Blaming rape victims for their own recklessness.

Hiring private investigators to track down incriminating evidence.

Suing victims for slander.

Suing minor victims' parents for failing to watch over them.

Intimidating witnesses.

Concealing evidence.

Stonewalling court proceedings.

Denying knowledge of abuse -- unless the victims can prove otherwise.

In the high-stakes arena of personal-injury lawsuits, bare-knuckle tactics like these are commonplace. But it's the last thing you might expect from the world's largest and most powerful spiritual institution. For nearly two decades, however, the Roman Catholic Church has used these very methods in its defense in lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by members of the clergy.

When attorneys for Bernard Cardinal Law, head of the Archdiocese of Boston, filed pleadings, or formal responses, to the 25 lawsuits charging that he had failed to properly supervise the now-defrocked priest John Geoghan (see "Cardinal Law sees no evil," News, March 23), people were shocked by what they said. In court documents filed June 19 at Suffolk Superior Court in Boston, Law effectively blames more than a decade of sexual molestation by Geoghan on those who were allegedly victimized -- all of them children at the time. The documents assert that "the negligence of the Plaintiff contributed to cause the injury or damage complained of . . . " Law acknowledges that he had received a letter as far back as September 1984 "referencing allegations of sexual misconduct by John Geoghan." Yet the cardinal denies he had "personal knowledge" of the former priest's "propensity to harm children." Ultimately, he refuses to accept responsibility for his decision to let Geoghan remain in the priesthood -- a decision that gave Geoghan easy access to the dozens of children he allegedly molested from 1984 until two years after his retirement in 1995.

"It was a heavy blow right there," says Patrick McSorley, who was 12 when Geoghan allegedly molested him in 1986, and who is one of the plaintiffs suing Law. "Just hearing his response added to the injury."

Even those who have supported Law's tenure as head of the Archdiocese of Boston found his pleadings disconcerting. Boston attorney Jeffrey Newman is among them. Newman has successfully settled roughly three sexual-abuse cases against the archdiocese (including one last year that involved a Geoghan victim) and represents seven of the victims of Church youth worker Christopher Reardon (who was sentenced August 17 to 40 to 50 years in prison for child molestation). He says he had considered the cardinal to be a "good leader in general" -- until recently. "I'm disappointed," Newman says. To suggest what Law has implied in his pleadings -- and to justify his acts by claiming ignorance of the pedophilia -- seems, in his words, "like selling kids down the river."

Law's aggressive legal strategy, though, is nothing new for those who are familiar with how the Church has handled sexual-abuse lawsuits in the past two decades. Jeff Anderson, an attorney in St. Paul, Minnesota, has earned national recognition for litigating as many as 500 suits against priests and their Church superiors in the United States and Canada since the early 1980s. Though legal defenses have varied from one diocese to the next, Anderson says a predictable pattern has emerged. "First," he explains, "Church officials will deny the allegations." Then they tend to find fault with every party but the Church. If they do accept liability, he adds, they try to minimize the harm done. "Officials do anything to get off the hook," Anderson says. He says that although the Catholic Church has an undeniable right to defend itself, "there is a big difference between exercising a legal privilege and deploying scorched-earth tactics."

"Too often," he concludes, "the Church crosses the line. It re-victimizes victims."

For all of his talk of "learning curves," it seems, Law has reinforced his image as what attorney Anderson calls "a fugitive of the truth." The cardinal earned that reputation in 1992, when the story of convicted pedophile James Porter blew wide open. The former Massachusetts priest was charged with assaulting 28 children in three Bristol County parishes; he pled guilty and was sentenced to 18 to 20 years in prison. Scrutiny of the Church grew so intense during that period that Law infamously blasted reporters for focusing on what he termed "the faults of the few": "We deplore that. . . . By all means we call down God's power on the media . . . "

Now, nearly a decade later, it looks as if Law is still pointing fingers. But this time, he's not blaming the messenger. Instead, he's finding fault with Geoghan's alleged victims. "I'm very disappointed by Law," admits David Clohessy, who heads a Chicago-based support group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). "Like with the Porter cases, the cardinal is blaming and denying." (Interestingly, the Diocese of Fall River did not fight the 99 Porter victims who sought legal counsel. Rather, it reportedly offered them a total of $8 million -- the amount has never been disclosed -- before they filed complaints.)

