New church shocker: Diocese ignoring abuse allegations

Altoona-Johnstown [PA] Roman Catholic Diocese officials know of sex abuse accusations against four previously unidentified priests, but have not taken the steps required by the church’s national zero-tolerance policy.

Those who brought the information to Bishop Joseph Adamec say they were rebuffed and that nothing has been done. They are now demanding Adamec step down. Two of the accused priests were stationed at Johnstown’s Catholic high school – one as principal, and the other as music director and director of a boys and girls’ camp.

One of the accused priests now holds a leadership position in the diocese, and two are pastors in diocese churches.

The four priests are in addition to 10 other accused priests identified in the 1994 sex abuse trial of now-defrocked Francis Luddy.

The new claims against the bishop follow on the heels of this month’s filing of another lawsuit against the diocese.

It accuses Adamec and former Bishop James J. Hogan of covering up sexual abuse by priests, transferring offending priests from church to church and lying to area congregations.

The diocese also is keeping the new accusations a secret from area prosecutors, despite Adamec’s repeated promises of cooperation with district attorneys in the eight counties of the diocese. David Gorman, Blair County’s district attorney, terms the bishop’s reticence “disappointing” and says it is wrong to keep prosecutors in the dark.

Adamec, while several times refusing through a diocese spokeswoman to answer specific questions posed by The Tribune-Democrat, maintains he is handling all complaints in an appropriate manner, and that past incidents are not public information.

“The fact that we do not issue a statement for the newspapers about each case does not mean that no action takes place,” he said in a written statement.

Attorneys for victims disagree, saying Adamec continues the diocese’s long pattern of protecting known sex abusers who serve as priests.

One set of abuse allegations involves all three sons of a Johnstown area couple, while a priest was an honored guest in the home and frequently ate at the family’s table.

Those who brought the information to Adamec say they now believe they must go public so others will not be victimized.

The accusations: That the Rev. James Bunn, a Johnstown priest who befriended a devout Catholic Johnstown couple, sexually abused their son. He later served as principal at Bishop McCort High School, but was transferred, ending up as pastor of St. Joan of Arc Church in Fallentimber.

That the Rev. Martin McCamley made a young boy sleep in the same bed with him during a field trip, saying he had not paid for the other bed in the motel room. McCamley is the former music program director at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown and is now pastor of Our Lady of Victory Church in State College. In his leadership role, McCamley serves on the diocese’s Presbyterial Council and is vicar of the Northern Deanery, one of eight in the diocese.

That the Rev. Robert J. Kelly molested an altar boy. He was sent to a treatment center, then back to parishes, ending up as pastor of SS. Peter and Paul Church in Philipsburg.

That the Rev. Bernard V. Grattan, now in residence at Sacred Heart Church, Conemaugh, and a former hospital chaplain who last year was abruptly placed on leave after a patient complained, committed inappropriate sexual conduct.

‘Under watch’ Adamec told those who brought him the allegations last summer that he has had both Kelly and Grattan “under watch” and has said, both in court and in conversations with accusers, that his practice is to keep an eye on accused priests.

But he did not remove them from contact with children or inform new congregations, and he told the accusers in a June 26 letter obtained by The Tribune-Democrat that, “Whatever cases there are, I have handled appropriately.”

And at no time did Adamec report the accusations to prosecutors, as he promised to do after June’s national U.S. bishops’ conference, when the zero-tolerance policy was adopted in response to the national sex scandal.

“If there are new accusations, but of old occurrences, we would definitely expect to be told of that,” said Gorman, the Blair County district attorney.

“Even if the statute of limitations were up, the name of the priest could come up again in connection with a different case, or a different victim,” Gorman said in a telephone interview from his Hollidaysburg office.

Other prosecutors in the diocese designated Gorman to handle priest abuse claims because the diocese is headquartered in Blair County.

“If there’s information, any information, we expect it to be turned over. That was the agreement,” he said.

“I’m very much disappointed to learn that that isn’t the case,” he said.

Also disappointed are conservative lay Catholics who gathered information in hopes of spurring the diocese to clean its own house.

