Lang: Father Joseph Lang

American priest. Ordained 1965 – Diocese of Cleveland, Ohio.  1988  allegations that he sodomized a young boy.  At some point he allegedly admitted to the abuse. He was sent off to Connecticut’s Institute for Living for psychiatric treatment, and then quietly recycled (“loaned”) to the Diocese of Prince George, British Columbia, Canada.  The Bishop of the day in Prince George was Hubert Patrick O’Connor omi.  O’Connor resigned in 1991 after sex abuse charges were laid against him.

Word of Lang’s past got out in 2002 when the Diocese of Cleveland was pressured to reveal how it had handled previously undisclosed allegations of clerical sexual abuse.  Lang left Prince George.  I thought he had returned to the States, however, a blogger on this site says that the last he heard was that Lang was living at an Oblate house in Vancouver –  ”either the Crescent or their retirement residence at St. Augustine’s.”  (He is not in the 2010 or 2011 Catholic Directories.)  At some point Lang was permanently removed from ecclesiastical ministry (this does not mean he was laicized /defrocked, only that he can no longer function or present himself publicly as a priest)

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Bishops of Prince George Diocese from the time of Father Lang’s arrival:  Hubert Patrick O’Connor, O.M.I.  (09 June – 08 July 1991 Resigned); Gerald William Wiesner, O.M.I. (06 Oct 1992 –  - )

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The following information is drawn from Canadian Catholic Church Directories (CCCD) which I happen to have on hand and media (M)

2011, 2010: not listed in CCCD,

2002:  Pastor, Sacred Heart RC Church, Terrace, British Columbia (Pastoral Assistant Pauline Moldenhauer) (CCCD)

April 2001:  placed on leave of absence after his past caught up with him.

2000, 1999, 1998, 1997:  Pastor, Church of the Resurrection, Fort St. John, British Columbia (CCCD)

1996:  Pastor, Church of the Resurrection, Fort St. John, British Columbia (CCCD)

member of the College of Consultors (CCCD)

1995: Pastor, Church of the Resurrection, Fort St. John, British Columbia (CCCD)

member of the College of Consultors (CCCD)

Member of the Tribunal (with Very Rev. James E. Larkin omi) (CCCD)

1994, 1993, 1992, 1991:  Pastor, Christ Our Saviour RC Church, Prince George, British Columbia (CCCD)

Member of the Tribunal (with Very Rev. James E. Larkin omi and Father Francis Rayner omi) (CCCD)

in charge of Prince George Regional Correctional Centre (that would be prison ministry) (CCCD)

1988:  allegations that he sodomized a young boy.  Lang allegedly admitted.  He was sent off to Connecticut’s Institute for Living for psychiatric treatment.  He was then sent off to Canada where he was taken in by Bishop Hubert O’Connor, Diocese of Prince George, British Columbia (M)

1971-75: St. Philomena in East Cleveland (USA) (M)

1969-71: St. Thomas More in Brooklyn (USA) (M)

1965:  ORDAINED

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Excerpt from “For the Record: Plain Dealer story on Clergy Abuse cases limits diocesan response”  by Bishop Richard Lennon, and posted  on the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland website.  The statement was posted in response to a 26 May 2007 article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper.  http://dioceseofcleveland.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=45&Itemid=53&limitstart=5

The cases of Fathers Alan Bruening, Joseph Lang and Edward Rupp have been decided by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican which has ordered that they be permanently removed from the ecclesiastical ministry. They are not permitted to celebrate Mass publicly or to administer the sacraments, wear clerical attire, or publicly present themselves as priests. Each is now confined to a life of prayer and penance as established by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Essential Norms for Diocesan Policies Dealing with Allegations of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priests or Deacons #8b. They receive minimal support of a pension and hospitalization.

He has not been laicized (defrocked).  According the the American bishops directives:

“If the penalty of dismissal from the clerical state has not been applied (e.g., for reasons of advanced age or infirmity), the offender ought to lead a life of prayer and penance. He will not be permitted to celebrate Mass publicly or to administer the sacraments. He is to be instructed not to wear clerical garb, or to present himself publicly as a priest.”