Just seven days after his pleadings made banner headlines, Law (who, through archdiocese spokesperson John Walsh, declined to be interviewed) went to great lengths to defend his conduct in the July 27 issue of the Pilot, a newspaper published by the Boston archdiocese. The same edition included a letter to the editor from Law's lawyer, Wilson Rogers Jr., criticizing what he called the "disingenuousness" of Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represents 86 plaintiffs in civil suits currently pending against Geoghan. Rogers blasted his legal opponent for making an issue of Rogers's and Law's decision to use the "comparative negligence" defense -- i.e., that the abuse was partially due to the victims' recklessness. Such language, Rogers insisted in his letter, "is standard, indeed universal practice" in negligence claims. "While it is readily understandable how a non-lawyer could look at such a formal answer in response to the complaint and conclude that the Church is blaming the alleged victim," he wrote, "for a lawyer to do so is, in my opinion, an extraordinary example of disingenuousness."

Many of Rogers's own colleagues offer a different view, however. On the one hand, it's true that comparative negligence is boilerplate, a standard defense in complaints where the plaintiff, say, falls down a public stairwell or slips on a patch of ice. Yet accidents like these, attorneys argue, cannot be compared to incidents of child sexual assault. Under state law, in fact, children younger than 16 cannot give legal consent to having sex. That means they cannot be held legally responsible for sexually abusive encounters. Says Carmen Durso, a Boston attorney who handles lawsuits related to clergy sexual abuse, "If the Church really did not intend for a jury to say `Maybe it's the victim's fault,' it would have struck this defense." Rogers did not return three calls requesting comment.

Whether justified or not, Law's tactics in the Geoghan cases -- which include filing motions to dismiss the suits; arguing that determining whether Church superiors properly supervised Geoghan would force the court to examine canon law, which is shielded by the First Amendment; and trying to seal from the public all court documents related to the allegations against Law -- stand in stark contrast with the cardinal's public posture. Law has repeatedly condemned child molestation by priests as "a heinous act" for which Church leaders must do "all we can do to bring some measure of healing" to victims. "The sexual abuse of minors by priests is one of the most painful problems facing the contemporary Church," he wrote in the July 27 Pilot. "I only wish that the knowledge that we have today had been available to us earlier. It's fair to say, however, that society has been on a learning curve with regard to sexual abuse of minors. The Church, too, has been on a learning curve. We have learned, and we will continue to learn." (After Reardon was sentenced on August 24, however, Law said that he wanted to review policy and see whether the Church could do a better job at preventing molestation of youth by priests and Church workers. Apparently the learning curve is a steep one indeed if the Geoghan cases weren't enough to prompt such a review in the first place.)

BUT FOR those who have already been caught in the web of sexual abuse by rogue priests, the only thing that the Catholic Church has learned, it seems, is how to fight. "Church leaders treat these cases worse today than they did 20 years ago," says Tom Economus, who directs Linkup, a Chicago-based advocacy group for victims of clergy sexual abuse. "I say that because the Church has become far more litigious." Economus has spent more than a decade tracking cases of child molestation by priests throughout the country. Every single US diocese has had to plot a defense in a priest-pedophile case, he says. And all 188 of them have responded in much the same way; bishops "do whatever has to be done to protect mother Church."

Economus draws parallels between the lawsuits pending against Geoghan and what he refers to as "the landmark cases" involving the now-suspended priest Raymond Pcolka in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The Pcolka story has tarnished the Diocese of Bridgeport as the Geoghan scandal has the Archdiocese of Boston. Since 1993, one victim after another has relayed sordid tales of rape and sodomy at the hands of this priest. All told, 17 lawsuits were brought against him and his superiors, including New York's Edward Cardinal Egan, who holds perhaps the Church's highest-profile position in the United States and was the presiding bishop in Bridgeport at the time. (The Pcolka cases spawned a mass of lawsuits against five other diocesan priests and officials.) Church leaders in Bridgeport, like those in Boston, put up a bruising battle. Egan "was as ruthless as Law," Economus says. "He fought these cases tooth and nail."