Disturbed at the national scandals, and aware of the Luddy case and its painful revelations of sex abuse and cover-ups in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese, the laymen spent months urging victims to come forward.

“All of this information came to me and to several other Catholics. At the time it was so horrifying that many wanted to go public right away,” said George Foster, head of the Lay Stewardship Foundation in Altoona and an outspoken critic of the bishop. “I said that I thought it was important that we make another run at the diocese, and give the bishop every opportunity to get this corrected,” he said.

Foster and a colleague met with the bishop June 21, less than a week after the national bishops’ conference in Dallas, where tough measures were adopted.

Foster was disappointed a few days later, when they were rebuffed by a letter from Adamec, saying that, “Whatever cases there are, I have handled (them) appropriately.”

But the priests were not removed from their ministries and instead remained in positions of trust, where further abuse would be possible, Foster said.

All the while, they heard and read Adamec’s statements that he would go after older priests accused of molesting children and would report allegations to prosecutors.

Now, months later, and after seeing aggressive action in other dioceses locally and nationally, Foster and his colleagues are convinced the Altoona-Johnstown diocese is more interested in covering up than in doing right by victims.

So now they are ready to disclose their information, and they want Adamec to resign.

Adamec has declined requests for an interview with The Tribune-Democrat, and declined to answer 12 written questions submitted by a reporter in September about how the diocese has handled sex abuse accusations.

Contacted three weeks ago about new allegations against four priests, Sister Mary Parks, secretary of communications for the diocese, issued a three-paragraph statement saying that it is difficult to substantiate allegations of old events.

By early this month, the bishop had held one meeting with accusing family members. Johnstown attorney Caram J. Abood represents the complaining family, who wish to remain anonymous to protect the identity of their sons. Abood confirmed that the father and one son met with the bishop. “We were not entirely satisfied, and not entirely dissatisfied,” Abood said in a telephone interview. “We now want to go before the lay review board, because that’s what the procedure calls for.”

Abood said that just because the accusations involve old incidents, it doesn’t mean they aren’t valid.

“Why would they come forward now? Everyone understands that Catholics over the past 20 years have become more outspoken. They didn’t want to sue, but they want things known. Mostly, they want to be certain that the diocese prevents this from happening again,” he said.

“There’s nothing wrong with that, and in fact, there’s everything right about that.”

“I have no comment. The diocese has a regular procedure, and I have no objections to going through any of that, including a lay panel review,” he said.

Foster said he is not surprised that little action has taken place since he brought the accusations to the bishop in June. After the meeting that day, he said he documented the meeting by writing a three-page summary to Adamec and asking for any corrections.

Adamec wrote a one-page reply on June 26, correcting two minor points and saying that controversy in the diocese is caused by outside forces with “political purposes.”

“Boy, was I ever naive. I thought the diocese truly wanted to address the issue of sex abuse. They don’t,” said Foster during an interview in his Altoona office.

“The cases that I brought to the bishop met all the criteria he himself set forward – the time, place, what happened, the victim and priest named, etc.

“But nothing has been addressed. They don’t want victims to come forward. They don’t want to solve the problem,” he said. “The bishop is trying to hide everything. He has no intentions of fixing it. You tell him of a situation, and he’ll say ‘What do you want?’ You tell him of an accusation, and he’ll say, ‘That priest’s retired now.’ That’s not a solution,” Foster said.

The information Foster took to Adamec involved four priests. “We presented actual testimony for these victim’s cases, which met your criteria (stated by the bishop after the national conference), but now you say they were not credible enough to require the removal of priests,” Foster wrote to the bishop. Foster said Adamec was aware of abuse allegations against one priest, but he still reassigned him to other parishes.

“You said it was not because you were trying to hide anything,” Foster wrote to the bishop. “Interesting, that was exactly Bishop (James ) Hogan’s testimony years ago. This practice of moving priests is unacceptable, no matter what the reason.

“I must restate these victims see little hope when they know you are aware of other cases, yet the priest remains in active service,” he wrote.

