Bridgeport Diocese Sex Abuse Case 

Cardinal Edward Egan Protected Abusive Priests At Victims' Expense 

Secret Documents On Priest Abuse Released After Seven Year Battle  

By DAVE ALTIMARI

The Hartford Courant

7:58 p.m. EST, December 1, 2009

"Claims are claims. Allegations are allegations."

Those six words uttered by retired Cardinal Edward M. Egan during two depositions neatly sum up his approach to handling the burgeoning priest sexual abuse scandal that he inherited when he took over the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut in the late 1980s.

>> Transcript of Oct. 7, 1997 Videotaped Deposition of Bishop Edward Egan

>> Transcript of Sept. 23, 1999 Videotaped Deposition of Bishop Edward Egan

In 448 pages of depositions that Egan was forced to give as part of 23 lawsuits against seven priests that eventually were settled, the Bishop showed little compassion for the alleged victims and instead argued with attorney's that only a "remarkably small number" of priests have ever been accused of wrongdoing.

"These things (sexual abuse complaints) happen in such small numbers. It's marvelous when you think of the hundreds and hundreds of priests and how very few have ever been accused, and how very few have even come close to having anyone prove anything,'' Egan said.

"Claims are one thing. One does not take every claim against a human being as a proved misdeed. I'm interested in proved misdeeds.''

Egan's depositions taken in 1997 and 1999 were supposed to remain sealed forever when the diocese settled the cases in 2001. The Hartford Courant obtained copies of them in 2002 and published several stories about them. But on Tuesday for the first time some documents were made available to the public after a seven-year court battle by the Bridgeport Diocese to keep them secret.

But in releasing the documents, the diocese withheld nearly 1,500 pages, saying the records were privileged under state and federal law and still subject to a seal order.

The withheld documents include 685 pages taken from priests' personnel files, and documents identifying two "John Doe" priests whose names have not been publicly released -- documents that originally had been entered in court only for "in camera" review by a judge.

In ordering the diocese to release the records, the state Supreme Court in June had identified 15 documents that could remain confidential. But the court also let stand a trial judge's ruling sealing the "in camera" documents, saying the newspapers had not challenged that seal order.

The diocese also asserted in a court document filed Tuesday that disclosure of the withheld records was barred by attorney-client privilege, confidentiality of personnel and medical records, confidentiality of statements made to clergy and Constitutional protections against government interference with churches.

"For example, the disclosure of information related to the evaluation of a clergy member's suitability for ministry or for a particular assignment," the diocese wrote, "would be in violation of the Religion Clauses under the Federal and State Constitutions."

Those are some of the same legal arguments the diocese made in seeking to block disclosure of the documents -- a fight that appeared to end a month ago when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the diocese's appeal of a Connecticut Supreme Court ruling ordering most of the documents released.

The state Supreme Court had identified 15 documents that could remain sealed. But the diocese claimed in court papers Tuesday that no court had ever overturned earlier rulings sealing various records -- including the nearly 700 pages of personnel records.

Many of the complaints date back to the late 1960s and 1970s and church officials dismissed much of it as old news while emphasizing that the diocese has undergone a culture change regarding the knowledge of and ability to deal with sexual abuse.

"Contrary to the naysayers, this is very old news. Between 1993 and 2002, more than 200 media reports were published about these and other cases, including extensive Hartford Courant coverage in 2002 in an article that published, without permission, many of the sealed documents. The coverage included the names of the accused priests, critiques of the Diocese's handling of the complaints, victims' accounts, and many other details,'' the diocese said in a statement.

Of the seven priests involved in the lawsuits one -- Joseph Gorecki -- has died. Five priests -- Charles Carr, Raymond Pcolka, Laurence Brett, Martin Federici and Philip Coleman--have been removed from the priesthood. One priest, Joseph Malloy was exonerated, according to the Bridgeport diocese and is currently the Pastor at the St. Clement of Rome Parish in Stamford, Conn.

Egan left to become the Archbishop of New York shortly after the lawsuits were settled. He went on to be named a Cardinal and retired earlier this year.

Critics of the diocese have said that they fought for nearly seven years to keep the documents sealed to protect Egan's reputation while he was still active. The diocese appealed the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided earlier this year not to take up the case, paving the way for Waterbury Superior Court Judge Barry Stevens to finally unseal the files.

Only 15 documents will remain sealed because the state Supreme Court ruled they were not submitted as legal documents. Attorneys for the diocese on Tuesday also submitted to Stevens a list of other documents they believe are privileged and should remain sealed that Stevens must rule on.

