The Portland Catholic Archdiocese Priest Abuse Document Archive

Documents released on priest abuses

Posted June 7, 2007

By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER

Associated Press Writer

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – The Archdiocese of Portland released 30 previously secret documents Wednesday detailing sexual abuse of boys by priests.

They included psychological evaluations, allegations by victims and some candid detail of what went on between some priests and their young parishioners over several years. The documents make clear that church officials had been aware of abuse problems for years and refused to acknowledge them.

The archdiocese released the papers as part of a settlement agreed to in April. Portland lawyer Kelly Clark, who represented more than 40 abuse victims, said he was blindsided by the release of the documents on Wednesday.

He said the agreement with the archdiocese "included a joint presentation to the public, not only about what the documents are but what they mean."

"I had absolutely no idea that it was coming today," he said.

He suggested he had been "sandbagged" and on Wednesday afternoon still didn’t know for sure what was released or the extent to which it may have been redacted beyond the agreement between the church and the lawyers.

He said the church office said they redacted or withheld documents if any living individual or his attorney objected to the disclosure.

"That’s not what we agreed to," Clark said.

A statement by Archbishop John Vlazny said the records were released "as part of the process of healing and reconciliation."

He said most of the information in the documents was decades old, "when people did not have the benefit of today’s knowledge and standards." He said church officials did not always respond then as they might now and that a "modern and effective child protection program" is in place with updated policies to ensure children’s safety.

Archdiocese spokesman Bud Bunce said Vlazny was out of town and would have no further comment about the documents.

Most or all of the priests named in the documents have retired and some have died.

Some of the documents released Wednesday are rather candid.

One dated 1989 quoted a victim whose name was redacted as saying Father Rocky Perone, who was at St. Philip Neri parish in Portland in the 1950s, initiated the abuse in a confessional, where the boy had admitted "something like impure thoughts."

"The next day Father Perone asked him to come into a room and take down his pants and show him exactly what had happened and that he fondled him briefly," said a memorandum from The Rev. Charles Lienert, director of clergy personnel, to then-Archbishop William Leveda. It said the relationship progressed and lasted about six years. Perone also was the subject of other complaints.

After months in treatment, Perone was placed in a parish in Texas, where the bishop was notified of his history. He was barred from contact with young people.

A 1995 document from Lienert to Leveda told of Father Aldo Orso-Manzonetta, who had parishes in Newberg and Tillamook and about whom parishioners often talked of sexual improprieties.

The document quotes a person whose name is redacted as saying "Fr. Aldo’s typical pattern in developing these emotional relationships is to heap gifts on a person and then only go as far as a person will allow him when he makes an advance."

A 1994 memo from Lienert told of a boy just out of juvenile detention who met a man claiming to be a church janitor and offered the boy money to spend the night with him.

He learned the following Sunday that the "janitor" was Orso-Manzonetta, whom he said always gave him some pills he later found to be barbiturates that made him vague about what was going on.

He said the sex-for-money arrangement lasted for some time.

The priest later denied any sexual involvement with minors. A memo from Lienert quoted another priest as saying it was well-known among parishioners of Italian descent in Tillamook "that Father Aldo was attracted to boys."

A psychologist’s report on the Rev. Thomas B. Laughlin, who pleaded guilty to two counts of sex abuse in 1983, described him as a "compulsive pedophile who has not been able to exercise any form of control over his deviant acts in 20 years." The report said Laughlin was without remorse and likely to reoffend.

Laughlin was sentenced to a year in jail.

In a 1989 letter to Lienert from a man whose name also is redacted asked the archbishop "to reconsider his decision to refuse to directly acknowledge my victimization. The story will come out. It is right and just that it do so."

In 2004, the Portland Archdiocese became the first in the nation to file for bankruptcy protection because of the wave of abuse lawsuits.

About 175 people who claimed they were molested by priests or other church officials have agreed to settle their cases for about $52 million.

Another $20 million has been set aside for those who come forward after an agreed deadline. Another sum, capped at $3.8 million, has been set aside to pay for claims that haven’t been settled in the bankruptcy negotiations.

The agreement won court approval for the archdiocese to emerge from bankruptcy.

Portland settles with abuse victims, bankruptcy deal approved

Posted April 27, 2007

National Catholic Reporter,  
April 27, 2007 

A federal judge has approved a $75 million settlement plan for the Portland, Ore., archdiocese that will provide financial relief for about 175 people who say they were sexually abused by priests.

As part of the settlement, the archdiocese has agreed to make public documents, mostly personnel files, on priests accused of sex abuse. The documents are expected to be released in mid-May. Details of the settlement were announced April 17.