Foster in his letter also took Adamec to task for tolerating overtly homosexual behavior by some priests, and the diocese’s practice of sending them to rehabilitation centers only to have the same priests later abuse young boys.

“History and medical studies have indicated active homosexual priests have been a high risk to children. We have a number of other priests who have also been active homosexuals, and this only exacerbates our concern,” Foster wrote.

In July, Foster wrote to those who had come to him for help, saying he had failed. “We have several priests who have been practicing homosexuals for many years. Some of these men have digressed to molesting children. The overall numbers of homosexual priests is approaching 20, with almost 10 accused as child molesters,” he wrote.

“The bishop has been aware of these men for many years and has allowed this atmosphere to grow. I truly believe he is too involved with the cover-ups to end this crisis,” he wrote. Foster posed three options to his fellow conservative Catholic lay persons:

The bishop moves quickly to remove the four priests Foster reported, the bishop resigns or the accusations are made public. Today, with the bishop not acting on the accusations, the conservative Catholics are choosing options two and three.

They want Adamec out and a new bishop put in. And, they have a Web site under construction, www.diocese.aj., which will present specific information about specific priests, said Foster. Tomorrow: Just as damaging as sex abuse claims are the church’s policies of hushing it up.

The Tribune Democrat, 2/23/03, PAGE A6

Attorney sees pattern of cover-ups

Accused pastor promoted by bishop

by Susan Evans The Tribune Democrat

Bishop Joseph Adamec has consistently maintained that sex abuse by priests, and transfers instead of prosecutions, did not occur on his watch.

The incidents, including the sex abuse committed by now-defrocked Francis Luddy, took place before Adamec took over the helm of Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese in 1987, he has said.

But new information has surfaced about allegations against a State College priest in 1993, five years into Adamec's tenure.

In a deposition taken in 1993, in preparation for the 1994 abuse trial of Luddy, Adamec admits to sending the Rev. Robert Kelly for weeks of psychiatric treatment after parents complained Kelly fondled their son.

But after the treatment, Adamec assigned the priest again to a ministry, asking a monsignor to monitor the suspect priest and "to keep an eye on him."

And later, with allegations still surfacing, the bishop promoted Kelly to pastor in Phillipsburg, where he is still listed as pastor.

In June, Kelly was one of four priests that George Foster, president of the Lay Stewardship Foundation, a conservative Catholic group, named to the bishop as being an accused sex abuser. Foster therefore said Kelly should be treated in accordance with national guidelines and suspended while investigated.

Now, disillusioned that the bishop has not acted after six months, Foster is going public with his accusations.

The victim's parents did not come forward at the time of the alleged abuse because they did not want their son to suffer embarrassment or be identified, Foster said.

Adamec's 1993 deposition, obtained by The Tribune Democrat, gives much the same information, but with a different spin.

Kelly did not return a telephone call seeking comment, and Adamec has refused comment on specific clerics, saying through a diocese spokeswoman that he is handling all complaints as he believes he should.

In the deposition, Adamec said that a boy had contacted him and described "inappropriate touching."

"It was putting of hands down his front and patting his stomach, under his shirt, I presume," Adamec said.

He told the attorneys that the incident "was supposedly somewhere in, I don't know, if it was a park or what, they went for a ride and got out of the car. It was outdoors," Adamec said.

The boy said that the same type of touching occurred with other boys, Adamec said in his deposition.

"He didn't really provide any other information except that Father Kelly was a frequent visitor at their home and so his parents knew him and respected him," Adamec said.

The bishop said Kelly "denied it absolutely."

Adamec said in his deposition that he didn't believe there was enough to substantiate the allegations.

But he wanted the priest to get help.

"And I felt that there wasn't enough to substantiate, but at the time being that the alleged victim was a distance from the area, and the seriousness of the allegation, I asked father to undergo an evaluation. It was done at an inpatient institution as well as an outpatient psychiatrist," the bishop said.

Adamec told attorneys that Kelly was in an institution "for weeks" and then returned to being parochial vicar at Our Lady of Victory Parish in State College.