During his deposition with attorneys from Tremont and Sheldon, the Bridgeport firm that filed the lawsuits, Egan comes off as dismissive, argumentative and at times condescending.

The documents show that Egan failed to investigate aggressively some abuse allegations, reassigned priests that he knew had allegations made against them and in general downplayed allegations made against many of the priests.

At one point, Egan said he wasn't interested in allegations -- only "realities." He added that "very few have even come close to having anyone prove anything'' against a priest.

For example, regarding a dozen people who made complaints of sexual abuse and violence against Pcolka, of Greenwich, Egan said, "the 12 have never been proved to be telling the truth."

Egan also acknowledges that he never attempted to seriously investigate the truth of such allegations -- accusers were not interviewed, witnesses were not sought, and no attempt was made to learn of other possible victims.

Egan allowed Pcolka to continue working as a priest until 1993, when he suspended him after Pcolka refused an order from Egan to go to the Institute of Living in Hartford for psychiatric treatment. Egan referred to the Institute as his "preferred" place to send priests who needed counseling.

His handling of complaints made against Carr was no different, the records show.

Despite a May 1990 memo by a diocese official worrying about "a developing pattern of accusations" that Rev. Charles Carr of Norwalk had fondled young boys, Egan kept Carr working as a priest until 1995, when he suspended him only after a lawsuit was filed.

Egan's aide, Vicar Laurence R. Bronkiewicz, wrote a sympathetic note to Carr.

"Trusting that you understand the reasons for these actions, I join Bishop Egan in praying that the Lord will bless you with the graces you need at this time in your life," Bronkiewicz said.

Egan actually reinstated Carr in 1999 as a part-time chaplain at a church-run nursing home in Danbury. But after yet another accusation against Carr surfaced in 2002, about an incident from long ago, then-newly installed Bishop William Lori finally defrocked Carr last month and referred him to state child protection authorities. Carr is no longer a priest.

The documents also show that Egan inherited the priest abuse scandal from Curtis, who admitted he deliberately shuffled pedophile priests among parishes to give them a "fresh start." Records show that seven priests accused of sexual misconduct were at one time assigned to St. Teresa's Church in Trumbull between 1965-1990.

Curtis, who is now deceased, was deposed three times. He also admitted he did not think that pedophilia was a permanent condition.

Curtis viewed pedophilia as "an occasional thing" and not a serious psychological problem and was more concerned with weeding out potential gays among clergy applicants.

"We had a policy in this sense, that before a candidate was accepted for study for the priesthood, [they] would have psychological testing, and if there appeared signs of homosexuality, he wouldn't be accepted," Curtis testified.

Curtis also testified that records of complaints against priests would usually be put into the diocese's "secret archive," a canonically required cache of historical documents accessed only with keys kept by the bishop and the vicar.

He said he would occasionally go into the archive and remove what he called "antiquated" abuse complaints, and destroy them.

One of the priests that Curtis protected was Brett, who was moved around not only the Bridgeport Diocese but also to several others including Sacramento and Baltimore before he was finally removed as a priest by Egan in the 1990s.

Along the way he abused dozens of boys and even admitted to Bridgeport church officials to biting the penis of a student at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield during non-consensual oral sex.

Brett was confronted and subsequently ordered to leave the diocese. He traveled the country in seeming exile, but was permitted to continue as a priest under the auspices of the Bridgeport diocese, first under Curtis and later under Egan.

When he was removed by the diocese in 1964 church officials wrote in a memo that if any parishioners asked about Brett's sudden absence that "hepatitis was to be feigned" as a cover.

During his deposition Egan argued with the plaintiff's attorneys who claimed the memo showed the church was trying to hide Brett.

"I would read it that this man is going away, and if anyone asks, say he's not well, he has hepatitis. That's quite a bit different than saying you are going to hide it," Egan said.

Egan added that he wouldn't have made up an excuse about a priest's absence, preferring instead to simply tell anyone who inquired that it was none of their business.

Egan allowed Brett to continue working as a priest outside of the diocese until February 1993, three months after receiving additional allegations of sexual misconduct against Brett from the 1960s.

When the allegations came in, Egan's aide, Bronkiewicz, wrote a letter alerting the archdiocese in Baltimore, where Brett had been assigned, and assuring the public knew nothing about the latest allegations against Brett.

"At the present time, we have no reason to believe the accuser of Father Brett intends to take legal action of any kind, and there has been no publicity concerning the accusation," Bronkiewicz wrote.