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Good Priest Hunting

 
Other States Found Ways to Beat the Statute of Limitations in Catholic Abuse Cases. Bill Mason Didn’t

Cleveland Scene (Ohio)

15 January 2003

By Sarah Fenske

The priest was shipped out of Cleveland without fanfare. One minute he was facing allegations that he’d raped a young male parishioner. The next, he was gone. There may have been other stops along the way, but this much is certain: After fielding the accusation, the Cleveland diocese sent Father Joseph Lang to Connecticut’s Institute for Living for psychiatric treatment, according to a former diocesan official. In 1988, he was loaned to a diocese in remote British Columbia. There he stayed for 14 quiet years.

Even Bishop Gerald Wiesner, appointed five years after Lang’s arrival in British Columbia, didn’t know of his past, according to a source in Wiesner’s office. And Lang’s old congregation, East Cleveland’s St. Philomena, was never told the reason for his departure, according to the diocesan official.

Until last April. That’s when Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason opened an investigation into sexual abuse cases in the Cleveland diocese. Only then, so many years after the boy’s parents first confronted church leaders, was Lang suspended, outed as a suspected abuser along with 14 other priests. (According to the source in Wiesner’s office, Lang has left British Columbia. He could not be reached for comment. Bob Tayek, spokesman for the Cleveland diocese, declined comment on the specifics of the Lang case.) Insiders believe the case against Lang might be one of the strongest Mason had. The former official says the diocese knew that, while in Connecticut, Lang had admitted to the incident.

But even an admission of guilt isn’t always enough. Prior to a change in 1999, Ohio law required sexual abuse to be prosecuted within six years of the victim turning 18 or reporting the abuse to a teacher or counselor.

Since almost all the allegations against local priests came before the 1999 revision, Mason’s office was circumscribed by that narrow window of time. Prosecutors would eventually discard 484 abuse allegations because they were too old.

But Lang’s quiet move to Canada seemed to trigger a legal loophole: If an accused person moves out of state, many states freeze the clock on the statute of limitations. Prosecutors in Boston and Detroit successfully used that very loophole to resurrect decades-old cases against abusive priests — and win convictions.

While Ohio’s law is not so clear-cut, it does provide for such a freeze. Jeffrey Anderson, a St. Paul attorney who’s made a career of suing Catholic dioceses across the country, says Mason could have used it.

“The statute of limitations needs to be changed, but until it is, the prosecutors are the ones charged to make sure these predators are prosecuted,” he says. “They have to find creative ways around these barriers.”

Freezing the statute of limitations for priests who leave town, he says, is one of the best.Timothy B. Miller, Mason’s criminal-division chief, describes the quest to sort old abuse allegations as a trip through Detail Hell. Thanks to the diocese’s files and phone calls from self-described victims across the country, prosecutors eventually cataloged 1,019 claims of abuse against priests and church leaders in the eight-county diocese. For each victim they talked to, prosecutors compiled a four-page dossier, much of it focused on the statute of limitations, Miller says. How old was the child during the abuse? When was it first reported? Did the child repress memories? Each answer could invoke a different part of Ohio’s law.

Then there were the accused priests. Did they leave the state? If so, when? “We did a time calculation on each complaint,” Miller says. “The focus from the beginning was to be as thorough and complete as possible, so there would be no doubts later on.”

At first the probe seemed bound to lead to indictments. At its inception, the diocese put 15 priests on administrative leave and named 12 retirees as potential abusers. The list didn’t include every priest who’d ever been accused of misconduct, but rather “those where we had sufficient evidence that sexual abuse of a minor may have occurred,” says Tayek.

Some had already copped to criminal charges. Others — at least half of those on the list, according to the former diocesan official — had admitted the abuse to church leaders.

Some, like Father Joseph Romansky, had done both. In court files from a 1985 suit, he admitted to playing a game called “strip tonk” with some boys he met at a church-run group. The session ended, according to Romansky’s testimony, with the priest sprawled on the floor in front of the boys, masturbating. (“They were wide-eyed,” Romansky said, “busy watching and laughing about it.”)

He eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, but lawsuits detail other allegations of misconduct still unprosecuted.

Then there was Father Joseph Lieberth. According to a suit filed last year, Lieberth took a 17-year-old parishioner on a trip west in 1986. His effort to rape the boy, says the suit, was “thwarted only by [his] premature ejaculation.”

