglietto has served as the archdiocese’s vicar general and moderator for the clergy since February 2014.

The lawsuit said Church leaders have a duty to “properly supervise employees” to ensure that employees do not use their positions in the archdiocese “as a tool for grooming and assaulting vulnerable children.” It alleges that Church leaders “knew, or were negligent in not knowing” that Biagioni was a danger to the students.

The Boston Globe reported that two other plaintiffs who allege they were sexually abused by Biagioni also filed lawsuits against Church officials last year. Garabedian told the outlet that Biagioni wasn’t named a defendant in all three cases for “strategic reasons” and declined to comment further.

Garabedian has filed lawsuits on behalf of clergy abuse victims for decades. CNA sought a copy of the complaint from Garabedian’s office but did not receive a response by publication.

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Vatican expert to go to Bolivia to examine the progress being made in sex abuse prevention

May 23, 2023 Catholic News Agency 0
Vatican’s top abuse investigator Maltese archbishop Charles Scicluna (right) and fellow papal envoy Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu give a press conference at the Apostolic Nunciature in Santiago, Chile, on June 19, 2018. / Claudio Reyes/AFP via Getty Images

ACI Prensa Staff, May 23, 2023 / 15:01 pm (CNA).

In the wake of a new wave of scandals due to allegations of sexual abuse of minors committed by members of various religious orders in the country, the Bolivian Bishops’ Conference has announced that Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, an official of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, will arrive in the country to examine the progress being made in abuse prevention.

In a statement posted May 21 on their website, the bishops point out that they themselves requested that the expert priest come to the country. According to the bishops, the visit had already been in the works for three years.

The conference said that in the coming days “meetings of a reflective nature” will be held and that they will take place in “a climate of profound closeness to all those who have been victims of the scourge of abuse in the Church.”

The bishops reiterated their “firm commitment to justice” and their pastoral service to the most vulnerable.

Who is Monsignor Bertomeu?

Bertomeu works in the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Along with Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna, he was a delegate of Pope Francis to deal with cases of sexual abuse in the Church in Chile.

In February 2018, the two investigated an alleged cover-up by the former bishop of Osorno, Juan Barros, in the abuses committed by the late priest Fernando Karadima, whom the Vatican found guilty of sexual abuse in January 2011.

The results of the investigations by Bertomeu and Scicluna were delivered to the pope, who then decided to meet with all the Chilean bishops in May 2018. At the end of that meeting, the prelates of the South American country put their positions in the hands of the Holy Father.

Bertomeu and Scicluna returned to Chile in June 2018 as part of a “pastoral mission” to continue reviewing the abuse issues. Finally, some of the bishops were removed from their dioceses by Pope Francis and others were retained.

In recent years, Bertomeu has dedicated himself to giving conferences in various countries, seeking to raise awareness about the importance of abuse prevention and prompt attention to victims.

In March of this year, during a conference on “safe spaces” organized by the Venezuelan bishops, Bertomeu charged that the abuse of power is much more serious within a spiritual institution than in any other body, because it can totally destroy the person.

“You find a man, a woman of God who helps you make your vocation flourish. If that person is an aggressor, that person can completely destroy you. Therefore abuse in the Church is much more serious than in other social institutions, because the abuse is committed by someone who presents himself in the name of God. It’s the biggest perversion there can be,” he emphasized.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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