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There's opposition to a deal between the state attorney general and the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo for more regulation of priest discipline

WBFO file photo
Clergy abuse victim and critic Michael Whalen

At the same time victims are looking for money for recompense or for treatment, there doesn’t seem to be punishment for those who perpetrated the long cover up, with Boyd mentioning retired Buffalo Bishop Richard Maloney and retired Auxiliary Bishop Edward Grosz, with Grosz facing a sexual abuse allegation

With a new settlement between the state attorney general’s office and the Buffalo Catholic Diocese over discipline of priests, some of those directly affected have doubts. The deal is supposed to make discipline of priests tighter and more transparent to everyone, clerics and citizens. Michael Whalen was one of the first victims to go public about his abuse.

“It’s good but it could be better.”

Buffalo lawyer Steve Boyd was one of the first reporters to cover priest sexual abuse decades ago for a local TV station and now represents nearly 700 sexual abuse claimants across New York State. Boyd says this settlement pierces the wall between church and state because the church brought that on itself.

“Sexually abusing children is illegal. So, if someone gets arrested for that, that’s also a form of government oversight. This is a form of oversight that hasn’t been used before. I don’t think it steps into the arena where the government is checking their faith. The government is checking that they’re not violating laws and they are not victimizing human beings. Sadly, that’s something that needed to be done.

Whalen says church leaders knew then Father Norbert Orsolits was abusing children and they kept moving him from parish to parish. The now-dead priest told reporters he couldn’t remember Whalen among so many he had molested. The abuse victim says it went on for years.

“My case, the priest that abused me, Orsolits, he abused kids prior to me. I mean he admitted to abusing a couple of dozen kids and they just kept moving him around.”

Boyd says the new agreement doesn’t deal with the biggest single problem area, the secrecy in the process of deciding which priests against whom there had been complaints are sent to the internal review board. He says the secrecy means no one outside the inner circles of the diocese knows if all the evidence goes to the review board.

“That internal review board process is inherently secret. It’s not one that we trust. I understand that there are good people on that board but it’s a secret process.”

Boyd says there are files and secret files within the diocese and the process won’t be trusted until it’s clear the review board gets the complete truth. The lawyer says the years of publicity about sexual molestation in churches and sports and Scouting mean there is a day of reckoning coming.

“If you are volunteering to get access to children, the days of reckoning are coming. That’s true of the Catholic Church. It’s true of the Southern Baptist Church. It’s true of the Mormon Church. It was true in USY Gymnastics. True in the Boy Scouts. Those days are over.”

Mike Desmond is one of Western New York’s most experienced reporters, having spent nearly a half-century covering the region for newspapers, television stations and public radio. He has been with WBFO and its predecessor, WNED-AM, since 1988. As a reporter for WBFO, he has covered literally thousands of stories involving education, science, business, the environment and many other issues. Mike has been a long-time theater reviewer for a variety of publications and was formerly a part-time reporter for The New York Times.