The victim, who asked not to be identified, says Lieberth later apologized to him. But Auxiliary Bishop Anthony Quinn urged the victim not to take legal action, so he didn’t; only last year did the victim learn that another boy was similarly attacked in 1985, according to the suit.

But no matter how ugly the stories — and how many prosecutors heard — Miller says there was little they could do. Almost every allegation was too old for Ohio law.

When Mason closed his investigation last month, one retired priest, Daniel McBride, was charged with compelling and promoting prostitution for allegedly meeting a boy in a bar and taking him to New York for sex. A few workers at a Catholic-run center for troubled teens were also charged. That was it.

“As Bishop Pilla himself said, even one accused is too many,” Tayek says. “But we can take some comfort that no one currently in active ministry was charged.”

Still, it doesn’t mean the others were cleared. Prosecutors say they investigated 145 priests and cleared only 7. The rest couldn’t be prosecuted.

Most of the allegations, Miller says, predated the 1990s. Even more heartbreaking, some victims had told “mandatory reporters” like teachers, who failed to make a report.

But what about the priests who skipped the state? The statute of limitations, Ohio law says, is frozen if the defendant “purposefully avoids prosecution.”

The law offers two examples: if the accused conceals his identity or leaves the state.

Lang wasn’t the only priest to leave Ohio. Father F. James Mulica, accused of abusing a boy in Kirtland, eventually moved to California and was licensed as an insurance agent before heading to Arizona and starting a dream-analysis company.

Father Gary Berthiaume, who came to Cleveland in 1978 already on probation for molesting a boy, fled to Illinois 10 years later, after his history became public — but not before allegedly abusing more boys at a Cleveland elementary school, according to a 2000 lawsuit.

Father Allen Bruening, Berthiaume’s supervisor, was accused of abusing boys and girls before moving to Texas, then New Mexico. Father Joseph Brodnick, suspended along with Lang last year, had moved to upstate New York.

But Miller says Ohio’s statute is so specific that simply leaving the state doesn’t freeze the window for prosecution. “It only works if the prosecutor can prove they left purposefully, to avoid prosecution,” he says. “If they just got transferred or moved, that’s different.”

Berthiaume, who was made chaplain at a Catholic retreat center, could argue that he left Ohio as a business move, for example.

Cincinnati lawyer Felix Gora agrees that the “purposefully” provision is key. “You’ve got to do more than show they left.”

But Anderson thinks it can be done. “We know from the past that the Catholic church worked to conceal these felonies. They’re involved in a pattern to conceal these crimes from the public, from the police, from the prosecutors.”

An aggressive prosecutor, Anderson says, could easily make the case that the diocese moved accused priests out of state to diminish the heat. “You’ve got a pattern of fraudulent concealment. And that tolls the statute of limitations.”

Consider Lang. The diocesan source is convinced the priest’s move to Canada was no coincidence. Arguing that the diocese moved him to avoid repercussions isn’t much of a stretch.

When questioned on the details of Lang’s case, Miller said he wasn’t familiar with it and would have to talk to the prosecutor involved. When he called back days later, he said the allegation had been reported to Children and Family Services in 1987. “The civil authorities were given the information to go ahead and prosecute it,” he says. “I don’t think the fact that he got transferred is what prevented it.”

Adds Assistant Prosecutor Frankie Goldberg: “Nothing indicated he had changed his name or was in hiding.”

Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivor’s Network for Those Abused by Priests, believes it was the prosecutor’s duty to at least attempt an indictment. “If [Mason] knew there was a loophole and didn’t take advantage of it, it has to make you wonder,” she says. “Isn’t he Catholic? Doesn’t that create somewhat a conflict of interest?” Using a priest’s departure to freeze time limits isn’t unprecedented. Massachusetts priest James Porter was accused of molesting dozens of children before heading to Minnesota in 1967. In 1993, Bristol County prosecutors filed a 46-count indictment against him, arguing the statute of limitations froze when he fled.

Like Lang, Porter didn’t try hard to hide. So Porter’s attorney challenged the provision as unconstitutional. But Massachusetts’s law freezes the statute of limitations any time a defendant moves out of state — not just in cases of concealment. The law withstood the challenge. Porter pleaded guilty to 41 counts.

More recently, former priests Edward Olszewski and Jason Sigler were sentenced in Michigan for molesting kids in the 1960s and ’70s. Sigler had been transferred to New Mexico, Olszewski to Florida.