When the Bridgeport firm Tremont and Sheldon filed negligence complaints on behalf of two Pcolka victims in January 1993, lawyers for the Church had a swift response. "They called us," says Jason Tremont, whose late father, Paul Tremont, represented the plaintiffs. "They threatened to sue the victims for slander."

The threat fell apart as soon as 15 additional Pcolka victims joined the litigation. But rather than work to accommodate them, the diocese threw up barriers. Its lawyers tried to dismiss the complaints, arguing that the Church had no reason to suspect Pcolka of sexual misconduct. Officials then delayed testimony, had documents sealed, defied court orders, and stonewalled proceedings through restraining orders and other legal devices. "If there was opportunity to file a motion and slow down discovery," Tremont explains, "Church officials did it."

In 1997, the Church waged its most creative legal defense yet. During a New Haven trial involving abuse allegations against a Stamford priest, then-bishop Egan was called as a witness. Testifying by videotape, he contended that the Bridgeport diocese could not be held liable for any sexual misconduct because priests are like independent contractors. "We all went nuts with that," Economus recalls -- prompting a quick retraction from the bishop. "To clear up any misunderstanding," Egan wrote in a September 4, 1997, letter to parishioners, "I need to add that, for personal income tax purposes only, priests . . . are considered . . . self-employed independent contractors. This, however, does not mean that a priest is a so-called `independent contractor' for any other purpose . . . . Moreover, the Bishop is responsible for the overall administration and spiritual care of the Diocese."

Despite this nod to responsibility, it would be three more years before lawyers for the Church broached a settlement. By then, Egan had been promoted to head the Archdiocese of New York -- the largest Catholic district in the nation. In March 2001, just months after Egan had left Connecticut, the Pcolka cases were settled for a reported $15 million. (Approximately 10 lawsuits against other priests were included in the agreement.) The Bridgeport diocese issued a statement in which Church leaders apologized to the victims, and admitted that some of their claims were true. The conciliatory tone "was totally opposite the legal strategy," Tremont notes. "We endured eight years of ridiculous actions by the Church to thwart the truth."

IF THE Catholic Church were a corporate giant like PG&E, its aggressive legal tactics might not seem unusual. But the Church is not a profit-driven corporation; it is a spiritual institution whose mission is to minister to its parishioners. So it doesn't seem unreasonable to hold the Church to a higher standard. Explains Clohessy, of SNAP, "People have a different set of expectations about the Church." Clohessy, for instance, might trust a business with his credit-card number -- maybe. "But I don't trust it with my psyche," he says, "or my soul or my children. I trust the Church because it presents itself as an organization interested in personal salvation and well-being."

When the Church assumes a hardball attitude, in other words, it's nothing less than a hypocritical abuse of trust. Every Sunday, after all, a priest will preach from the pulpit about the principles of Catholicism -- honesty, compassion, and forgiveness. Yet on Monday, critics charge, this very priest might walk into his lawyer's office and plot a legal defense that makes a mockery of these principles. Says Carl De Luca, an attorney in Warwick, who's been embroiled in an eight-year battle with the Providence diocese over civil suits involving convicted pedophile priest William O'Connell (who died in prison in 1999), "That legal strategy is inconsistent with the tenets of Catholicism." Unlike business executives, Church leaders have more than a legal responsibility to parishioners, he adds: "They have a moral responsibility. Yet they abdicate that [duty] in these cases."

Anderson puts it more bluntly: "Church leaders will abandon their own Christian and religious principles when defending themselves. It never ceases to amaze me. It's like they forget where they come from."

Francis Fiorenza, a Catholic theologian at Harvard Divinity School, concurs. When asked about the aggressive defenses waged by the Church, Fiorenza, in an e-mailed response, says: "There is obviously a stark inconsistency between professing a passionate and loving concern for the religious, moral, and emotional welfare of the victims, while at the same time using a legal tactic that seems to blame victims themselves for their very victimization. That is religiously and morally inexcusable."

