JOHN CHADWICK
Peter J. Osinski was finishing up his priestly training at St. Paul's Church in Clifton when he and the pastor, the Rev. Frank Rodimer, became friends.
The two, who met in the late Sixties, would go on to bigger and better things. Rodimer became the bishop of the Diocese of Paterson and Osinski became a priest in the Diocese of Camden.
"He had a great interest in pastoral ministry, and he was very successful at that," Rodimer said Wednesday.
The men stayed friends, meeting for two weeks at vacation homes at the Jersey shore almost every summer from the early Seventies until 1996. That friendship now has become an embarrassment to Rodimer, amid revelations that Osinski molested a young boy at the house.
Osinski is serving a 10-year prison sentence for abusing the boy, and Rodimer settled a lawsuit accusing him of negligence in not noticing the abuse.
In an interview Wednesday, Rodimer said he was shocked to learn of Osinski's actions and insisted he knew nothing about them.
"Something was going on under the roof that was horrendous," said Rodimer, who became the bishop in 1977. "And I didn't know what was going on." He described the summers with Osinski as almost a spiritual retreat.
"We prayed together every day, we said Mass together, and we talked about our pastoral experiences," he said.
Rodimer has declined to say how much the diocese had to pay to settle the lawsuit.
The suit attracted little notice when it was filed in Ocean County in 1998. But the episode is one of many stories coming to light amid the national sex abuse scandal involving the Catholic Church.
In court documents and interviews, a picture emerges of a disturbed priest and an unknowing bishop. The abuse took place between 1984 and 1996, both at the victim's home and at a vacation spot on Long Beach Island. In a deposition, Osinski said that on four or five occasions, Rodimer "was in his room asleep" while Osinski was in his own room having sexual contact with the boy.
Osinski also said Rodimer's room was down the hall from his own. But Osinski insisted during the deposition that Rodimer didn't know what was going on. The only times Rodimer may have witnessed Osinski and the victim physically close was when the two greeted each other with a hug, he said. One night - sometime in the mid-Nineties -Ÿ Rodimer, Osinski, and the victim went to see the movie "Sister Act." The victim told authorities that Osinski abused him after they returned home from the movie.
Rodimer said Wednesday he can't discuss any details because he and the other parties to the lawsuit are bound by confidentiality agreements. Still, he said the continued publicity is troubling.
"I hate the implications of this,'' he said. "There is nothing wrong with priests having friends and going on vacation."
Attorney Ken Mullaney, who represents the diocese, said Rodimer's settling of the case should not be construed as an admission of liability. And Mullaney said Rodimer cooperated with authorities. He released to The Record a form letter written in July 1998 from the Ocean County prosecutor's office thanking the bishop for his help and cooperation.
Neither Mullaney nor the victim's lawyer, Stephen Rubino, would discuss details of the case.
http://www.northjersey.com/cgi-bin/page.pl?id=3250450
JOHN CHADWICK
Bishop Frank J. Rodimer of the Diocese of Paterson said he never knew his friend and colleague, the Rev. Peter Osinski, was abusing a boy while the two clerics shared a summer home.
For some, Rodimer's failure to recognize what was happening under his own roof suggests a troubling disconnect, emblematic of the sexual abuse scandal roiling the Catholic church.
"The point is, there is a built-in denial system in the clerical system, especially about sex,'' said A.ŸW. Richard Sipe, a former priest and psychotherapist who has treated both victims and abuser priests. "It's not seen. It's not commented on. It's denied.''
Yet other experts, speaking in general terms, said it's reasonable the bishop knew nothing because child abuse is carried out in countless households unbeknown to spouses and siblings.
Dr. Fred Berlin, a psychiatrist who founded the sexual disorders clinic at Johns Hopkins University, said society as a whole has been slow to recognize the warning signs of sexual abuse against boys.
"For years, people did not think boys would be the victims of sexual abuse; it was girls who needed protection,'' Berlin said. "Now we have learned very sadly that boys needed the protection. But that kind of appreciation has only come to a head in more recent years.''
Rodimer and Osinski shared vacation homes at the New Jersey shore from the early 1970s to 1997, the year Osinski was arrested for molesting a boy over a period of 12 years. Osinski, a priest in the Diocese of Camden, pleaded guilty and is serving a 10-year prison term.
Rodimer said he knew nothing about the abuse, and said he was horrified to learn the truth.
In a deposition, Osinski said he engaged in sexual contact with the boy four or five times in a Long Beach Island home while Rodimer was asleep in his room down the hall.
One victims' advocate, speaking in general terms, expressed skepticism that such abuse could go unnoticed.
"In deposition after deposition, we have seen dozens if not hundreds of priests say things like 'it seemed odd,' or 'it troubled me,' or 'I wondered if something happened,'Ÿ" said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.
Still, both Osinski and the victim told authorities Rodimer had no knowledge of their relationship, and never asked about it. Osinski said he didn't need to explain the boy's presence to Rodimer, because the boy's family also visited the summer home as overnight guests. The parents gave their permission for the boy to stay on after they left.
In a suit filed against Rodimer, however, Stephen Rubino, the lawyer for the victim, says the bishop's experience at handling sex abuse cases within the diocese should have enabled him to recognize that Osinski was "grooming'' the boy for a sexual relationship.
For Rodimer, the lessons of the Osinski case seemed evident in a sworn statement he gave a year after Osinski was sentenced.
In a deposition for another sex abuse case, Rodimer expressed distaste after learning how one of his priests became unusually close with a student.
The student alleged abuse and the priest was removed from his teaching assignment.
"It's more obvious today than it ever was," he said, "that this is not a good relationship between a priest faculty member or |any faculty member, and a student.''
Staff Writer John Chadwick's e-mail address is chadwick@northjersey.com
I don't buy this. How could he have a devotion to prayer and the Mass, while sodomizing a boy in his spare time?