Friday, September 12, 2003
Lawyer faults local
diocese on abuse cases
Kelley case is set for trial "Insurance companies
are running the diocese'
Kathleen A. Shaw
TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
WORCESTER- Michael P. Ascher, a Springfield lawyer who is
representing an alleged victim of the Rev. Robert E. Kelley in a civil
suit against the Catholic Diocese of Worcester, yesterday accused one of
the diocesan lawyers of stonewalling on settling cases and pushing them
to trial.
Mr. Ascher said the Worcester Diocese has about 10 pending lawsuits "and
the feeling in Worcester is they can go to trial unlike Boston with its
more than 500 lawsuits."
He represents Jane Martin, who now lives in the Springfield area. She
alleges she was sexually abused by Rev. Kelley when he was assigned to
Notre Dame parish in Southbridge. The suit is scheduled to go to trial
Oct. 7 in Springfield.
Mr. Ascher singled out Joanne L. Goulka, a Stoneham lawyer. She
represents the diocese in the clergy abuse civil suits but her fees are
paid by Travelers Insurance. She did not return telephone calls made to
her office or answer an e-mail with specific questions seeking comment
on Mr. Ascher's accusations about how she is handling the cases.
He said Ms. Goulka has "harassed" medical and psychological
professionals treating Ms. Martin to the point where at least one of
them no longer wants to treat Ms. Martin because of the problems with
Ms. Goulka.
"Bishop (Daniel P.) Reilly claims he's for the victims. We don't see it
here," Mr. Ascher said.
"Worcester is a different story from Boston, where Archbishop Sean
O'Malley made a good faith effort to settle these cases," Mr. Ascher
said.
Houston lawyer Daniel J. Shea in the meantime has amended a lawsuit
brought by Claire P. Groccia of Spencer against Rev. Kelley to include
the Boston Archdiocese, along with the Worcester Diocese, as defendants.
He also is bringing into the suit a copy of the 1962 Vatican document
called Crimen Sollicitationis. He said the document, which recently
became public, shows that the Vatican instructed all bishops in the
world to keep secret certain types of sexual abuse. He called it a
"rigged system" where priests were allowed to get away with molesting
children.
Mr. Shea is adding Boston to the suit because of other information that
has recently come to light indicating that Rev. Kelley may have revealed
to the late Cardinal Humberto Medeiros in the 1970s that he had a
problem with young girls.
The cardinal did not report the activities to anyone and told Rev.
Kelley to cease being around young girls, Mr. Shea said.
DOCUMENTS CITED
A television program produced by the Arts & Entertainment network in
1992 on the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic church showed a
Massachusetts State Police document in which Rev. Kelley told a state
police officer that he had confided this information to the cardinal.
Mr. Shea also said in the court documents that one of the previous
lawsuits against Rev. Kelley was secretly settled by the diocese for
$800,000, partly to cover up Cardinal Medeiros' knowledge of Rev.
Kelley's affinity for young girls.
Mr. Ascher said Ms. Goulka has offered $20,000 to settle the suit Ms.
Martin is bringing because it is the top figure to be offered under the
state's charitable immunity law. He said the sexual abuse of Ms. Martin
was beyond the scope of the charitable work of the Catholic church.
The diocese is claiming that it had no prior knowledge of Rev. Kelley
molesting Ms. Martin, but he produced a copy of a report written in 1963
by Rev. Richard Riley before he entered seminary. Rev. Kelley's
then-pastor wrote "yes" to a question of whether the prospective
seminarian had "concerned himself with persons of the other sex in such
a way as to cause scandal, criticism or suspicion."
"OFFENSIVE, OUTRAGEOUS'
Ms. Goulka said in a memorandum filed with Worcester Superior Court that
Ms. Groccia is "motivated by bad faith."
"What she wants to do is make scandalous accusations which will reach
the attention of the public despite the fact she has no evidence backing
up her accusations."
The lawyer also accused Mr. Shea of attempting to "make offensive,
outrageous and inflammatory allegations which will also be published by
the press." She said the Crimen Sollicitationis document deals with
solicitation in the confessional and the alleged abuse of Ms. Groccia
happened in the woods and did not involve confession.
"Groccia's attempt to bring a claim against the Boston archdiocese would
be futile. Groccia has no specific memory of being sexually molested and
has made no compelling argument that the Boston Archdiocese has any
causal relationship to her alleged injuries that is legally
significant," Ms. Goulka said.
"The insurance companies are running the Worcester Diocese," Mr. Shea
said. "That's not my opinion. That's fact," he said. Monsignor Thomas
Sullivan, diocesan chancellor, stated in a recent deposition that
answers to a set of written questions posed by him were written by Ms.
Goulka and the chancellor signed them. "I believe Monsignor Sullivan,"
he said.
"I tried to tell Bishop Reilly before all this started that insurance
companies make money by not paying claims," he said. Mr. Shea said
Archbishop O'Malley has ordered that the $85 million settlement in
Boston be paid by the archbishop with intent to collect later from the
insurance companies. "That is what they should be doing in Worcester,"
he said.
Rev. Kelley, who has not functioned as a priest since 1986 but has not
been defrocked, recently pleaded guilty in Worcester Superior Court to
raping Heather Mackey of Tewksbury and Denise Gallian of Ashburnham when
they were children. He is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 1.
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