Even some Catholic priests take issue with the Church's conduct inside the courtroom. Father Andrew Greeley, a popular novelist and a sociology professor at the University of Chicago, has become one of the few clergy members nationwide to speak out against the way the Church has conducted itself in cases of clergy sexual abuse. When the Phoenix requested an interview with Greeley through his Chicago-based publicist in March, he replied that he has "said all that I need to say about the issue" of child molestation by priests. Ever since the early 1990s, Greeley has openly criticized the Church for adopting what he has called "embarrassing" and "punitive" tactics that undermine its credibility as a spiritual institution.

For Greeley, the question of how the Church should behave in these lawsuits has always seemed simple. During a May 15, 1994, episode of 60 Minutes, which highlighted the Church's legal wars against some victims, Greeley summed up the sentiment this way: "We should be asking, 'How would Jesus respond to these people?' . . . Would he try to beat them into the ground? The answer is, 'Of course not.' "

IN FACT, it's likely that Jesus would have some problems with the way Church officials defend themselves. In Massachusetts, one of the more shocking instances dates back to 1994, when Edward Gagne sued the Diocese of Worcester, alleging that he had been raped by the Reverend Brendan O'Donoghue (who had retired by the time the suit was filed). To make matters worse, Gagne's suit charged that when he confided the abuse to another priest, the Reverend Peter Inzerillo, he wasn't consoled -- but was assaulted again, this time by Inzerillo. His suit, which included the priests and the diocese, was settled in November 1999 -- after five years of stonewalling. "The Church said all along, `We didn't know about the abuse,' " says Stephen Lyons, a Boston attorney who represented Gagne. "Its lawyers made a mockery of the discovery process to cover up the Church's knowledge."

Court records of these cases show a clear pattern of hedging. During the deposition of one clergyman who had directed an area treatment center for pedophilic priests in the 1970s and 1980s, the diocese's attorney, the late James Reardon, worked desperately to suppress damaging evidence. He repeatedly objected to questions from Lyons about the "manner, shape, or . . . type of treatment" for pedophilic priests at the now-defunct House of Affirmation -- even though the witness, the Reverend Thomas Kane, had been advised by his own attorney to answer nearly all the questions. When Lyons asked Kane if he had any discussions with Worcester bishops about patients who were treated there, Reardon interjected: "Objection. . . . I think that crosses the line and impinges upon the very strict statute construed in Massachusetts law and I strongly suggest that he has no right to talk about that."

In the deposition, Kane's attorney replied: "I'm going to let him answer that in the very general form . . . because I don't believe the statute precludes a general question like this."

The question was repeated. But before Kane could respond, Reardon declared: "I still object." At one point, he became so uncomfortable that he actually threatened the priest: "And I'd like to warn the father that he's treading on very dangerous ground."

Reardon repeatedly thwarted discovery proceedings -- throughout Kane's two-hour deposition as well as those of other witnesses -- until a judge finally ordered the Church to stop stonewalling and abide by the law. In October 1998, Worcester Superior Court judge Thayer Fremont-Smith demanded that the diocese hand over reams of documents it had claimed not to have -- despite evidence to the contrary. Fremont-Smith also rebuked Reardon. The judge found that Reardon had raised improper objections and that he had unjustifiably told clients not to answer questions. He had even threatened witnesses. His actions were so extreme that Fremont-Smith banned him from taking any more depositions -- an uncommon punitive measure. Attests Lyons, "I've practiced law for 20 years. It's very rare that I encounter this type of behavior on the part of my opponent."

At times, the Church has been even more audaciously combative. When Joseph Elliott sued the Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, in December 1999 alleging abuse by his childhood priest, lawyers for the Church attacked. They countersued Elliott -- asking the court to throw out his case because the statute of limitations had expired. Church officials sent a process server to deliver Elliott's summons at the hair salon where he worked -- during prime business hours.

"That action," says Portland attorney David Slader, who represented Elliott, "served only one purpose -- to scare off Joe, to coerce him into silence."

The countersuit turned out to be what Slader calls the dumbest of tactics. Other men stepped forward to accuse the priest named in Elliot's suit, the Reverend Maurice Grammond. Soon the litigation included 25 alleged victims -- the largest case of clergy sex abuse in Oregon. Meanwhile, the Church's countersuit inspired clergymen to speak out. "Otherwise recalcitrant witnesses were so offended they cooperated," Slader says. Last October, all 25 suits were settled. Though the archdiocese did not admit fault, it apologized to the victims. The countersuit was dismissed.

