Deceptive Dubuque & its “List of accused priests”

Smart, brave victims of Dubuque area predator priests have forced Catholic officials there – as part of lawsuit settlements - to post names of child molesting clerics on the archdiocesan website. We’re always thrilled when survivors use lawsuits to pry information from the church hierarchy and use that information to warn parents about pedophiles.

But there is helpful information that illuminates and less helpful information that obfuscates.

The Dubuque Archdiocese seems committed to less helpful information that obfuscates.

Let’s carefully look at the details on the archdiocesan website about child molesting clerics.

First, Archbishop Michael Jackels calls the list a “Table of Accused Priests.” The implication is, of course, that every person listed is merely “accused.”

http://www.arch.pvt.k12.ia.us/ProtectionofChildren/pdf/TableofAccusedPriests.pdf

But of course, this isn’t true. At least two of them have pled guilty to child sex crimes in criminal court. At least one has been defrocked. (See footnotes below.)

Second, look at what numbers Dubuque Catholic officials choose to provide.

They include:

-- the priest's birth year and

-- the EARLIEST years the abuse happened or allegedly happened

Why those numbers? What use is it to anyone to know these particular figures?

Because those numbers suggest very elderly sex offender priest committed these clergy sex crimes long, long ago. They help foster the self-serving but inaccurate impression bishops try so hard to convey: that the church’s horrific, centuries-old clergy sex abuse crisis is a thing of the past.

That’s not only wrong. It’s also reckless. It endangers children because it leads to premature and unhealthy complacency.

Now ponder the numbers Dubuque Catholic officials choose NOT to provide.

They include:

-- how many kids did the priest molest or allegedly molest and

-- when the most RECENT abuse happened or allegedly happened.

These numbers are potentially helpful. I suspect that more parents would be more apt to ask more kids if they were ever hurt by Fr. X if they knew Dubuque Catholic officials had received 40 or 50 abuse reports by his alleged victims.

And I suspect that more parents would be more apt to ask more kids if they were ever hurt by Fr. Y if they knew Dubuque Catholic officials had received recent abuse reports by his alleged victims (if they knew, for example, that Fr. Y had been accused of molesting in 2006, not just in 1976).

Then there’s the question of what kind of information local Catholics and citizens might well WANT to have.

I suspect that Iowa parents are more interested in whether Fr. William T. Schwartz reportedly molested two kids or 92 kids than they are in what decades he committed those crimes.

And I suspect that Iowa parents are more interested in whether Fr. Allen Schmitt has molested in 2004 than they are in what year he was ordained.

So again, we are grateful to each of the more than 80 courageous victims who have overcome fear and depression and found the strength to disclose their pain, expose their predators and force Catholic officials to name many of those predators. We are encouraged by their achievements.

But we’ll be even more encouraged if ever we see Dubuque Catholic staffers’ names of child molesting clerics and helpful details about them, details that illuminate – not obfuscate – their crimes.

FOOTNOTE - One cleric, Fr. Timothy DeVenney, pled guilty in 1997 to child sex crimes and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Another local Catholic employee, teacher Dale Soppe, plead guilty to child sex crimes in 2008 in Wisconsin and was sentenced to two months in jail, two years of probation. 

(DeVenney was released from prison on parole in December of 2001 and was reportedly living outside Washington DC in a home run by a religious order. Soppe is a registered sex offender in Wisconsin but lives in Iowa.)