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Vermont diocese settles lawsuit
Plaintiff drops sex abuse case, gets $120,000
By Associated Press, 3/8/2004
BURLINGTON, Vt. -- Vermont's Catholic Church has paid $120,000 to settle a lawsuit accusing a priest of
child sexual abuse.
In return, Michael Bernier, a 46-year-old California investment firm executive, has dropped his court case against the Diocese of Burlington and the Rev. James McShane, who worked as director of the state
church's Office of Youth Ministry and chaplain for the Vermont Boy Scouts and Catholic Camp Holy Cross in Colchester. McShane resigned as a Rutland pastor last year.
Bernier says he was a 12-year-old parochial school student in
St. Albans when McShane repeatedly "sexually abused, sexually exploited, and sexually assaulted" him around 1970.
Bernier filed charges against McShane and the diocese a year and a half ago. Defense lawyers have tried for
months to dismiss the case.
Bernier sought and eventually won permission to review more than 50 years of Vermont church files on all clergy misconduct but decided to settle rather than wait for pending court motions to be decided.
"Besides what happened to me, I didn't need to be revictimized by them dragging their feet and trying to wear me down," Bernier said.
The diocese's lawyer William M. O'Brien of Winooski confirmed the
Bernier settlement.
"We have no evidence to suggest Father McShane abused Michael Bernier, but we are taking Mr. Bernier's allegations at face value," O'Brien said Saturday.
McShane could not be reached for comment.
The diocese's settlement comes after it agreed to pay at least two other recent accusers a total of $118,000 to drop the church portion of their civil lawsuits against priests.
The church still faces at least one more civil lawsuit in Chittenden Superior Court. Robert Douglas II, 38, of Burlington, alleges the former Rev. Alfred Willis sexually abused and exploited him as a child at St. Ann's Catholic Church
in Milton around 1979. Lawyers for the diocese and Douglas are working to settle that case, too.
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McShane Leaving As Pastor of IHM
Rutland Herald - KEVIN O'CONNOR
01/27/03 - A Rutland priest charged with child sexual abuse is stepping down as pastor of a city Catholic church.
The Rev. James McShane announced his departure as leader of Immaculate Heart of Mary in a letter read to 1,000 member families at Masses Saturday and Sunday.
McShane's exit comes as the priest faces a lawsuit that is requiring the state's Catholic diocese to divulge more than 50 years of files on all clergy misconduct.
It also follows a meeting Jan. 11 between Vermont Catholic Bishop Kenneth Angell and 200 Rutland parishioners who lamented the lack of stability since McShane took a leave of absence last spring, all the while keeping his post.
The Rev. Francis Privé, now serving in Underhill, was to be the latest in a string of fill-in priests starting Feb. 1. Instead, he'll become Immaculate Heart's new pastor that day.
"It's been long overdue," said John Cassarino, Rutland mayor and church member since his baptism there as a baby. "You can tell people are pleased. The parish has hung tight."
McShane didn't say much in his letter, noting his lawyer advised him not to speak about his case.
The priest faces a civil lawsuit by Michael Bernier, a 45-year-old investment firm
vice president who charges he was sexually abused as an altar boy in St. Albans.
The case is the first to be publicized in Vermont since state Attorney General
William Sorrell began his office's current investigation of about 40 past or present priests charged with sexual misconduct.
"I'm breathing a sigh of relief," Bernier said Sunday from his home in California.
"Maybe the healing can begin for some people."
Bernier and his lawyer, however, still are waiting for the diocese to hand over clergy misconduct files as ordered by a Chittenden Superior Court judge Dec. 16.
"I'm perplexed by the delay," Bernier said.
In response, the diocese's two lawyers said they needed several more weeks to comb through church records.
"We're still in the process of reviewing," said Rutland lawyer David Cleary, who is working with Winooski colleague William M. O'Brien. "I think we're probably going to be done by the middle of February."
McShane, pastor in Rutland since 1998, served in the past as director of the diocese's Office of Youth Ministry and chaplain for the state Boy Scouts and Catholic Camp Holy Cross in Colchester.
Bernier's lawyer, Jerome O'Neill of Burlington, says former camp counselors told him McShane had a slide tray of photos of naked boys in his cabin in the mid-1970s, but the bishop at the time, the now-deceased John Marshall, did nothing
about it.
Bernier is suing not only McShane but also the diocese. He wants a jury to calculate financial damages, saying the church is liable because it ordained the priest and
placed him "in a situation where he had the opportunity to and did molest and otherwise sexually abuse a number of pre-teen and teenage boys."
McShane could not be reached for comment Sunday.
The bishop ordered McShane and all other priests facing charges to take leaves until the state finished its investigation. But with the review in its ninth month,
Rutland parishioners have grown anxious without a permanent, fulltime priest for baptisms, weddings and funerals.
"In hindsight, we should have done things differently," Angell told churchgoers, as
quoted in the current issue of the Vermont Catholic Tribune. "We should have reached out earlier. When I first put priests on administrative leave, I never, never imagined it would take this long."
The uncertainty has taken a toll. When the diocese sought money for its annual Bishop's Fund, Immaculate Heart gave about $19,000 to meet 77 percent of its goal. In comparison, Rutland's other Catholic parishes, Christ the King and St.
Peter's, each collected 116 percent of their targets.
Churchgoers welcomed the weekend's latest news.
"People just feel it's a fresh start," one said Sunday.
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