The Portland Catholic Archdiocese Priest Abuse Document Archive

Documents released on priest abuses

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.