Priest cases show abuse issues persist

When Will County sheriff’s deputies found the Rev. William Virtue sneaking into a private quarry in 1986, police records state that the Roman Catholic priest had blankets, two six packs of beer and a 10-year-old boy with him. He fled on foot when officers arrived, leaving the child behind.

Authorities took Virtue into custody after he returned to his car but later released him without charges because the boy’s mother said she had given her son permission to go swimming with the priest. Still, a deputy forwarded the report to Joliet Diocese officials who put it into Virtue’s personnel file — which already contained several accusations involving inappropriate behavior with underage boys.

The arrest report would remain tucked away for 20 years as Virtue continued to have contact with youths, and even after a seemingly repentant Joliet Diocese pledged in 2002 to improve its handling of sex abuse cases and held up guidelines approved by American bishops as proof of its commitment to transparency and victims’ needs.

Virtue’s personnel file, which contains 500 pages of letters, memos and reports, reflects the struggles the church faced since its public vow to better protect children after a bruising, national sex abuse scandal. Records obtained by the Tribune reveal several instances in which the diocese’s handling of abuse allegations contradicted those promises, adding to concerns about the overall efficacy of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People that U.S. bishops signed amid fanfare.

For four years after that charter’s passage, Virtue continued to minister in the central Illinois Peoria Diocese, where he officially transferred at his own request in 1988. A Tribune review found no indication that Joliet Diocese officials re-examined his personnel records after the guidelines’ adoption.

“There were problems here, and in hindsight, certainly other judgments could have been made, obviously,” Joliet Diocese spokesman James Dwyer said. “Bishop (Joseph) Imesch did sit down with him and tell him sternly, ‘This is wrong. You can’t do stuff like this.'”

Virtue was removed from ministry in 2006 by the Peoria Diocese after a former parishioner at St. Mary Catholic Church in Mokena alleged the priest raped him in the 1980s when he was an altar boy, according to church records.

A review board deemed the allegation credible, a decision Virtue is appealing. He has denied any inappropriate behavior.

The diocese reached an out-of-court settlement with the alleged victim from Mokena, church records show.

A Tribune investigation, which included reviewing more than 7,000 pages turned over in a settlement in an unrelated case, uncovered cases in which the Joliet Diocese failed to recognize the severity of allegations, made little effort to find victims and misled the public, raising concerns about the church’s adherence to the charter’s spirit.

In response, the diocese provided the Tribune with a letter saying it had been declared in compliance with the charter after an independent review. It did not provide the documents used in the audit.

The diocese also has created an office of child protection to serve as a liaison between victims and their families. “We’re concerned mistakes of the past don’t happen again,” Dwyer said.

Lingering anger, skepticism

In the 11 years since the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted the current “zero tolerance” guidelines, serious lapses have occurred in religious districts across the country. In 2011, a grand jury issued a report saying that at least 37 priests with “substantial evidence of abuse” in the Philadelphia Archdiocese were still in roles that bring them into contact with children.

A year later, Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, Mo., became the first U.S. bishop convicted of failing to report suspected child abuse, after he protected a priest who took lewd photographs of young girls in his parish. Finn was sentenced to probation for the misdemeanor but remains bishop.

The Joliet Diocese raised eyebrows last week when it acknowledged that church officials allowed a Roman Catholic priest to serve as a hospital chaplain even though the bishop had declared him unfit for parish ministry because of “inappropriate behavior” with a boy.

The Rev. Thomas Corbino wasn’t charged with criminal wrongdoing, but Bishop R. Daniel Conlon placed him on “restricted ministry” in 2012 and barred him from having unsupervised interaction with children before he became a volunteer chaplain at Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield.

The hospital fired Corbino hours after learning a former parishioner at St. Irene Catholic Church in Warrenville accused the priest of touching him inappropriately, taking pictures of him and forcing him to try on clothes in front of him when he was young. Corbino could not be reached for comment.

A review board ruled Corbino had engaged in “inappropriate behavior,” but the panel found no credible evidence of a crime, Dwyer said.

“I don’t understand why they play these games. I just know they’ve continued to play them even after 2002,” said Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Such is the lingering anger and skepticism Pope Francis inherited after his installation last month. Despite the charter and other efforts to move forward, the church seemingly cannot unchain itself from the scandal.

“Changes have been made, and that’s good,” said Terry McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org, an encyclopedic website detailing decades of the church’s handling of abuse complaints. “But I think it’s much more of a mixed bag than the bishops would conveniently choose to believe. I’m very worried about how thoroughly they have been following up on the promises they made.”

‘There were red flags’

In Virtue’s case, if the Joliet Diocese had re-examined the priests’ file after the charter was signed, it would have found a 1976 complaint from another priest alleging that Virtue inappropriately doted on teenage boys, including often spending the night with them in tents. And in 1982, two council members of a parish where Virtue was pastor complained to Imesch of steady improprieties, including allegations that he tried to break into a beach club with a group of teens for “a moonlight” swim and attended beer bashes with underage youths in which he “blessed” the alcohol.

“There were red flags. Back then, at that time, they and society as a whole didn’t realize what potentially this could lead to,” Dwyer said. “Now that we know the harm it can cause, I think the reaction of a bishop would be totally different.”

William Palmer, one of the parish council members who reported Virtue, told the Tribune on Friday that the diocese promised to look into it, but he never heard anything further.

