Saturday, August 06, 2005
EMAIL FROM LEE PENN
This hits me close to home ... the victim, Fr. James Chevedden, was a Jesuit priest who occasionally served the Divine Liturgy at my Russian Catholic parish. He had been mentally frail for a long time, and killed himself last spring. Now, as shown in this story, there are allegations that he was molested by a known sex offender-priest among his fellow Jesuits - and the Jesuits would not move him away from the perp.
MercuryNews.com | 08/05/2005 | Suit claims sexual abuse of priest in Los Gatos
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/12309408.htm
Lord, cleanse Thy temple!
Lee
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Posted on Fri, Aug. 05, 2005
Suit claims sexual abuse of priest in Los Gatos
CLERIC WHO KILLED SELF ALLEGEDLY WAS ATTACKED
By Brandon Bailey
Mercury News
The family of a Jesuit priest who committed suicide last year has filed a wrongful death lawsuit claiming that his religious superiors failed to protect him from sexual abuse at a Los Gatos residential center for retired clergy.
Jesuit officials have denied the allegations in the suit. But the case raises echoes of a scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic religious order three years ago, when the Jesuits paid $7.5 million to settle a lawsuit by two developmentally disabled men who were molested by two members of the order while living at the same facility.
Now the family of the late Rev. James Chevedden says that one of the same molesters groped Chevedden's genitals while he was in a wheelchair recovering from an earlier suicide attempt.
``They didn't protect this guy,'' said Robert L. Mezzetti II, a San Jose attorney who represents Chevedden's family. ``They put an invalid who had mental and emotional problems in the custody and care of a sex offender.''
The order's top official for California, the Rev. Thomas Smolich, refused to discuss the lawsuit's specific allegations. While expressing sympathy for Chevedden's family, Smolich called the lawsuit ``groundless and without merit.''
``Jim's death is a loss for his family and for the Society of Jesus,'' Smolich said, using the religious order's formal name. ``We hope to resolve this in a fair and just way, as soon as possible.''
In recent years, several clergymen with histories of sexual misconduct have been housed at the Jesuit's Sacred Heart retirement center, which sits high on a ridge overlooking Los Gatos. Jesuit officials say they consider the center a safe place to house members who should not interact with society, but who have committed themselves to the religious order for life.
Smolich declined to say how many of the center's current population, which numbers about 70 priests and brothers, fall in that category.
Some of the elderly men at the center have mental or physical infirmities. Since a national scandal erupted over clergy sexual abuse in 2002, Smolich said his order has taken numerous steps, including consulting with an outside risk-management expert, to ensure that other residents are safe from any offenders who live at the center.
That wasn't enough to protect Chevedden, according to the suit filed May 17 by Mezzetti and two other attorneys who also represented the retarded men in the earlier case.
Chevedden leaped from the sixth floor of a parking garage on Hedding Street, across from the county's Hall of Justice, on May 19, 2004 -- his 56th birthday. He had spent the day on jury duty. A coroner's investigation concluded the death was suicide, based on his history of depression and a previous attempt.
According to the lawsuit, James Chevedden came to the Los Gatos center in 1998 after serving more than 20 years as a priest in Taiwan. The suit says he had suffered a mental breakdown in 1995, followed by hospitalization and psychiatric treatment. In 1998, Chevedden fractured both feet when he attempted suicide by jumping from a third-floor scaffolding at the center.
Go to the website to read the rest of the story.
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UPDATE FROM LEE PENN
Here are more details about Fr. James and his ordeal amongst his brother Jesuits.
Los Angeles Times: Behind a Priest's Suicide
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-chevedden6aug06,0,3735851,print.story
The story is long. Here are the key quotes:
---------------------------------
"Behind a Priest's Suicide
Father Chevedden 's family says his reports of sexual abuse by a fellow Jesuit were brushed aside. The church cites his mental problems.
By Glenn F. Bunting
Times Staff Writer
August 6, 2005"
After Fr. James' suicide attempt in 1998, here is what happened ... I have added bolding for emphasis.
"After surgery, Chevedden was transferred to the infirmary at Sacred Heart. Confined to a wheelchair with casts on both feet, he was escorted around the retreat on many days by a fellow Jesuit, Brother Charles Leonard Connor.
During this recovery period, Chevedden said, Connor sexually molested and physically abused him. The alleged misconduct is described in reports that Chevedden submitted to Jesuit superiors, in notes of counseling sessions with his psychiatrist and in private e-mails to family members.
Chevedden said Connor occasionally massaged his shoulders. One day, after Connor had pushed Chevedden in his wheelchair to a third-floor computer room, the brother allegedly placed one hand inside the priest's pajama bottoms and touched his penis.
Chevedden told family members that he was taken aback by Connor's actions and resisted any further advances. Days later, Chevedden alleged, Connor retaliated by ramming his wheelchair into a barrier, causing excruciating pain to both feet.
"I judge these acts of Brother Connor to be particularly cruel, because I was so vulnerable at the time," Chevedden wrote.
Connor, now 84, has denied the accusations.
Chevedden did not immediately report Connor's alleged improprieties to Jesuit superiors, because he was embarrassed and did not think they would believe him, he later told relatives and his psychiatrist.