…

March 2001. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport settles 23 lawsuits brought against seven unnamed priests for an undisclosed amount of money. The court orders the documents sealed and church officials believe eventually destroyed. Four newspapers – the New York Times, Hartford Courant, Boston Globe and Washington Post, file an emergency appeal in April 2002, seeking to have the documents preserved and unsealed. The diocese embarks on what would be more than a seven-year battle against the newspapers.

March 17, 2002. The Courant publishes a story based on thousands of pages of sealed court documents and testimony from civil suits against six priests. Among the findings:

» New York Cardinal Edward M. Egan, while serving as bishop of the Bridgeport Roman Catholic Diocese from 1988 to 2000, allowed several priests facing multiple accusations of sexual abuse to continue working for years.

» Former Bridgeport Bishop Walter Curtis, who ran the diocese for 27 years before Egan, testified in 1995 that the diocese deliberately shuffled pedophile priests among parishes to give them a "fresh start," and admitted destroying records of complaints against some priests. Curtis also said he didn't believe pedophilia was a permanent condition.

» In 1964, a teenage student at Sacred Heart University accused Father Laurence Brett, a spiritual director of the university, of performing oral sex on him and biting his penis to prevent him from ejaculating. Bishop Curtis discussed the situation with the Vatican representative in Washington, D.C., and decided not to suspend Brett but to send him out of state. Diocese officials were told that "hepatitis was to be feigned" as an excuse for Brett's absence. In seeming exile, Brett was supported financially by the Bridgeport diocese and was permitted to perform priestly functions. Brett held a variety of ecclesiastical positions in New Mexico, California, and Maryland for the next thirty years, becoming a writer and television minister. In 1991, Egan investigated Brett's case and allowed him to remain in the ministry. When more accusations against Brett surfaced, Egan suspended his priestly faculties.

» In 1991, Egan appointed Rev. Charles Carr parochial vicar of Saint Andrew Parish in Bridgeport, where he was allowed to minister to children, despite ongoing complaints about pedophilia that had forced Carr into treatment at Hartford's Institute for Living for evaluation at least twice. When the first lawsuit against the diocese in connection to Carr was served in 1995, Egan suspended Carr and placed him on an indefinite leave of absence.

» Church officials had received abuse complaints about Rev. Raymond Pcolka since his first assignment, in 1966, at St. Benedict's Parish in Stamford. He was transferred several times over the years and sent to the Institute of Living for evaluation at least twice. Egan eventually suspended Pcolka in 1992, but continued to pay his salary, provide health benefits and cover the cost of his attorney's fees for several years. In addition, Egan did not make any effort to remove Pcolka from the priesthood, saying he didn't have sufficient evidence that Pcolka had abused anyone. In 1994, Pcolka exercised his Fifth Amendment privilege more than 100 times when questioned about abuse allegations involving more than a dozen victims over several decades.

March 18, 2002. Bishop William E. Lori speaks to the media, vowing to introduce initiatives to root out pedophiles in the diocese.

March 2001. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport settles 23 lawsuits brought against seven unnamed priests for an undisclosed amount of money. The court orders the documents sealed and church officials believe eventually destroyed. Four newspapers – the New York Times, Hartford Courant, Boston Globe and Washington Post, file an emergency appeal in April 2002, seeking to have the documents preserved and unsealed. The diocese embarks on what would be more than a seven-year battle against the newspapers.

March 17, 2002. The Courant publishes a story based on thousands of pages of sealed court documents and testimony from civil suits against six priests. Among the findings:

New York Cardinal Edward M. Egan, while serving as bishop of the Bridgeport Roman Catholic Diocese from 1988 to 2000, allowed several priests facing multiple accusations of sexual abuse to continue working for years.

Former Bridgeport Bishop Walter Curtis, who ran the diocese for 27 years before Egan, testified in 1995 that the diocese deliberately shuffled pedophile priests among parishes to give them a "fresh start," and admitted destroying records of complaints against some priests. Curtis also said he didn't believe pedophilia was a permanent condition.

In 1964, a teenage student at Sacred Heart University accused Father Laurence Brett, a spiritual director of the university, of performing oral sex on him and biting his penis to prevent him from ejaculating. Bishop Curtis discussed the situation with the Vatican representative in Washington, D.C., and decided not to suspend Brett but to send him out of state. Diocese officials were told that "hepatitis was to be feigned" as an excuse for Brett's absence. In seeming exile, Brett was supported financially by the Bridgeport diocese and was permitted to perform priestly functions. Brett held a variety of ecclesiastical positions in New Mexico, California, and Maryland for the next thirty years, becoming a writer and television minister. In 1991, Egan investigated Brett's case and allowed him to remain in the ministry. When more accusations against Brett surfaced, Egan suspended his priestly faculties.