Lawyers for victims called the agreement to release the documents "historic" and said it would mark the end of "the era of secrecy" when silence prevailed over abuse complaints.

"This policy of openness and transparency will go far in preventing future tragedies," David Slader, lawyer for a number of victims, told The Associated Press.

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Portland’s archdiocese settles 175 abuse cases

Posted April 18, 2007

PORTLAND, Ore. – Secret files on Roman Catholic priests accused of sex abuse will be released as part of a $75 million settlement signed yesterday by the Archdiocese of Portland, which will be allowed to reorganize from the first bankruptcy in the nation filed by a Catholic diocese.

The documents, mostly personnel files, are not expected to be released until mid-May. But lawyers for victims called the agreement to release the documents “historic” and said it would mark the end of “the era of secrecy” when silence prevailed over abuse complaints.

“This policy of openness and transparency will go far in preventing future tragedies,” said David Slader, who represents a number of victims, including one whose case prompted the diocese to declare bankruptcy in July 2004 on the eve of trial.

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Diocese to release documents as part of abuse settlement

Posted April 18, 2007

PORTLAND – Previously private personnel files of pedophile priests will be made public under a bankruptcy reorganization plan for the Archdiocese of Portland that was approved Tuesday.

The papers, to be released as early as next month, will include documents showing knowledge and cover-up of the priests’ activities by Catholic Church leaders.

"There is plenty there to cause frustration and anger," said Portland lawyer Kelly Clark, who represented more than 100 people abused by priests over the years and who obtained confidential copies of church records in the course of preparing for trials.

The cover-ups that Clark learned of happened more than 15 years ago, he said. The documents show no efforts by church leaders in the past decade to move priests to a different parish after they had been accused of abuse – a practice that deepened the Catholic clergy abuse scandal when it surfaced in Boston five years ago, Clark said.

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Portland Archdiocese to release documents related to sex abuse claims

Posted April 17, 2007

The move is part of the Catholic Church’s bankruptcy reorganization plan

By Ryan Geddes
LocalNewsDaily.com
Apr 17, 2007

The Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon plans to release to the public internal documents about church personnel accused of child abuse over the last 50 years as part of its recently approved bankruptcy settlement, church officials and lawyers for sex abuse claimants announced Tuesday.

On Friday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth Perris confirmed the Oregon Catholic Church’s proposed Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan, which was filed in 2004 after a wave of child sex abuse claims filed against priests and other church employees. That agreement calls for the court to approve about $50 million in settlements and to establish a fund for future payouts of about $20 million.

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Deal in Portland Archdiocese Bankruptcy

Posted April 13, 2007

Foxnews.com
Friday, April 13, 2007

PORTLAND, Ore. —

A judge overseeing the bankruptcy filing of the Archdiocese of Portland will confirm a proposed $75-million deal for current and future sex abuse claims against priests and other church officials, according to court documents filed Friday.

The decision from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth Perris leaves intact the compensation proposed in a plan negotiated by the plaintiffs and the archdiocese, the first in the nation ever to declare bankruptcy.

The judge asked lawyers to make one change and draw up final documents for her approval.

About 175 people who claimed they were molested by priests or other church officials have agreed to settle their cases for about $52 million.

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THE SECRETS OF A SMALL-TOWN PRIEST

Posted October 15, 2000

MICHAEL WILSON – The Oregonian

October 15, 2000

Correction: PUBLISHED CORRECTION RAN 10/16/2000, FOLLOWS:
* University of Portland is affiliated with the Congregation of Holy Cross. An incorrect affiliation was reported Sunday in an article about the Rev. Maurice Grammond’s history of sexual abuse.

The boy would talk to God while he walked to school.

God, let me do well on my test today. God, let me make a friend today. God, let me not get beat up today.

The boy was new to the small mill town of Oakridge, east of Eugene, a rougher place than anywhere he’d ever lived. He was 12 years old, and his was a boy’s Catholicism. He believed God was looking out for him, listening to him.

He enjoyed Mass at St. Michael’s Catholic Church. He wanted to be an altar boy, to please his mother, but more important, to please a girl he saw at church.

He asked the priest to put him on the list and checked every week, but never saw his name.

"Then something wonderful happened," the boy, now grown into a middle-age man, recalled. "Or so I thought at the time."

A new priest came to Oakridge.

The boy had never heard of the Rev. Maurice Grammond. No one in 1950s Oakridge had. Now everyone knows him. An obscure parish priest has become the Archdiocese of Portland’s greatest shame.

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