At the time, Chevedden had no way of knowing that Jesuit leaders had received complaints dating to 1995 alleging that Connor had sexually assaulted a mentally disabled dishwasher at the Sacred Heart facility. The Jesuits did not refer the matter to authorities. Acting on a tip in June 2000, police executed a search warrant at Sacred Heart and found internal memos incriminating Connor in the abuse.
At the insistence of authorities, the Jesuits transferred Connor away from his victim at Sacred Heart.
He was convicted of a felony sex crime in 2001 and ordered to serve six months of home detention, register as a lifetime sex offender and refrain from any contact with mentally disabled adults or minors.
In March 2002, The Times reported that the Jesuits had concealed the initial sexual abuse allegations against Connor from law enforcement.
Throughout the summer, the Jesuits negotiated a $7.5-million settlement with the dishwasher and another mentally disabled victim, both in their 50s, who said they had been sodomized and sexually assaulted by Connor and another elderly Jesuit at Sacred Heart.
It was during this period that Chevedden complained about Connor to his superiors.
"But when I found that they seemed to take no notice of it, I put a statement in writing," Chevedden said in a June 27, 2002, e-mail to his family. "Now I believe that they will investigate the matter."
Jesuit leaders sought to quietly resolve Chevedden's complaints, internal records show. Smolich, who oversees one of 10 Jesuit provinces in the U.S. and reports directly to Rome, arranged to meet privately with Chevedden and Connor "to get this squared away person to person," he wrote on Sept. 10, 2002.
"I am somewhat nervous about this meeting," Chevedden told family members in an e-mail. "But I will just present the truth of my two accusations. Please pray for me."
The session proved a disappointment to Chevedden.
"Brother Connor not only said he did not remember the two incidents, he categorically denied the accusations," Chevedden wrote. "I was unhappy that Father Smolich, while trying to appear even-handed, sided more with Brother Connor."
Smolich said Chevedden's allegations "were investigated and could not be proven credible. Both incidents took place in public, there were no actions of overt sexual behavior and there was no suggestion that either incident was a prelude to additional inappropriate activity."
and
"But a San Francisco psychiatrist, whom the Jesuits paid to treat Chevedden, said he is convinced that the priest told the truth about Connor.
"He had paranoid delusions," said Maloof, 65, who considers himself an orthodox Catholic and counseled Chevedden for two years before his death. "But I have no doubt that Father Chevedden was accurate in what he described. He was very precise in detailing and documenting what transpired."
Maloof has practiced psychiatry for more than three decades and is president of the San Francisco Guild of the Catholic Medical Assn., an organization of doctors devoted to preserving the principles of their faith in the practice of medicine. He said he met at Smolich's request with Chevedden and Martin, the superior at Sacred Heart, on Sept. 26, 2002, at the Jesuits' Loyola House in San Francisco.
According to Maloof's notes, Martin conceded that Connor may have had a memory lapse about the alleged molestation.
"Father Martin just laid it out, [saying], 'We're in this together. We don't want any more lawsuits. So, we've got to work something out here,' " Maloof recalled in an interview.
The purpose of the meeting, according to the psychiatrist, was to keep the allegations from becoming public. He said Jesuit leaders appeared far more interested in "exerting damage control" than in caring for his client.
"They didn't want another case involving Brother Connor," Maloof said. "They were determined to quash any further disclosures of abuse."
and
"Chevedden's allegations would not have come to light if "he had not jumped off that building," said Robert L. Mezzetti II, a San Jose attorney who represents the priest's family and helped negotiate the settlement for Connor's mentally disabled victims.
"The Jesuits keep saying that they've learned their lesson, and they keep apologizing," Mezzetti said, "but they don't change their ways."
and
"After the Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal erupted in 2002, at least five Jesuit members of the California Province who had been convicted of sex crimes or accused of molesting minors were transferred to the Sacred Heart facility. The picturesque retreat in the Santa Cruz Mountains provides a haven and support for Jesuit sex offenders.
The reassignments meant that Brother Connor, who had been sent away from Sacred Heart in 2000, and Father Chevedden would once again share the same residence — an arrangement that the priest's psychiatrist said he warned Jesuit leaders was a big mistake.
"I told them from my experience [that] to put a victim and a perpetrator together in a very loose environment is completely unsupportable," Maloof said."
and
""He didn't mind being at Sacred Heart," Maloof said. "He just couldn't stand being with the sex molesters, especially Brother Connor."
Jesuit superiors said they kept Chevedden at Sacred Heart because the residence was best suited for him.
"None of the communities he requested were able to provide the necessary level of support and supervision for a man with significant mental health issues," Smolich said.
Relatives contend that Jesuit leaders have exploited Chevedden's sickness in an effort to sidestep any responsibility for his death.
"The Jesuits have disseminated half a story, while burying the other half," Paul Chevedden said. "They are engaged in a campaign of cover-up and spin that places all the blame on Jim."
Same song, 20th verse.
Martyrs of Uganda, pray for us!
Uganda Martyrs
http://www.buganda.com/martyrs.htm
Lee