Miller notes that Michigan’s law is invoked much more readily than Ohio’s. There’s no “purposefully” provision, only the issue of whether the accused left the state.

And he insists that Cuyahoga County prosecutors unearthed nothing like the ugliness their counterparts found in Boston. Cleveland’s priests, he said, were not reassigned to places where they could strike again.

Since 1989, the diocese has had a strict procedure in place for dealing with abuse allegations, one that keeps accused abusers from serving near children, says Tayek.

“Pilla went forward and addressed this,” Miller said. “That’s why you didn’t see people re-offending in this diocese.”

Blaine disagrees. “In Cleveland, in Toledo, it’s all the same. It’s not any different than you had in Boston,” she says.

“Boston is just an example of what’s happening elsewhere,” Anderson concurs. “The only difference in Cleveland is that there hasn’t been as aggressive an initiative by the civil lawyers, the media, and prosecutors.”

After all, prior to 1989, alleged abusers were given new assignments where they could have contact with children. Some stayed in those places for years: Lieberth led Holy Family Catholic Church in Stow for close to a decade before being placed on leave in April. And Lang was the only priest in tiny Terrace, British Columbia, with his own bishop unaware that he’d once been accused of rape.

Neither has been accused of recent misconduct. Blaine still wonders. “These child molesters don’t stop,” she says. She believes abuse victims from the ’90s will eventually surface from Cleveland-area parishes. At this point, she says, they’re just too young and too wounded to come forward. “It’s only a matter of time.”

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A shocking church cover-up

Kingston Whig Standard

18 April 2002

When Father Joseph Lang was shipped from Cleveland, Ohio, to northern British Columbia in 1988, he came under what Pope John Paul II himself has described as “a dark shadow of suspicion.” Unbeknownst to his trusting parishioners, Lang had been accused of having sex with a minor in Cleveland. He is one of scores of priests from the U.S. who have been suspended from their duties in recent weeks after past allegations of abuse were brought to light.

That a major religious institution did not see fit to have Father Lang face his accuser in a court of law and be found guilty or not, that it kept the sickening accusation secret and shuffled the problem to a remote part of Canada is shocking, if not criminal.

In seeking to protect the reputation of its clergy, the church put its own interests ahead of those of some of its most vulnerable members, its children. Such a course of action can only serve to erode even further its moral authority at a time when people have a growing hunger for spiritual guidance.

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B.C. priest goes on leave as past in U.S. revealed

The Globe and Mail

11 April 2002

Robert Matas

A Roman Catholic priest accused of being involved sexually with a minor in the United States was quietly sent to work in a remote area of northern British Columbia in 1988.

Before Rev. Joseph Lang came to Canada, the church investigated the allegations and provided treatment for the priest, Most Rev. Anthony Pilla, Bishop of Cleveland, Ohio, said in a formal statement released yesterday.

As far as the church knew, Father Lang performed his ministry in Canada successfully, without incident, Bishop Pilla said.

However, caught in the glare of a widespread U.S. investigation into sexual abuse by priests and church employees, Father Lang abruptly “withdrew” from his post this week as parish priest in Terrace, B.C.

His decision to take an administrative leave for an indefinite time comes as the Catholic Church in the U.S. is grappling with widespread controversy over its handling of sexual-abuse allegations.

In Bishop Pilla’s diocese, a curate, Rev. Don A. Rooney, shot himself in the head last week after church authorities began an investigation into a sexual complaint from 1980. Bishop Pilla said that 22 priests in the diocese are no longer in the active ministry because of allegations of abuse of minors.

The Diocese of Cleveland is not alone. Six priests in the Archdiocese of New York withdrew from their posts earlier this week because of allegations of sexual misconduct.

In Boston, some have called for the resignation of Bernard Cardinal Law, saying he let priests accused of sexual abuse continue to have access to children and transferred priests under a cloud to other dioceses without telling anyone about allegations of sexual abuse.

It was not clear yesterday whether Canadian church officials were ever told about the allegation of sexual involvement with a minor against Father Lang.

Neither Bishop Pilla nor Most Rev. Gerald Wiesner, bishop of the diocese which includes Terrace, returned phone calls requesting an interview. Father Lang could not be located yesterday for comment.