In 1991, Egan appointed Rev. Charles Carr parochial vicar of Saint Andrew Parish in Bridgeport, where he was allowed to minister to children, despite ongoing complaints about pedophilia that had forced Carr into treatment at Hartford's Institute for Living for evaluation at least twice. When the first lawsuit against the diocese in connection to Carr was served in 1995, Egan suspended Carr and placed him on an indefinite leave of absence.

Church officials had received abuse complaints about Rev. Raymond Pcolka since his first assignment, in 1966, at St. Benedict's Parish in Stamford. He was transferred several times over the years and sent to the Institute of Living for evaluation at least twice. Egan eventually suspended Pcolka in 1992, but continued to pay his salary, provide health benefits and cover the cost of his attorney's fees for several years. In addition, Egan did not make any effort to remove Pcolka from the priesthood, saying he didn't have sufficient evidence that Pcolka had abused anyone. In 1994, Pcolka exercised his Fifth Amendment privilege more than 100 times when questioned about abuse allegations involving more than a dozen victims over several decades.

March 18, 2002. Bishop William E. Lori speaks to the media, vowing to introduce initiatives to root out pedophiles in the diocese.

March 20, 2002. Egan, now Cardinal of New York, releases a statement labeling pedophilia an "abomination." He responds to the recent Courant story, saying the report "omitted certain key facts and contained inaccuracies," and that he is "confident that these cases were handled appropriately." Egan refuses to pledge that the church would report all abuse allegations to authorities, saying that in some circumstances, the diocese would decide whether there are sufficient grounds to notify authorities.

March 22, 2002. The Courant reports that sealed documents reveal the Roman Catholic Church hired in at least one case a private detective to dig into the personal life of an alleged victim and report findings to then-Bishop Egan's top aide, even though the accused priest had faced other sex complaints and had admitted to biting a teenager during oral sex in 1964.

March 24, 2002. Doctors at Hartford's Institute of Living, a nationally renowned psychiatric hospital that for years has treated clergy accused of sexual misconduct, say they were deceived by the Roman Catholic Church into providing reports that the church used to keep abusive priests in the ministry.

April 12, 2002. The Courant reports that Egan, while serving as bishop in Bridgeport, failed to notify police about a sexual relationship between a 15-year-old member of a church youth group and a priest, even after the teenager became pregnant with the priest's child in 1989, two months after her 16th birthday.

April 21, 2002. Bishop William E. Lori announces the departures of four of the seven "John Doe" priests. During a press conference he announces the suspension of Rev. Stanley N. Koziol of St. Mark Parish in Stratford and the resignation of Monsignor Gregory M. Smith, director of the Institute for Religious Education and Pastoral Studies at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield. He also reveals that two other priests who had left their parishes without explanation in 1997 had at the time been removed for sexual misconduct on orders from then-Bishop Edward M. Egan. Those priests were Rev. Joseph Moore and Monsignor Charles W. Stubbs. The "John Doe" priests were individuals referred to, but never publicly identified during years of litigation against the diocese by victims of other priests.

April 24, 2002. Lawyers for The Courant and The New York Times argue in Waterbury Superior Court that sealed files from the sexual misconduct lawsuits, slated for destruction because the cases were settled out-of-court, should be released for public inspection.

April 29, 2002. Rev. William D. Donovan of Fairfield resigns after the Diocese of Bridgeport, for the first time, reports an allegation of sexual abuse by a priest to state criminal investigators. A second priest, Rev. Alfred J. Bietighofer, assistant pastor of St. Andrew Parish in Bridgeport, resigns after two men complained to the diocese that he sexually abused them when they were minors.

May 16, 2002. The Rev. Alfred J. Bietighofer, 64, commits suicide by hanging himself in his room at St. Luke Institute in Silver Spring, MD, one of the nation's premier hospitals for the treatment of troubled clergy.

August 2002. A Hartford Courant investigation locates the Rev. Laurence F.X. Brett, who disappeared in late 1993, living on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten. Called a criminal and "evil man" by Church officials in Bridgeport and Baltimore, Brett faced allegations that he had abused more than two dozen children in Connecticut, New Mexico, California and Maryland dating back to the early 1970s.

October 16, 2003. Bridgeport Bishop William Lori apologizes to sexual abuse victims, asking for forgiveness, as he announces a $21 million settlement with 40 people who say they were molested by priests.

November 4, 2005. The state Supreme Court rules to affirm a lower court decision effectively granting four newspapers, including The Courant and The New York Times, permission to intervene and seek access to sealed documents relating to a Bridgeport priest sex scandal previously settled. Emphasizing the presumption that court records are open to the public, the Supreme Court sends the case back to Superior Court in Waterbury for a new hearing on the merits of the newspapers' motion to open the files.

