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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Ind. Courts - "Church’s admission of abuse not enough, accuser says"

The ILB has had several entries about former priest Harry E. Monroe, including this one from June 3, 2006, headed "Lawsuit against church dismissed : Statute of limitations expired, judge rules; General Assembly partially blamed"; this one from June 5, 2006, and this one from Aug. 21, 2006, headed "Lawyers in Indianapolis Archdiocese sex abuse cases featured."

A story posted late yesterday by Robert King of the Indianapolis Star reports:

A man who was an altar boy at a Southside parish 30 years ago finally heard the Archdiocese of Indianapolis publicly acknowledge today that his former priest was a molester.

As much like a victory as that felt, the man who alleges he was abused and is known in court records as John Doe NM still says there is much more the archdiocese can do to come clean. For starters, he said, it can stop trying to quash his fraud lawsuit based on the technical argument that it was filed after the statute of limitations. “I can’t believe that they are even trying to fight it,” he said. “What does the church really stand for?”

The scene today in Marion Superior Court could become increasingly common: the archdiocese squaring off in court against a former parishioner who claims the church knew the Rev. Harry Monroe was a danger to children but did nothing to spare them from harm.

In addition to John Doe NM, 12 men who claim to have been abused by Monroe as boys have sued the archdiocese. Today, attorney Jay Mercer asked Judge David A. Shaheed to rule in favor of the archdiocese on the basis that the claim was filed too late. He said it should have been made by the time John Doe NM, now in his early 40s, turned 20.

Before making that case, Mercer did what the archdiocese had denied in its initial responses to the lawsuits — he acknowledged the former priest’s abuse. * * *

Today, [John Doe NM’s attorney, Pat Noaker] argued that the case should go forward because the six-year time limit on fraud cases should have begun ticking only after John Doe NM learned, in 2005, that the archdiocese knew of Monroe’s abusive tendencies before assigning him to St. Catherine’s Parish.

For the archdiocese to assign Monroe a position in a parish where he had free access to children, Noaker said, was akin to actively representing that Monroe was a person of good character and of no threat to children. That, he said, is the essence of fraud.

From a story by Ken Kusmer of the AP:
The charge of fraud is the only count remaining in a lawsuit in which a plaintiff identified only as John Doe said he was 10 when Monroe began molesting him in 1977 at the now closed St. Catherine Parish in Indianapolis.

At stake in most of the lawsuits is the contention by plaintiffs' attorney Patrick Noaker that the Archdiocese of Indianapolis should be held liable for fraud for reassigning Monroe to different parishes after it learned of the molesting allegations against him. The statute of limitations for child molestation has run out in the cases.

"This case is a case where they found out he was molesting kids at one parish and transferred him to another parish, and we have documentary proof of that," Noaker told reporters after the hearing.

"The archdiocese claims in open court it has no duty to tell parents when their priest is a child molester," he said.

Noaker has introduced as evidence a letter from a former priest personnel director for the archdiocese to a House of Affirmation psychological treatment center for priests written before Monroe was assigned to St. Catherine.

The letter, which has been sealed in court files, described complaints against Monroe by parents of boys at two other Indianapolis parishes, including one that said Monroe had spread peanut butter on the bare buttocks of one boy. The letter also expressed concerns over the attention Monroe was giving to sixth-grade boys, Noaker said.

"The archdiocese defrauded this family and all the families in this parish because they represented Father Monroe to be safe around kids and in fact even gave him assignments. He was head of the altar servers. He was head of the CYO, the Catholic Youth Organization," Noaker said.

The six-year Indiana statute of limitations for fraud has not run out, Noaker asserted, because the plaintiff and his parents only learned in 2005 that the archdiocese was aware of complaints against Monroe before assigning him to St. Catherine.

"How was this family to know the archdiocese had put a child molester in their church?" Noaker said in court.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has upheld a ruling in a similar fraud case against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in which it assigned a priest who had been accused of molesting to work in a setting with children, Noaker said.

Mercer, however, argued that archdiocesan silence about a priest's past did not constitute misrepresentation to future parishioners. * * *

Indianapolis archdiocesan representatives have said Monroe was removed from ministry in 1984, but in his deposition, Monroe said that he was never laicized, or formally removed from the priesthood by the Vatican.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 18, 2007 04:10 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts