Posted on 06/07/2002 6:07:04 AM PDT by maryz
JACKSON, Miss. – A day after Bernard Cardinal Law’s admission that he allowed a priest accused of child sexual abuse to remain at a parish here 30 years ago, a second Mississippi priest has been identified as an alleged molester whose activities also went unchecked by Law.
The Rev. Thomas Boyce molested children at St. Peter’s Parish in the early 1970s, lawyers handling cases against the priest and the Catholic Church said yesterday.
Boyce served alongside the Rev. George L. Broussard, another alleged abuser whom Law was warned about but did not immediately remove from St. Peter’s, the Cardinal admitted during a deposition on Wednesday, according to attendees at the sworn interrogation.
The witnesses to the deposition also said Law acknowledged having information about a second Mississippi priest accused of molestation during Law’s tenure s the vicar general, or top lieutenant in the Diocese of Natchez-Jackson.
“He was the vicar general while these things were going on,” said Anthony R. Simon, an attorney representing the family of Billy Phillips, which alleges child sexual abuse of family members at the hands both Boyce and Broussard. “It’s really shocking how (Law) was looking the other way while these two men ruined so many families and so many lives.”
During a deposition conducted by attorney Rockerick MacLeish Jr. in a case against the Archdiocese of Boston and the Rev. Paul Shanley, Law was confronted with the affidavit of Kenneth P. Morrison, a 37-year-old ex-Mississippi man who alleges he and siblings were abused repeatedly by Broussard as a boy in the early 1970s. [sic]
My father (Dr. Francis Morrisson) later indicated to me that he had discussed (the abuse) with Bernard Law,” Morrisson said in his affidavit. “However, Broussard remained at the church for many more months after the church was notified about this abusive behavior and continued to abuse me.”
Law admitted at the session that he recalled both Broussard and the Morrison family’s allegations, the Herald reported yesterday, citing witnesses at the deposition. It is the earliest indication Law looked the other way when brought information on abusers in the clergy.
Records from the Josephinium seminary in Columbus, Ohio, where Law and Broussard were ordained, show they were classmates from the late 1950s until 1961, according to a seminary spokesman. Both sought assignment to the Natchez Diocese after ordination. And according to a classmate of both men, Bill Riley of Newton, the two were “very close friends” at the seminary.
Simon, who is also co-counsel representing the Morrison family, said Law eventually transferred Broussard to a parish in Waveland, Miss., but did not tell either the parishioners there or the state’s church hierarchy of the reason.
“The kids there had no idea what Broussard had done,” Simon said. Law left Mississippi to become Bishop of Springfield-Cape Giradeau, Mo., in December 1973.
Broussard, who left the priesthood soon after his transfer and is now living in Houma, La., declined comment on the accusations.
Boyce remains in ministry at another parish in Mississippi, where the phone went unanswered last night. The Diocese of Jackson also could not be reached for comment, but the Rev. Michael Flannery told the Associated Press last week that one priest had been suspended in Mississippi this year but did not identify him.
Boyce “was very appealing to kids,” Simon said. “They thought he was cool. He’d dress in bell-bottoms and drive a Datsun 280, telling them, ‘I’m one of you.’”
Though Law acknowledged warnings about Broussard and a “second priest” at his deposition Wednesday, Simon conceded he cannot definitively say the second accused cleric recalled by Law was Boyce. But, he said: “He knew or should have known. This is Jackson, Miss. in 1972. This is—[Some sort of printing glitch in the Herald; the story stops here and is not on the Herald website.]
Anyone hear Michael Rose on Howie Carr today? He had him on for two or three segments. I wasn't home for the whole thing, but I do have it on tape. I'll listen to the whole thing and see if it seems worth transcribing.
From the letter:
Anything to do with sex was grave matter to be handled by the seminary confessor, a retired priest whose indignant voice roared through the chapel when he scolded a boy for masturbating. I don’t blame the priests on the faculty for this. They were good and dedicated people, and they gave us an excellent education in all subjects. They treated sex as everybody did then; it was not a subject for public discussion. . . .
When I was 22, I went to a big seminary for theology. . . .
This was the end of the ’60s and beginning of the ’70s, the time of the sexual revolution in segments of the popular culture when “free sex” was touted as normal, healthy and hip.
I have thought for a while (and thinking harder since the scandal started to break) that the timing of Vatican II was disastrous (literally "of a bad star") in its collision with the sex-drug-let-it-all-hang-out-do-your-own-thing revolution, and that an awful synergy resulted and is still working its way through the Church.
This guy (and I have no reason not to take his word at face value, and even allowing for a certain "gloss" that we all tend to give our own stories for public consumption) was especially ill-placed to withstand the storm. Those of us outside quite such a sheltered environment had at least a bit more of a chance to keep our equilibrium.
I think we agreed on the other thread on the need for discretion in treating one-time offenders. Would that so many our bishops had not shown themselves incapable of exercising any honorable kind of discretion. Another tragedy -- like the idiot judges in the criminal courts, who roused such outrage among the citizenry with their hair-brained decisions that legislatures took sentencing into their own hands, so that the judges actually capable of just judgment are as hog-tied as the zanies.
I'M SO MAD!!! I missed it!I had 96.9 on default (Imus, Bill O) and therefore, I had Jay Severin on and not Howie Carr. And he doesn't have a rebroadcast at all. I'm getting sick of being a day late and a dollar short.
I'll try to transcribe it tomorrow or Sunday and post it. The high point I remember is the guy who called in about a friend of his who was at St. John's, I think in the 70s(?). He and the other nine straights were so harrassed by the gays that they left. At one point the guy's friend complained to whoever was in charge, who told him he would have to get used to a "new vision of the priesthood."
My parish took a collection up a few weeks ago for the MA seminaries (no, I did not contribute) and my priest said that he knows the priest in charge at St. John's and he is a good guy - but, since my priest has never addressed the crisis as one stemming from disobedience to Rome or a problem of homosexuality in the seminaries, they'll have to do without my $$$. I hear St. John's has been cleaned up, but who knows.
BTW, you would get a kick out of this website: "Fr. Bob Carr's blogspot" - his columns are pretty good, and then click on "the e-cathedral" and read "the lady in the pew" columns - especially the ones about women in the church and her take on VOTF.
Addressing your comment on the post to which I am responding,did you ever read Thomas Sowell's book, "A Conflict of Visions"? It is a wonderful read and the beginning of my own development of a workable sorting process.
After I read it it became clear to me that within the Church in America we had two factions with two visions. I used to write letters to the editor of the diocesan newspaper and to clearly differentiate I took to calling one faction,members of the Catholic Church and the other faction,members of the "Church of the New and Different Vision".
The paper was in the possession of the Church of the New and Different Vision,and did not print but one of my letters.
Sounds like you were lucky to get even one printed! Somebody must have been napping.
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