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Warren lawyer settles priest abuse case
By Brian Comfort
bcomfort@eastbaynewspapers.com
BRISTOL/WARREN - Often during the past ten years, Timothy
Conlon would go months without taking a day off from his private law firm in Providence. Every day of the week he'd drive from his Warren home to his office in the Turk's Head Building on Westminster Street and immerse himself in the wall
full of legal documents that, as one of three lawyers representing 38 alleged victims of sexual abuse by 11 Rhode Island Catholic priests, he hoped would help his clients bring an end to years of emotional ruin.
On Sept. 9, the end was begun.
"We settled," he said, his voice equal parts exuberance and relief. "It's a wonderful thing."
The Diocese of Providence has settled lawsuits with 37 of 38 victims of sexual
abuse by Catholic priests for $13.5 million. The settlement includes at least eight claims against two priests in Bristol and Warren, Father William O'Connell from St. Mary's Church and the Rev. Edmund Micarelli of St. Alexander's Church.
But what was equally important, Mr. Conlon said, was the church finally acknowledged that these people were abused and that the wrong should be righted. During a press conference announcing the settlement, Bishop Robert Mulvee
apologized to the alleged victims and for the first time since they were abused their suffering was formally recognized by the leaders of the church. That, Mr. Conlon said, helps as much as the money to begin the healing.
"I
had one client say 'It was like a 900-pound weight taken off my shoulders,' while another said, 'It's like a whole building has been taken off my shoulders,'" he said. Many of his clients, he said, have been in and out of various
institutions over the years as they have been unable to cope with the abuse incidents. One of his clients was actually the estate of an alleged victim who killed himself.
Carl P. DeLuca, another of the plaintiff's lawyers, agreed
that the apology was a big part of the settlement.
"In addition to the monetary settlements, our clients received something that victims of sexual abuse hardly ever receive. They received an apology and a chance for
closure," he said. "They also received a promise that the diocese would continue to pay for their uncovered therapy costs."
Mr. Conlon said most of the victims were among the more devout members of the church.
"By and large the priests would prey upon families who were closest to the church," Mr. Conlon said. He said the younger members of these families would have a deep trust in their priests and their families wouldn't think it odd
if they were spending a good deal of time with the priests.
"These people had no ax to grind with Catholicism," he added.
Mr. Conlon did not begin his career in law with the intention of battling the Catholic
church. As a public defender fresh from Vanderbilt University's law school, he found himself assigned to the cases of 60 to 80 juveniles charged with an array of crimes from the very serious like rape or murder to less serious but still
troublesome incidents of disruptive behavior.
"I was shocked to find out that half of those kids were sexual abuse victims," he said of his clients in the early '80s. He said his job was difficult because by and large his
clients were guilty of the charges against them, but the core of the problem was that they were not getting the proper treatment so they could learn to cope with their history of abuse and break the cycle of institutionalization.
In
1987, he went into private practice of family law and defending the rights of abuse victims. He started targeting institutions like school departments, group homes and churches, because these were places that, because of their very nature,
attract pedophiles.
"If you wake up the institutions, then you can create change," he said. "I'd like to think it makes a difference."
In 1993, Mr. Conlon took up his first case involving sexual abuse by a
priest. The court began consolidating what would eventually number 38 cases against Rhode Island priests, and Mr. Conlon was willing to be chairman of the consolidated effort.
Though he was prepared to take the case to trial with
the two other lawyers forming the Plaintiff's Counsel Committee, and doing so would have been the opportunity of a lifetime for a lawyer, a trial would have been, "like a hand grenade" for his clients.
"The mental
health costs would have been huge," for his clients to be forced to recount their abuse stores again in court and for what would amount to another denial by the church that its priests had done anything wrong, Mr. Conlon said.
This last aspect is important, he said, and the fact that the church settled and Bishop Mulvee apologized marks a shift in the way the church and the public has perceived the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic church in the past six
months since the Boston Globe began writing stories documenting the scope of the problem.
Prior to that, incidents of abuse were either explained away as isolated or the church believed it could almost ignore the problem out of
existence, he said. Even the general public believed the incidents were isolated and there wasn't an epidemic problem of abuse by Catholic priests.
"The leap had not yet happened where people could believe that the church was
doing what it was doing," he said, referring to the various inadequate ways the church initially responded to allegations of abuse. This in fact made the problem worse as the church felt insulated from outside scrutiny, he said.
In the past six to eight months, though, the church has realized it does not operate in a vacuum, he said, and the public has become aware that a large scale problem exists. And this has started to bring about change. More outside
groups including advocates for victims' rights are being brought in by the church to help come up with a solution. Bishop Mulvee and others have made formal apologies. Catholic officials in Worcester, Mass., recently recanted a request to
subpoena records of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
"If the church continues in the mold that was cast in these settlements and other leaders in the church like Mulvee are ready to look for forgiveness,"
then the problem of abuse will subside, Mr. Conlon said. "They're in a lose-lose situation if they continue to deny it. (Correcting the problem) just involves treating these victims in a humane fashion."
He said he is
going to take some vacation time now that his cases are settled, but after that, he would like to continue helping victims of the sexual abuse by priests by attacking the problem on a national level.
"If we put this (settlement
and apology) out there as a national idea, I'd like to see other dioceses follow," he said.
And he'd be willing to help.
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