December 6, 2006. A Superior Court judge rules that the public has the right to view sealed court documents from nearly two dozen sex abuse lawsuits files against the Bridgeport diocese that were settled in 2001, saying that the original reason for their secrecy – to ensure a fair trial – is no longer relevant. Four newspapers, including The Courant, had sought to have the documents unsealed in 2002. The Diocese later appeals the decision.

May 22, 2009. The state Supreme Court rules for the second time that the public should have access to nearly all of the 12,675 pages pertaining to some of the 23 lawsuits alleging sexual abuse claims against at least seven priests from the Bridgeport diocese. The Courant obtained copies of some of the sealed documents in 2002, resulting in a number of articles detailing how then-Bishop Edward M. Egan and other officials in Bridgeport ignored accusations or protected abusive priests.

November 2009. In an attempt to keep the documents secret, the Diocese of Bridgeport admits in a court filing that it is aware of 32 claims of sexual abuse allegedly committed by eight priests in the parish of St. Theresa's in Trumbull between the years of 1968 and 2000.

December 1, 2009. 12,600 pages of documents released.

Copyright © 2009, The Hartford Courant

Records show Egan evasive, skeptical about sex abuse claims 

Records show Egan, Curtis evasive about priest sexual abuse claims 

Stamford CT Advocate

Posted: 12/01/2009 01:44:58 PM EST

Updated: 12/01/2009 10:45:46 PM EST

By Michael P. Mayko

Staff writer

Edward Egan was defensive, evasive and, at times, argumentative when questioned about his role investigating complaints of sexual misconduct by priests in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport during his tenure as bishop from 1988 to 2000, according to previously secret documents on the abuse cases unsealed Tuesday by court order.

The release of nearly 12,600 pages of documents at Waterbury Superior Court came after the U.S. Supreme Court last month ended a legal battle of more than seven years when justices refused to hear diocesan lawyers' appeal to keep them private.

While Egan claimed to be proud of "the excellent" written policy he helped establish as Bridgeport's bishop, he also appeared complicit in a policy of disinformation concerning the practice of abruptly reassigning priests accused of sexual abuse. The explanation for a priest's new assignment, if a public one was offered at all, often involved a feigned medical problem.

If "anyone were to ask, I would simply say they probably had no business to ask and I would just avoid the answer," Egan said under questioning by the late T. Paul Tremont in a deposition in October 1997. Tremont, who with Cindy Robinson and Henry Lyon sued the diocese on behalf of 64 people claiming they had been abused by diocesan priests, won a total of nearly $36 million in settlements for their plaintiffs.

In a September 1999 deposition, Egan told the lawyers that if claims of sexual abuse by priests had been reported they would be brought to his attention.

"Were any such complaints made in regard to a claim that a priest was abusing, sexually, some of the children of the parish?" "No," Egan replied.

When asked why the Rev. Raymond Pcolka, who was accused of abusing children at several Fairfield County parishes, was still being paid by the diocese despite disregarding Egan's order to remain at the Institute of Living in Hartford to undergo a full psychiatric exam, the bishop was elusive.

"Where do you send those monies to?" Robinson asked Egan.

"I thought I said he's not available to me. ... He doesn't respond to me," Egan said, avoiding a direct answer.

The diocese also paid for Pcolka's lawyer, which Egan said the diocese was obligated to do.

In page after page in the depositions, Egan, who has a doctorate in Catholic canonical law, verbally jousted with lawyers for the plaintiffs claiming sexual abuse. The documents were unsealed following lawsuits filed by the New York Times, Hartford Courant, Boston Globe and Washington Post.

"For virtually eight years, the diocese fought all our efforts to obtain documents and simultaneously sought to seal depositions and documents obtained," Robinson said Tuesday. "In many ways, the diocese tactics revictimized the abused. They required the victims, their parents, sometimes even their siblings to sit down for lengthy depositions."

Egan, who never offered a public apology to the abuse victims while he was Bridgeport bishop, left the diocese in 2000 to become cardinal of the Archdiocese of New York. He retired from that post in April.

Robinson said what she found most disturbing in Egan's testimony, however, is how he "never showed pastoral concern or offered counseling to the victims."

Take one exchange with Egan in September 1999. She asked him if he kept statistics on the number of claims or lawsuits brought against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport.

His response: "Claims are one thing. One does not take every claim against every human being as a proved misdeed. I'm interested in proved misdeeds. ... Claims are not of interest to me. Realities are."