Jim Callanan, one of Father Lang’s parishioners, said the priest had been in Terrace since the summer of 2000. Father Lang, who was ordained in 1965, has been reported to have worked in Prince George and Dawson Creek as well.

Catholics in the community were not told anything about Father Lang’s withdrawal or about past allegations, he also said. “This comes as a total surprise. Maybe this was dealt with at the time and the man has been clean for the past 25 years.”

Catholics in Terrace liked Father Lang, he said. “He was very pleasant, a thoughtful and caring pastor,” Mr. Callanan said.

The Canadian Council of Catholic Bishops adopted administrative policies to deal with allegations of child sex abuse in 1992.

The document, called Breach of Trust, Breach of Faith , sets out procedures for screening priests. The material was put together after publicity over abuse at the Mount Cashel orphanage in Newfoundland.

Michael Markwick, a frequent commentator on Catholic affairs in B.C., said: “The United States has a lot to learn from us.

“Canadian bishops are now advising their U.S. counterparts on how to [handle the allegations] properly.”

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Priest treated for sex abuse: He has been working in northern B.C. parishes since 1988

The Vancouver Sun

11 April 2002

Petti Fong and Douglas Todd

TERRACE — A suspended Catholic priest in Terrace went through treatment after a sex abuse allegation was made against him in the United States before he came to Canada, the Prince George bishop said Wednesday.

Father Joseph Lang was ordered suspended this week by the Cleveland diocese after the church in Ohio reopened an investigation into claims dating back years that priests sexually abused children. More than 21 priests in the diocese have been suspended in recent weeks.

The suspensions came after Cleveland’s the Plain Dealer newspaper began pressing the church for answers about how it handled previously undisclosed allegations of sex abuse against priests.

Lang has been working at numerous northern B.C. parishes since 1988.

The allegation against Lang is based on a report of sexual activity with a minor in the U.S., Prince George Bishop Gerald Wiesner said Wednesday.

He said church officials from Cleveland, where Lang served several parishes in the 1980s, told him this week Lang received “evaluation and treatment” after the sex allegation was first made to U.S. church officials.

Lang has led Sacred Heart Parish in Terrace as the only Roman Catholic priest in town since 2000.

The diocese of Cleveland “loaned” Lang to the diocese of Prince George in 1988, Wiesner said in a statement. The statement did not specify whether that was before or after the allegation was made against Lang, or whether Wiesner had been warned about the complaint. The bishop, whose diocese oversees Terrace, did not comment outside the statement.

But in it, he said that after Lang returned to the active ministry following his evaluation, to his knowledge, Lang has “been successfully performing his ministry without incident.”

Wiesner stressed that placing Lang on a leave of absence this week “does not carry with it a new presumption of guilt, but is intended to provide for a review of a past allegation and to determine Father Lang’s fitness for ministry.”

The Prince George bishop called on the church to be vigilant in protecting children, and to remember Lang. “As we pray for all those who have been victimized, we must also pray for Father Lang and for the entire church at this difficult time.”

Mass was cancelled this week at Sacred Heart Parish in Terrace where Lang has been a popular and well-respected church leader. A sign at the door said simply: “Father Lang has been called away.”

Past and present parishioners were unequivocal in their support for Lang.

“He was only here in Prince George a short time but made a very large impression on us,” said Shelley Gratton. “We were very sorry when he left and we asked the bishop to keep him here.”

Dave Smith of Terrace said Lang was a man of true faith, who would do anything to help people. Smith’s wife, who died of liver cancer five weeks ago, was given Catholic rites even though she was cremated.

“Any other priest would not have held a funeral for her, but Father Lang loved people,” Smith said, adding the priest is not capable of sex abuse.

Smith, a psychiatric nurse, said he has worked with sex offenders for many years and knows how they think and behave, “and Father Lang shows none of the behaviours. This is a man who shows the love of God in every action.”

Zion Baptist Preacher Lyle Anderson, with the Terrace Ministerial Association, went to Sacred Heart Parish to pray with some of the church officials.

“Father Joe is a bright light in our community,” Anderson said, adding the Christian community must show support for each other, especially in times of uncertainty.

The Cleveland diocese’s decision to suspend the priests is a wise precautionary move, said Renee Trepanier, a parish councillor in Prince George who worked with Lang.