The bishop told the pastor of the church, a monsignor, about the allegations against Kelly and about Kelly's stay at the institution.

He asked the monsignor to monitor the priest when he returned.

"I asked him to keep an eye open, yes, if that is monitor."

Richard Serbin, the Altoona attorney who filed the Luddy Lawsuit in 1993 and who filed a new suit this month, said the Kelly incident fits what he says is a pattern of cover-ups and transfers in the diocese.

Serbin's new lawsuit is filed on behalf of three men who say they were abused by Luddy and Msgr. Francis McCaa, the former pastor of Holy Name Church in Ebensburg.

Kelly is named in the new lawsuit as one of nine other "predator priests" in the diocese, which hushed allegations against them, the lawsuit says.

Continued:

The Tribune Democrat, 2/23/03, PAGE A6

Three sons abused by two priests, Parents say

by Susan Evans

A Johnstown area couple is claiming that their three sons were all molested
through the years by two different priests - both of whom also worked at the
city's Roman Catholic high school.

In an interview with the Tribune Democrat, the parents charge that the
Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese, and Bishop Joseph Adamec, knew of
the sex abuse but did not remove the priests from active ministerial duties.

They say they were doubly violated because one priest molested their sons
while they were students in his high school music program.

The other priest, they say, abused their other son while a guest in their
home, eating at their table.

Against the backdrop of the national sex scandal in the Church, and what
they say is the Altoona-Johnstown diocese's lack of action, they are now
speaking out.

One priest, the Rev. James Bunn, was pastor of their Johnstown church, a
frequent guest in the family's home, and later principal of Bishop McCort
High School, they say.

The other, the Rev. Martin D. McCamley, was director of a church camp for
boys and girls and music director at Bishop McCort High, they say.

The couple promised their sons that they would not do anything to identify
them, which rules out a lawsuit.

The abuse occurred at different times during a ten year period, and two sons
were abused while enrolled at Bishop McCort, the couple contends. The claims
were first aired in 1982.

Bunn was pulled from McCort when the allegations surfaced. He was
transferred to a church in Ashville, where he served as pastor until
retiring last May.

McCamley, who declined to comment but said he is willing to appear before
the lay panel created by the diocese, is now a pastor at Our Lady of Victory
in State College. He also is a member of the diocese administration, serving
as vicar of the Northern Deanery, one of the eight-county diocese's eight
deaneries.

Abuse policy

In June, in the wake of the national church scandal, bishops approved a
policy and standard procedures for dealing with sexual abuse by priests.

Adamec, returning from the national bishops' meeting in Dallas, said he
would review the situation of past abuse of children, even if the statute of
limitations for a criminal prosecution had expired.

The new policy requires that for a single act of sexual abuse of a minor,
even if it happened in the distant past, the priest must be permanently
removed from ministry. It also requires a lay panel to screen abuse reports.

With this in mind, and concerned by having seen favorable mention of one of
the priests in a diocese publication, the couple in June wrote to the
bishop, describing the abuse they say their sons suffered at the hands of
two priests.

In late June, a conservative Catholic lay leader took their accusations,
along with others, to the bishop.

Neither the letters nor the meeting brought immediate results, the couple
said.

Last month, after calls from their attorney, Caram J. Abood of Johnstown,
and inquiries from the Tribune Democrat, a meeting was arranged between
Abood and one son, and the bishop.

But the family said that so far they've been denied the chance to meet with
the review panel that Adamec formed, although Abood said that is the next
desired step.

But no matter what happens now, the parents say the diocese has wronged
their sons and other potential victims by not taking strong action when the
accusations surfaced in 1982, and that Adamec has wronged their sons by not
taking swift action now.

Although Adamec declined to answer specific questions posed by the Tribune
Democrat, through a diocese spokeswoman he said he is "looking into the
matter, and the family knows we are looking into the matter."

Abood has verified that a meeting took place.

The couple has kept silent for years, but wanted to tell their story to a
reporter after a complimentary photo and mention of one of the priests they
say abused their son appeared in an official church publication.

Now, hearing of priest sex abusers both nationally and in their own local
diocese, their anger is boiling over.