Virtue’s “attitude was that it was his business,” said Palmer, who left for another parish. “This whole thing makes you feel terrible for the good priests out there.”

Virtue, now 64, told the Tribune he never harmed any child and has not been convicted of anything so he “should be presumed innocent.” He takes pride in the fact that he reported another priest’s inappropriate conduct with young boys years ago, which his files verify. That priest, however, accused him of the same thing, records show.

“I pray every day that my false accuser will have a conversion of heart and tell the truth,” Virtue said. “To be accused and not be guilty is very stressful, but I’m praying that God will have mercy on us all.”

He characterized the 1986 Will County quarry arrest as “silly” and insisted he had simply taken a walk with the boy.

“I am for the protection of children,” he said.

Even after the Peoria Diocese ruled the abuse claim from the former Mokena altar boy credible, the Joliet Diocese didn’t add Virtue’s name to its list of clergy members with substantiated claims against them until last month, when his personnel file and those of 15 other accused priests were relinquished as part of a legal settlement in an unrelated case. The online listing is a major part of the diocese’s pledge to improve transparency, as it serves as the diocese’s official registry of clergy members with substantiated allegations against them.

Along with Virtue, the diocese — which includes parishes in DuPage, Ford, Grundy, Iroquois, Kankakee, Kendall and Will counties — added the names of eight priests with credible accusations against them after the settlement. Dwyer said the church withheld the names because it didn’t want to interfere with pending litigation, an explanation that plaintiff’s attorney Terrence Johnson rejected.

“It’s clear that the diocese hasn’t lived up to the promises the bishops made when they adopted the charter,” said Johnson, who long fought to have the records released. “That’s why it’s important to have these files. It’s just not about what happened in the past; it’s about how they’re handling things now and what they’ll do in the future.”

‘The ultimate betrayal’

The majority of cases reviewed by the Tribune unfolded during the tenure of the now-retired Imesch, who oversaw the diocese for 27 years and was in office when the churchwide scandal broke. Imesch apologized in 2006 for any hurt caused by his actions, saying he didn’t understand the dangers sexual predators posed then.

But the records suggest that he struggled with the same issue even after he and other bishops signed the charter. In a March 2003 letter to accused priest Fred Lenczycki, Imesch downplayed the public safety risk.

“I can certainly understand your feelings about not being able to function as a priest. That must be very painful,” Imesch wrote. “It seems clear that you will not be allowed to serve as a priest in the future, even though I believe that you are not a threat to anyone.”

Lenczycki, charged in 2002, later pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual abuse of three boys at St. Isaac Jogues Elementary School in Hinsdale. Victims told authorities that “Father Fred” molested them repeatedly, often using the pretense of swaddling them in “Baby Jesus” costumes for pageants that never took place.

One of the boy’s mothers, Joan Schiefelbein, took exception to the bishop’s letter to her son’s abuser.

“That’s disgusting, but I’ve heard similar comments from Imesch before,” she said Thursday. “Once you’re a molester, you’ll always be one. All the therapy in the world isn’t going to cure you.”

As documented in diocese and court files, Lenczycki admitted molesting about 30 boys in six diocese parishes as well as in California and Missouri for 25 years. He became the first Roman Catholic priest in the nation in March 2008 to be civilly committed beyond his prison release date — a sign that authorities saw a threat that Imesch did not.

“In committing these despicable and shameful acts of sexual abuse to minor boys, defendant is guilty of the ultimate betrayal of his priesthood,” former DuPage County Assistant State’s Attorney Alex McGimpsey wrote in arguing against early release. “Defendant’s actions in committing these crimes demonstrate that he is a sexual predator who cannot be trusted in society.”

Cardinal intervenes

Among its many tenets, the charter requires each diocese to reach out to victims and “demonstrate a sincere commitment to their spiritual and emotional well-being.” The records show the diocese routinely offered counseling and prayers to victims who contacted it but did not look for other victims when investigating accused priests.

Joliet officials, for example, had one victim’s name for nine months and made little effort to contact him until, records show, Cardinal Francis George of the Chicago Archdiocese intervened.

The diocese first learned the man’s name in March 2002, when the Rev. Michael Papesh accused the Rev. Donald Pock of abusing Papesh when he was a teen. Papesh also informed the diocese that an old friend made a similar allegation against Pock in 1975, but the concerns hadn’t been fully addressed.

Though Papesh didn’t know where his friend was living at that time, he gave diocesan officials the man’s name and his family’s hometown and told them his friend’s brother was an ordained priest. Records show that, despite having private investigators at their disposal, Joliet officials did little to find the other victim beyond futilely searching for his brother’s name in a registry of priests.

They finally contacted the other victim after George intervened at the family’s request. It turned out the other victim’s brother was a priest in the Chicago Archdiocese, overseeing a parish less than 40 miles from Joliet.

Both allegations were later deemed credible. Pock died in 2004.

Papesh, now moderator of the curia for the Pueblo Diocese in Colorado, told the Tribune that he had hoped the Joliet Diocese would make a legitimate effort to find the other victim. Though disappointed by Joliet’s response, he wasn’t surprised.

“At times, it has looked like they’re not getting it.” Papesh said. “They’re not getting what regret and atonement looks like.”

sstclair@tribune.com

dheinzmann@tribune.com

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