Bishop Weldon lawsuit against Springfield Diocese continues allegations of cover-ups by top officials

The suit is filed against the diocese as well as eight individuals: former Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski, now archbishop of St. Louis; attorney John Egan, who also represented Maguire in the Nicastro case; Monsignor Christopher Connelly; Patricia McManamy, director of Counseling, Prevention and Victim Services; Jeffrey Trant, director of the office of Safe Environment and Victim Assistance; John Hale, Review Board chairman; Kevin Murphy, diocesan investigator; and Mark Dupont, diocesan communications director.

Approximately half of Stobierski’s clients in that settlement said they were abused in the late 1960s and 1970s by a priest, Richard Lavigne, whom the Vatican removed from the clerical state in 2004. Lavigne remains the only publicly identified suspect in the 1972 murder of a Chicopee altar boy.

Stobierski also represented 28 of the 59 survivors in the $4.5 million settlement reached in 2008 on claims against clergy and one woman religious that date to 1948. The settlement was paid for by a $5 million insurance fund that took four years of negotiation between the diocese and its carriers at the time to establish.

The current suit is filed at a time when the diocese says reforms it has been engaging in over the last year-and-a-half are designed to be more transparent and accommodating to individuals coming forth with allegations of clergy sexual abuse.

An online diocesan survey showed support for diocesan efforts in its outreach to survivors, but faulted it for not responding to allegations in a more timely and compassionate manner.

Some survivors come forward with allegations to receive counseling from the diocese for the trauma they say they have suffered and some seek to have their allegations go before the Diocesan Review Board to be deemed credible and some then seek financial compensation that does not in being awarded involve any admission of guilt by the diocese or parties accused.

Lawyers for the diocese have requested the current suit, in which the plaintiff is only identified in the suit under a “John Doe” pseudonym to protect his privacy, be dismissed on defense strategies that they had said they were prepared to use in the future when they settled with the 59 claimants in the 2008 settlement and did not use them.

The strategies include arguing the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion gives church officials immunity from civil suits, as does a concept in state law that limits the financial liability of certain charitable organizations.

Stobierski called such strategies “shameful arguments to make” against those plaintiffs seeking compensation for negligent supervision by church officials that resulted in harm to them as children.

“It is hypocritical for a religious institution to be making those kinds of arguments against people who are abused as children,” said Stobierski, adding the diocese has used them in other abuse cases he has handled. “They are shameful arguments to make. Religious institutions should not be using legal technicalities to escape a responsibility they owe to the children of their flock.”

He added, “Most dioceses show enough compassion not to put victims or survivors through a trial because they are victimized a second time.”

“There are constructs within which to resolve these cases,” said Stobierski of the arbitration process. “When Boston started to resolve them (in 2003 under Cardinal Sean O’Malley), Springfield followed their lead in doing mass resolution of these cases, but when it comes to single cases, it is very hard.”

He called such cases “long hauls” that “are not easy.”

“The diocese has been extremely difficult in settling with survivors of clergy sexual abuse from early on,” Stobierski said. “It has been as bad as anywhere in the country in terms of having looking at survivors as folks who should have some modicum of compensation for what they have gone through.”

The Springfield diocese declined to comment on the pending suit, though it noted it has in the past settled other cases outside of the courts.

In February 2019, the diocese released a report that showed that to that date it had paid out $15 million in settling 147 clergy sexual abuse claims since 1992 with some $8.5 million paid for by insurance carriers. It said it spent an additional $2.25 million to meet requested therapy needs of those coming forth with allegations of such abuse.

Lawyers for the John Doe plaintiff in the current law suit have asked for Worcester Superior Court Janet Kenton-Walker, a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and Suffolk University Law School who has served in that capacity since 2009, to preside over the case so it does not take place within the Springfield Diocese that covers the four counties of Western Massachusetts and to ease any trauma on the plaintiff.

“I feel very badly for the man who is going through this,” said Stobierski whose knowledge is from what he “has discerned or read” about the suit. “He is taking it on the chin now for a third time. Once when he was allegedly abused by Weldon, two when his allegations were not handled very well and now with the case going forward as a suit. He is still being tortured.”

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