To experienced attorneys like Anderson, who helped litigate the Grammond cases, the Portland archdiocese's attempt to wage legal war against Elliott calls to mind the bruising devices that used to be standard fare. "The Church," he explains, "never hesitated to attack the victim if [officials] thought it was worth it." Back in 1989, he represented a Chicago couple who ended up in the cross hairs of that city's archdiocese. The parents (whose identities remain confidential) alleged that their young son had been molested by the Reverend Robert Lutz while attending first grade at a parochial school in Northbrook, Illinois. Once the parents sued Lutz, Church leaders financed a countersuit alleging slander. They used Rambo-like tactics -- private detectives hired by Church lawyers staked out the family's home, sifted through their trash, and phoned their neighbors seeking incriminating evidence. In this case, the strategy worked. In 1994, after five years of legal wrangling, a jury acquitted Lutz -- who then dropped his countersuit.

Before Lutz was exonerated, his cutthroat legal defense was highlighted in a November 24, 1993, article in the Wall Street Journal. Legal reporter Milo Geylen documented six cases -- from Poughkeepsie, New York, to Altoona, Pennsylvania -- where the Catholic Church had stopped at virtually nothing to fend off damage awards. In Philadelphia in 1989, for instance, Ed Morris filed a lawsuit against the archdiocese, charging eight years of abuse by his childhood priest. Lawyers for the Church went after his elderly parents -- blaming them for failing to discover their son's relationship with an alleged child abuser.

The most egregious example of the Church's legal aggression involved an Albuquerque, New Mexico, man named Timothy Martinez. In 1991, he and 12 other men sued the Archdiocese of Santa Fe charging that they had been molested as children by convicted pedophile Jason Sigler, who left the priesthood in 1982. Despite the former priest's criminal conviction, Martinez faced a fierce fight. Detectives combed through his past; they tracked down old roommates and girlfriends. Among their questions: Did Martinez ever engage in homosexual acts? Did he like it?

Months after the Journal article surfaced, 60 Minutes editor Ed Bradley exposed equally merciless defenses by the Catholic Church in both Chicago and Santa Fe. New Mexico had seen an explosion of sexual-abuse cases; hundreds of children in that state had been raped and sodomized by priests being treated for pedophilia at the nearby monastery of the Servants of the Paraclete. (The religious order, based in Jemez Springs, stopped treating pedophiles in 1995 because of the rising number of abuse cases.) As more victims came forward, the Santa Fe archdiocese resorted to dirty tactics to reduce damage awards. But by 1996, the archdiocese had been driven to the brink of bankruptcy after paying out as much as $50 million in settlements for some 200 civil lawsuits.

Today, the Church rarely lashes out at victims in such an overtly confrontational way. Outside of Portland, in fact, attorneys haven't heard of the Church filing a countersuit in years. "That policy backfired on the Church," Anderson points out. "It was shameful, and anyone could see that it was. It was not good public relations."

But if the Church has learned to choose its tactics carefully, it still manages to fight the victims -- inside and outside the courtroom. Every time a Church leader denies legal responsibility for the harm caused by abuse, he inflicts further pain. Tom Economus, of Linkup, says that the Church should be helping victims "unconditionally." That means it should offer them therapy. It should apologize for their suffering. And it should settle any negligence claims instantly. "Instead," he says, "the Church does everything to hurt the victims. It re-victimizes them by putting them through the legal process and dragging out these cases."

TO SAY that lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by clergymen have devastated the Catholic Church seems an understatement. In the US alone, the Church has spent anywhere from $850 million to more than $1 billion on settlements and jury-awarded damages, according to attorneys and victim-support groups. And the price the Church has paid in broken trust is incalculable.

Given all that's at stake, Church officials nationwide might argue that they couldn't simply turn the other cheek when confronted with litigation. Yet Sister Mary Ann Walsh of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), the most powerful canonical body in the American Catholic hierarchy, which makes recommendations to the dioceses on pastoral practices, claims the Church is not just protecting itself at all costs. "Truth," she says, "is paramount for us." According to Walsh, the NCCB doesn't keep track of clergy-sexual-abuse lawsuits; it doesn't document the losses incurred, or the tactics adopted. Yet she maintains that truth serves as the Church's guiding principle. "We want to make sure that people's rights are protected," she adds, "that those who are accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty."