He also told Robinson that incidents of sexual abuse by clergy "happen in such small numbers. It's marvelous when you think of the hundreds and hundreds of priests and how very few have even been accused ... so it is not commonplace by any means at all. It's a unique and unexpected occurrence."

In the newly released documents are allegations that a priest ran his hands up the knees and legs of boys he took to a movie theater, that another priest sexually attacked two young men in bed that the diocese classified as a "drunkenness problem" and another priest was transferred from parish to parish, where he repeatedly sexually assaulted young men and women.

In his own depositions, Egan's predecessor, the late Bishop Walter W. Curtis, said that it was common practice to reassign a priest accused of sexual misbehavior to another parish after he received professional counseling. A reassignment would "allow him to have a fresh start," Curtis said.

Among the priests accused in lawsuits of abusing children in the diocese over the last several decades are: the Revs. Charles Stubbs, Martin Federici, Joseph Gorecki, Alfred Bietighofer, Raymond Pcolka, Richard Grady, Stanley Bonaszek, Henry Albecke, John DeShan, William Donovan, Vincent Veich, Sherman Gray, Albert McGoldrick, Robert Morrissey and W. Phillip Coleman.

All of these priests ultimately were suspended by the diocese. None of them were ever reinstated.

"Now the public can see for themselves what we have been up against," said John Marshall Lee, an official with the Voice of the Faithful chapter in the Diocese of Bridgeport, which has called for greater transparency by the church hierarchy and advocates on behalf of people abused by clergy.

Diocesan officials said that significant changes have been made since Bishop William E. Lori took the helm.

"The diocese removes from ministry any priest who is found to have abused a child," the diocese said in a recent statement.

"The Diocese of Bridgeport has one of the most well conceived and thoroughly administered Safe Environment Programs in Connecticut. It has, from its inception, taught against sexual contact outside the bonds of marriage," the statement said.

But many church critics, such as Lee, feel that the long fight church officials waged to keep secret the records on child abuse shows that the hierarchy is not as transparent as it claims.

"The people have been asked to pay, pray and obey," said Lee. "If you go by the numbers, the Diocese of Bridgeport has 450,000 people and has spent almost $40 million in settlements. Boston, by contrast, has 2.5 million people and spent around $85 million in settlements. Per capita the Catholics sitting in the pews of the Bridgeport diocese have spent more with less information or satisfaction."

The Bridgeport sex abuse allegations were among hundreds of abuse claims filed in dioceses across the country. Dioceses in Boston; Los Angeles; Spokane, Wash.; Dallas and several other cities ended up settling those claims for hundreds of millions of dollars. And U.S. bishops drafted tough new policies they said would ensure such abuse allegations would be handled effectively and swiftly in the future.

The previously sealed documents involve allegations of sexual abuse by clergy that date back to 1964. Curtis testified that he kept a secret file about the accused priests. But Curtis told lawyers in his depositions that he occasionally destroyed "antiquated" complaints because "it happened so long before, there would be no point in preserving it." Tremont asked Egan in October 1997 if he found such records in the secret file.

The Rev. Laurence Brett, who served at St. Cecilia's in Stamford, is cited in complaints dating back to 1964. Diocese officials were aware that Brett had sexually abused an 18-year-old male Sacred Heart University student, including a report that Brett had bitten the student's penis while performing oral sex to prevent the teen from ejaculating. He then told the student to seek confession from another priest, according to the documents.

But it was never reported to authorities or parishioners.

Instead, Brett was allowed to continue to serve as a priest and continued assaulting teens, including Frank Martinelli, who was a member of Brett's Mavericks, a teen organization the priest created. Martinelli claimed in a federal lawsuit that Brett suggested the teen perform oral sex on him as a way of receiving Holy Communion.

Still when Egan met with Brett to discuss the 1964 incident some 26 years later, the bishop wrote in a memo, "All things considered, he made a good impression. In the course of our conversation, the particulars of his case came out in detail and with grace." When Brett was sent away for treatment, the late Bishop Curtis suggested in court documents that the diocese claim Brett's absence was caused by hepatitis, which the priest had actually had previously.

"So they would hide the complaint of sexual abuse and tell persons that he had hepatitis and that is why he was not around?" asked Tremont.

"No I would read it that this man is going away and if anyone asks, say he's not well, he has hepatitis," Egan explained. "That's quite a bit different than saying you are going to hide it."

Not all of the documents involved with the abuse cases were released Tuesday. The state Supreme Court this summer ruled that 15 documents could remain confidential and that "in camera" records submitted by the diocese to a trial judge had not been sought by the newspapers so they, too, would be kept sealed.