One son has been in therapy, but does not want to bring harm to the priest
he said abused him. Instead, he said, he wants to get on with his life.

The couple has written two letters to Adamec, detailing the abuse their sons
allege, and saying, "The people of this diocese have a right to know that a
sex molester is still roaming through the parishes."

After several months of inaction from diocese officials, they told their
family's story to the Tribune Democrat on condition of anonymity.

Abood, their attorney, verified the account, saying he has known the family
and the issues involved for at least 15 years.

Blind faith

In 1964, the couple was young and newly married.

Devout Catholics, they were active in St. Andrew's parish in Johnstown, with
the wife working in the kitchen when banquet help was needed.

Both worked to make ends meet.

"We became good friends with the priest, Father Bunn, but we were so naive,"
the man said.

"He liked his Southern Comfort, and so I made sure we had some, even though
we couldn't afford it then. Over a period of time, he'd stop by on a regular
basis, at odd hours, even as late as 1 a.m.," he said.

His wife said, "We were flattered that the priest would single us out. I
would make special dinners, because I was so honored that he would want to
eat at our table."

"We thought it was odd that he came over so often, and so late, but in those
days it was a high honor when the priest chose your home to visit. We didn't
know any better," she said.

The husband said, "He kept coming over, and often he'd say he was tipsy, and
could he sleep on our couch?"

"Of course we said yes, because why wouldn't we?"

But 18 years later, they heard their oldest son say that the priest was
sexually molesting him on those nights.

Haunted by past

In 1982, their son, called from out of town to say he had been going to a
psychologist and now must tell his parents some things that had haunted him
for years.

He asked his parents to promise not to harm Bunn or press charges, because
he did not want to be identified through a court process, and because his
therapy aimed at forgiveness, not punishment.

His father recalled the conversation: "He said that Father Bunn would sneak
upstairs into my son's bedroom. He had him believing that because priests
can't marry, this is what they have to do."

"He told my son not to tell anyone because that's how priests must satisfy
their needs," the father said.

By the time the son told his story Bunn was stationed at Bishop McCort High
School.

The couple, along with Abood, went to the diocese headquarters in Altoona to
meet with James Hogan, who was then bishop.

They say Hogan, who retired in 1987, showed no surprise and that Bunn
confessed and was immediately removed from the school.

Bunn later was transferred to a church, in Ashville, where he ministered for
years before retiring.

"I saw him once and I screamed at him. I said how could you do this? I
thought I was going to pass out. He turned away from me," said the woman.

"I wanted to kill him. I saw him once and I grabbed him and spit on him,"
said the man.

But that wasn't all the parents would learn about priests and their sons.

Distraught over their oldest son's account of his experiences, the couple
began talking to their two younger sons.

And, they said they remembered things from the past that now sounded
ominous.

Painful memories

While at Bishop McCort, their middle son occasionally came home crying.

When she asked him why, he said he was upset with Father McCamley, the music
director.

The mother called the school to see what was wrong, and she said that
McCamley told her, "Oh, some people have to run to their mommies."

At the time, she thought it was merely a personality conflict between
teacher and pupil.

But when pressed, and knowing that his older brother had stepped forward to
tell of his abuse, the middle son spoke up.

He said he felt uncomfortable with McCamley because they would stay late in
the music department and McCamley wanted to give him a ride home.

The priest would take a long time with the boy's seatbelt, and said he was
fixing it, the son said.

And on a field trip, the boy said, McCamley had him stay in the same hotel
room, the son said.

He told his parents that even though there were two beds, McCamley said they
had to sleep together in one bed because McCamley hadn't paid for the second
bed.

The couple said now that their lives have been turned upside down.

"Our oldest son spent $20,000 on therapy. Our middle son has lost his sense
of trust," said the father, holding back tears.

The mother is outraged at the church hierarchy.

"Almost two years ago, the facts went to Bishop Adamec," she said, referring
to the letters they wrote. "He does nothing, and just keeps hoping that it
will go away."

"We don't want money, but we do want to be sure this doesn't happen to
others," the man said.

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