Priest's clearing raises questions Albany -- Catholic
diocese says cleric not guilty of child sexual abuse; parents claim weak
investigation By MICHELE MORGAN BOLTON, Staff writer
First
published: Saturday, June 12, 2004
The Roman Catholic Diocese
of Albany has once again cleared the Rev. Louis Douglas of allegations
of child sexual abuse, church officials said Friday. The decision
affecting the 74-year-old retired priest became public after victims of
clergy abuse and other critics of the church's handling of accusations
against priests showed a videotape of an interview with the investigator
for the diocese's Sexual Misconduct Review Board.
The tape was
of the March 31 meeting between Thomas Martin, a retired State Police
investigator hired by the review board to probe allegations against
priests, and two mothers whose children attended an Albany parish school
in 1992 when Douglas was the pastor.
The women accused Douglas
of abusing boys, though not their sons, at St. Catherine of Siena
parish. Douglas then retired and moved to Delaware, where he worked part
time for the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington until allegations against
him surfaced again in 2003.
During the hourlong meeting with
Pamela Brace and Marcia Preusser of Albany, Martin told the mothers that
he had never heard of Douglas before coming to interview them.
"I check out all the facts and report it to the panel," Martin said.
"But nobody ever said anything to me about Father Douglas. That's why I
didn't report anything."
Timothy Sawicki, 44, of Schenectady,
who was at the news conference on Friday at which the tape was shown,
had also previously accused Douglas of sexually abusing him in the
1970s. He named the priest in a 2003 lawsuit he filed in state Supreme
Court in Schenectady. The suit was later dismissed.
Martin said
he was busy investigating claims against at least 150 clerics. He said
he had "priests coming out of his ears." He told the women he does not
have access to the personnel files of priests and it is up to the bishop
to make them available to the review board.
On Friday, Brace and
Preusser said those files would show that they had met with Hubbard in
1993 and that he told them at the time that Douglas was being sent to
New Mexico for treatment and wouldn't be allowed around children.
Clearly, the inquiry into Douglas was lacking, Preusser said, and
"If I had to make a guess, I'd say it stopped after Tom Martin left us
that night."
Diocese of Wilmington spokesman Bob Crebbs said he had
received no word from Albany that Douglas has been cleared to return to
ministry: "(His) status hasn't changed," Crebbs said Friday. "We're
waiting for information before we make any determination."
Diocese spokesman Kenneth Goldfarb said allegations against Douglas were
investigated three times: in 1992, when they were first raised by
parents at the school; in 2002, after Hubbard returned from the U.S.
Catholic Bishops Conference in Dallas which established a zero tolerance
police on clergy abuse; and, again in March.
"All three
investigations revealed the same conclusion that, based on the evidence,
no sexual abuse happened," Goldfarb said.
Several weeks after the
review panel cleared Douglas this year, Sawicki and the two mothers
demanded a new investigation, saying they had never been contacted about
their allegations against the priest.
Goldfarb said Brace and
Preusser misinterpreted their meeting with Hubbard. Goldfarb also said
Martin had no prior information about Douglas because he wasn't hired
until the fall of 2002.
|