The New York Times

Published: December 2, 2009

By PAUL VITELLO

The deposition was in its fifth grueling hour. The lawyer and the witness had dueled over the meaning of common words, about whether an executive “supervises” or “administers,” about the difference between a lie and a failure to tell the truth.

Since 2002, when Cardinal Edward M. Egan moved to New York and nationwide attention focused on the church hierarchy’s handling of abuse complaints, he has faced troubling accusations about his tenure in Bridgeport, Conn.

 Then the lawyer sprang his big question: You could have prevented someone from hurting people and you decided not to. Why?

The witness was Edward M. Egan, then the Roman Catholic bishop of Bridgeport, Conn. The question was about a priest who had been accused of sexually molesting children.

“I didn’t make a decision one way or the other,” said Bishop Egan, whom the lawyer suggested had failed to act quickly against the cleric. “I kept working on it until I resolved the decision.”

The exchange is one of hundreds recorded in a vast trove of documents the Diocese of Bridgeport made public on Tuesday after battling in court for seven years to keep them sealed. The archive — more than 12,000 pages of memos, church records and testimony — was gathered for 23 lawsuits, alleging sexual abuse of children by seven priests, that the diocese settled in 2002.

At the heart of it lies the bishop’s testimony, in two wide-ranging depositions from 1997 and 1999. Punctuated by legal parsing and frequent exasperation on both sides, transcripts of the videotaped sessions show the man who would become one of the church’s most prominent American leaders — the archbishop of New York, and a cardinal — as he navigated a budding scandal that still threatens the church’s finances and reputation.

Since 2002, when he moved to New York and nationwide attention focused on the church hierarchy’s handling of abuse complaints, Cardinal Egan has faced troubling accusations about his tenure in Bridgeport: that he allowed priests facing multiple sex abuse allegations to continue working; that he did not refer complaints to criminal authorities; and that he showed little interest in meeting with accusers.

As New York archbishop, Cardinal Egan adopted policies to aid the investigation and reporting of abuse complaints, and expressed regret in a 2002 letter to parishioners: “If in hindsight we also discover that mistakes may have been made as regards prompt removal of priests and assistance to victims, I am deeply sorry.”

But the depositions offer an intimate glimpse of the prelate’s perspective as he was first forced to defend his church from accusations of sexual abuse that went as far back as the 1960s, long before he arrived in Bridgeport in 1988. Sometimes ringing in his praise of church policies and priests, the bishop was also a defendant in a lawsuit, clearly constrained in what he could say.

The testimony makes clear that Bishop Egan did not consult the man he succeeded, Bishop Walter W. Curtis, about problems in the diocese, even though allegations of sexual abuse were drawing intense publicity around the country. He acknowledged that the diocese rarely delved into abuse complaints by seeking out witnesses or other potential victims, or telling accusers about other complaints against the same priests.

Under questioning, he exhibited his skills as a canon lawyer who worked at the Vatican for more than a decade. He corrected his inquisitors’ use of religious terms, politely suggested how questions might be phrased more precisely, and sometimes seemed to run out the clock in his answers to the barrage of hostile inquiries — interrupting to clarify something he said minutes before, or volubly searching his memory for details.

Throughout the testimony, Bishop Egan showed himself as an administrator who could be demanding of his staff, but at times felt limited in his ability to remove men from the priesthood despite several abuse complaints.

He emerges as a religious leader with an almost fatalistic view that the truth in many sex abuse cases is unknowable. “You are of the opinion that everything is crystal clear,” he told a lawyer questioning him about his decisions. “I am not.”

The deposition transcripts and other records were sealed when the diocese settled the lawsuits, but The New York Times and three other newspapers sued for their release; the legal fight ended in October, when the United States Supreme Court declined to hear the diocese’s appeal.

The Diocese of Bridgeport, on its Web site, said the newly released records contained “old news” that had already been reported and “does not reflect the true culture change has been effected across the church regarding our knowledge of and ability to deal with sexual abuse.” In a statement on behalf of Cardinal Egan, who retired as archbishop this year, the Archdiocese of New York said that as bishop in Bridgeport, he followed then-standard protocol in letting some accused priests resume their duties after being evaluated and cleared to return to work by psychiatrists.

When new accusations emerged against those priests, one had already died. One retired in ill health; Bishop Egan let another keep working in a limited capacity because he considered the charges unfounded, and removed two from the priesthood.

In the depositions, one of the few moments of ease for Bishop Egan occurred early in the first session, on Oct. 7, 1997, in a Bridgeport law office.