It's "patently false" to suggest that this legal principle, or the Church's legal strategy as a whole, is inconsistent with Catholicism, Walsh says. She admits that the Church has sued victims before; it has even hired detectives to sift through people's pasts. But she calls such methods "a rarity." Explains Walsh, "It's more common for the Church to come to an understanding about what happened before charging into court. . . . The Church has shown it is possible to maintain its religious values" while handling these cases.

One justification for a vigorous defense strategy in these cases is that the charges could fall apart. "We have seen cases of false accusations," Walsh notes. In 1993, the NCCB stood firmly behind the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin of the Chicago archdiocese after he'd been named in a lawsuit accusing him of sexual abuse. It turned out the plaintiff, Steven Cook, had "recovered" his memories of the supposed molestation under hypnosis by an unlicensed therapist. Within three months, Cook dropped his lawsuit, saying his memory wasn't reliable -- thus ending the highest-profile case in recent memory of a wrongful accusation against the Church.

Even if the Church fights these suits, Walsh says, it aims to place victims first. "Our first concern is the victim," she says. In 1992, the NCCB drafted a national action plan -- "Restoring Trust: The Response to Sexual Abuse" -- outlining five principles for investigating abuse allegations and removing offenders from the clergy. The policy directs each diocese to "respond promptly" to abuse charges, to cooperate with civil and criminal investigations, and to "communicate sincere commitment to spiritual and emotional well-being" of victims. The Catholic conference has also asked bishops to compensate victims when harm can be established. Says Walsh, "These are ways the Church puts victims first. Everything else is secondary."

In Boston, though, Geoghan's adult accusers aren't likely to feel they're a priority. McSorley, now a 27-year-old Hyde Park resident, is still reeling from the blow that Cardinal Law dealt him and the other 24 plaintiffs in the June 19 response to their complaints. At first, he felt vindicated by Law's confession about the 1984 letter. But anger soon took hold when the cardinal denied "personal knowledge" of the complaints detailed in the letter. Says McSorley, "It's hurtful. He knew about the abuse. He should have done something immediately."

Of course, nothing could have prepared McSorley for the cardinal's attempt to shift responsibility away from himself and toward the victims. "You can't blame something like that on a 12-year-old kid," McSorley says. "I don't understand that at all. I'd expect a cardinal to protect the children, not blame them. . . . Where is the sympathy for the victims?"

Clohessy -- and many local observers -- hold out hope that the Boston archdiocese will change its litigious ways. The Church should step up to the plate, they say; it should address the Geoghan cases extrajudicially -- without the posturing, without the fight. Says Boston attorney Jeffrey Newman, "If I were Law, I would be telling my lawyer to get rid of these cases. He should settle them. He has the power to do so." (Newman is reportedly negotiating a settlement with the Boston archdiocese for seven of the victims of convicted child molester Christopher Reardon.)

Geoghan's upcoming criminal trial increases the chances of settling the civil cases. Geoghan, now 65 and living in Scituate, Massachusetts, has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges of child rape and child assault in both Suffolk and Middlesex Counties; he is slated to face his first criminal trial September 4 in Suffolk Superior Court. If Geoghan winds up on the witness stand, the criminal proceedings could uncover evidence that would bolster the 84 civil lawsuits currently pending against him and Church superiors. A conviction would surely strengthen the civil suits. As Economus predicts, "The Church will be forced to settle these civil cases."

If history offers any indication, though, the archdiocese could just as easily keep up the fight. But the high-profile lawsuits against Law make it difficult to predict what the Boston archdiocese will do. Law, after all, is the highest-ranking Church official to be named in a clergy-sex-abuse case. There are only eight cardinals in the United States, and he's the only one to have been accused of committing such negligence while acting as cardinal. Ultimately, the Church's track record doesn't bode well. As McSorley puts it: "After watching the way the Church has handled my case, I'm not at all convinced that what happened to me won't happen again."

Kristen Lombardi can be reached at klombardi[a]phx.com.

Issue Date: September 7 - 13, 2001