“We’ve heard so much lately over the last few years of these kind of accusations against priests and we know that they are people who are human,” Trepanier said. “Police officers get into trouble, politicians do, any profession that is under public scrutiny has trouble.”

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Accused priest faces review: It has been alleged in the past that he engaged in sex with a minor

The Vancouver Sun

11 April 2011

Petti Fong and Douglas Todd

TERRACE –The suspension this week of the only Roman Catholic priest in Terrace will allow for a review of a past allegation that he engaged in sexual activity with a minor, Prince George Bishop Gerald Wiesner said Wednesday.

But he stressed that the fact that Father Joseph Lang has been placed on a leave of absence “does not carry with it a new presumption of guilt.”

Lang was among more than 21 priests who have been suspended recently by the Cleveland diocese after the church in Ohio reopened an investigation into claims dating back years that priests sexually abused children.

The suspensions came after Cleveland’s Plain Dealer newspaper began pressing the church for answers about how it handled previously undisclosed allegations of sex abuse against priests.

Weisner said church officials from Cleveland, where Lang served several parishes in the 1980s, told him this week Lang received “evaluation and treatment” after the sex allegation was first made to U.S. church officials.

In a statement released Wednesday, Weisner said that after Lang returned to the active ministry following his evaluation, to his knowledge, Lang has “been successfully performing his ministry without incident.”

Wiesner stressed that placing Lang on a leave of absence “does not carry with it a new presumption of guilt, but is intended to provide for a review of a past allegation and to determine Father Lang’s fitness for ministry.”

The allegation against Lang is based on a report of sexual activity with a minor in the U.S., Wiesner said.

Lang has been working at numerous northern B.C. parishes since 1988. He has led Sacred Heart Parish in Terrace as the only Roman Catholic priest in town since 2000.

The diocese of Cleveland “loaned” Lang to the diocese of Prince George in 1988, Wiesner said in a statement. The statement did not specify whether that was before or after the allegation was made against Lang, or whether Wiesner had been warned about the complaint.

The Prince George bishop called on the church to be vigilant in protecting children, and to remember Lang. “As we pray for all those who have been victimized, we must also pray for Father Lang and for the entire church at this difficult time.”

Mass was cancelled this week at Sacred Heart Parish in Terrace, where Lang has been a popular and well-respected church leader. A sign at the door said simply: “Father Lang has been called away.”

Past and present parishioners were unequivocal in their support for Lang.

“He was only here in Prince George a short time but made a very large impression on us,” said Shelley Gratton. “We were very sorry when he left and we asked the bishop to keep him here.”

Dave Smith of Terrace said Lang was a man of true faith, who would do anything to help people. Smith’s wife, who died of liver cancer five weeks ago, was given Roman Catholic rites even though she was cremated.

“Any other priest would not have held a funeral for her, but Father Lang loved people,” Smith said, adding the priest is not capable of sex abuse.

Smith, a psychiatric nurse, said he has worked with sex offenders for many years and knows how they think and behave, “and Father Lang shows none of the behaviours. This is a man who shows the love of God in every action.”

Renee Trepanier, a parish councillor in Prince George who worked with Lang, said the Cleveland diocese’s decision to suspend the priests is a wise precautionary move.

“We’ve heard so much lately over the last few years of these kind of accusations against priests and we know that they are people who are human,” Trepanier said. “Police officers get into trouble, politicians do, any profession that is under public scrutiny has trouble.”

Fort St. John Mayor Steve Thorlakson said Wednesday Lang was “absolutely loved” when he served Church of the Resurrection parish for about four years in the late 1990s.

“Father Lang was very, very highly regarded in our community. These allegations are absolutely shattering,” said Thorlakson, a Mennonite.

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B.C. priest goes on leave as past in U.S. revealed

U.S. investigation into sexual abuse by Catholic clerics reverberate from Florida to Terrace, B.C.

Toronto Globe and Mail

11 April 2011

Robert Matas

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Terrace priest suspended in sexual abuse probe: Originally from Cleveland, the priest also worked in Prince George, Dawson Creek

The Vancouver Sun

10 April 2002

Petti Fong and Douglas Todd

TERRACE — The only Roman Catholic priest in Terrace is one of nine suspended this week by the Cleveland Catholic Diocese pending an American criminal investigation into years-old allegations of child sexual abuse.