He described the arc of a dazzling clerical career: from a seminary outside Chicago to Rome for a doctorate in canon law, then quickly back to Chicago to become secretary to the archbishop, Cardinal John Cody, whom he served until 1971. He returned to Rome as a canon lawyer in prestigious posts under two popes, then went to New York as an auxiliary bishop under Cardinal John J. O’Connor in 1985.

But one lawyer, Jason Tremont, turned the bishop’s résumé into a weapon against him.

“In fact, you consider yourself — and others consider you — a canon law scholar?” Mr. Tremont asked before launching into a series of questions highlighting the bishop’s deep knowledge of the tools available for disciplining errant priests.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs referred repeatedly to Bishop Egan’s credentials as a church law scholar to question what they consider his failures to crack down on accused abusers. In turn, Bishop Egan clearly showed how much his view of the issue was informed by a lawyer’s grasp of the rules of liability.

“Isn’t it true that under canon law you have an obligation to supervise the priests within your diocese?” Mr. Tremont asked.

“I don’t know where you get the ‘supervise’ and so forth,” the bishop replied. “I would be hesitant about that.”

He sparred at one point over the difference between the supervisory and administrative duties; and at another point acknowledged that “media attention” to allegations of sexual abuse by priests had already become a serious problem for the church by 1988, when he arrived in Bridgeport, prompting him to take action. Soon after settling in, he said, he codified — in written form — the diocese’s “excellent policies” for handling sexual abuse complaints, which under previous bishops had been passed along by word of mouth.

Even then, Bishop Egan played down the importance of the action he had taken to stem a problem which, to him, was not a widespread one. At one point, when the deposition resumed in 1999, he stopped in his description of church policies to challenge the notion that any abuse had actually occurred.

“Incidentally,” he said, “these things don’t happen, and we are talking about ifs.”

“Forgive me, Father — Bishop,” replied one lawyer, Cindy Robinson. “But these things do happen because that’s the reason why we’re seated here today.”

She had been asking about two priests with long records of abuse allegations, whom Bishop Egan had sought to remove from the priesthood, though both continued working.

“These things happen in such small numbers,” the bishop said.

Bishop Egan was at his most combative when voicing his belief in the innocence of most accused priests, including one, the Rev. Raymond Pcolka, who was accused by 12 former parishioners of abuses involving oral and anal sex and beatings.

“I am not aware of those things,” said the bishop. “I am aware of the claims of those things, the allegations of those things. I am aware that there are a number of people who know one another, some are related to one another, have the same lawyers and so forth.”

After one complaint against Father Pcolka surfaced, the bishop sent the priest to the Hartford psychiatric center in 1993. But when the priest checked himself out after 10 days, refusing to return to the diocese, Bishop Egan permitted him to continue receiving a stipend and lawyer’s fees from the diocese. Of the payments, he said, “We are not obligated to do that, except that it is a practice that has a certain moral implication.”

The bishop expressed frustration with the priest’s flight. “No one regrets it more than I, that he left there,” he said. But had he asked Father Pcolka to leave the priesthood?

“I didn’t ask him,” the bishop replied, “because I knew from his attorney that he would never consider it.”

Bishop Egan resisted the notion of guilt even in the case of one priest, the Rev. Gavin O’Connor, whom he asked to leave the priesthood after three men accused the priest of abusing them for years when they were boys. Father O’Connor agreed to the bishop’s request. But in his deposition, the bishop said that did not mean the allegations were necessarily true.

Returning the priest to the laity “was not a punishment for an act,” he said. “It was an administrative decision of mine about what was best for him and the church.”

Near the end of the long questioning, Bishop Egan and a plaintiff’s lawyer came to loggerheads over the meaning of numbers.

“Bishop Egan, the fact that 19 individuals have come forward and made claims,” Ms. Robinson asked about Father Pcolka’s case. “You don’t consider that to be a significant number of individuals?”

The bishop waited while his lawyer quibbled over the number 19, then answered that considering there were 360,911 registered Catholics in the diocese, “I do not consider that a significant segment or factor.”

“Would you agree with me, Bishop Egan,” the lawyer pressed, “that if one person, one individual, has been affected by the sexual abuse of a clergy member, when that person was a child, that that’s far too much to accept in any diocese?”

“It would not be a significant portion of the diocese,” he replied. “Your question was ‘a significant portion of the diocese.’ ”

The lawyers were arguing again when the bishop interrupted to clarify his point: “However, were even one person to have been abused sexually, while that one person could not numerically be categorized as a significant portion,” he said, “the activity would be significant and more.”

At that point, both sides agreed to take a break.