Reverend Joseph J. Lang of Sacred Heart Parish was suspended Monday by the diocese in Cleveland, Ohio, according to Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer newspaper.

The suspension came after a grand jury subpoena was issued Friday demanding that the diocese turn over all records dealing with allegations of sexual abuse against any priest or diocesan employee.

Lang, like all the suspended priests, was required to move out of his church residence, but will continue to receive his salary and benefits. The priests’ ministries are on hold until the criminal review is completed.

Lang, 63, is originally from Cleveland, but has been a priest in B.C. for nearly a decade, in Prince George, Dawson Creek and in Terrace, where he joined the parish two years ago.

Bishop Gerard Wiesner of the diocese of Prince George which overlooks Sacred Heart Parish, was unavailable for comment Tuesday.

But the person who answered the phone at the Sacred Heart Parish office said, “Father Lang is under the Cleveland Diocese and was on loan to us. As far as my understanding, he still belongs to that diocese.”

Lang is on “administrative leave,” the person said. “We know very little and it’s just too soon to say anything.”

Besides the nine suspensions announced this week, diocesan officials also released the names of 12 retired or former priests who had been removed from their duties because of allegations of child sex abuse.

A spokesman for the diocese told the Plain Dealer that all nine newly suspended priests were evaluated and treated at the time the allegations surfaced and all were returned to active ministry.

“Many had been back in ministry for years,” said Robert Tayek, who added the resurfacing of allegations “makes their lives very difficult.”

Lang was a respected and charming leader in the church, said Val George, a parishioner who has attended Sacred Heart for 25 years.

“We’re always concerned that we will be left without a priest because there is such a shortage, so Father Lang was very welcomed when he arrived,” George said. “He has shown himself to be always available and a very pleasant person.”

George said the removal of Lang leaves Terrace without a priest, the closest an hour away in Kitimat. The Sacred Heart parish has about 100 parishioners, George said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, funeral services were held in Parma, Ohio, on Tuesday for Father Donald A. Rooney, who committed suicide last week amid accusations that he had molested a girl at his first parish more than 20 years ago.

Allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the U.S. have surfaced in recent weeks.

The first allegations arose in Boston and culminated in Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law acknowledging there were dozens of past abusers in his diocese and announcing his decision to turn files over to prosecutors.

Since January, dozens of priests out of more than 47,000 in the U.S. have been suspended or forced to resign on suspicion of child molestation.

“We had not heard anything at all about a connection to Terrace until now,” said George. “We’ve heard about the news of other investigations going on, but we never heard anything connected with Father Lang.”

Before his arrival in Terrace, Lang had been in Dawson Creek. For six years in the early 1990s, Lang was chaplain at Prince George Regional Correctional Centre, where he visited and counselled prisoners.

The recent flood of priestly sex abuse stories in the U.S. echoes the late 1980s and early 1990s for Canadians, and especially British Columbians, when scores of Catholic clergy were being charged with sex crimes.

Jason Berry, U.S.-based author of Lead Us Not Into Temptation and one of the world’s foremost experts on Catholic clergy sex abuse, has applauded Canada for the direct way it dealt with allegations of abuse.

“Canada has exhibited a far more sophisticated sense of legal outrage about priests’ crimes than the U.S.,” he said. “Canada has been far more vigilant.”

Since the 1980s, Canada has seen more than 100 Roman Catholic priests charged or convicted of sex crimes.

Fifteen of them resided in B.C. Six were from the Catholic diocese of Nelson in the Kootenays. One included former Prince George bishop Hubert O’Connor, who fathered a child by a young native Indian woman at his residential school, but was acquitted on appeal.

Nationally, the scandal of priestly sex abuse first came under the spotlight in Canada in 1989 during the royal commission on abuse by Christian Brothers at Mount Cashel orphanage in Newfoundland.

In a development similar to the one currently being exposed in the U.S., Roman Catholic officials transferred many of the Christian brothers who had been privately accused of sexual misconduct in Newfoundland to B.C. to teach at Vancouver College and St. Thomas More Collegiate in Burnaby.

The intense probe of abuse at Mount Cashel was soon followed in Canada by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Affairs, which examined widespread abuse of natives attending Canada’s church-run residential schools.