[The bishop is part of the problem at both ends (see comment below)]
Illinois priest who allegedly abused teen returned to limited ministry—reportedly at Vatican behest [according to the local bishop, Daniel Conlon]
CWN – September 13, 2012
A priest of the Diocese of Joliet who allegedly abused a teenage boy in the 1970s is being returned to limited ministry, according to local press accounts.
Father F. Lee Ryan, who is accused of having a yearlong relationship with the boy, “will not return to (full) ministry, but he is being permitted (a) very narrow ministry” to the homebound, a diocesan spokesman stated. “This was a very difficult decision. I believe it respects the law of the Church and protects children.”
Father Ryan has denied the allegations.
“A written statement from [Bishop Daniel] Conlon said the determination was made after Catholic officials in Rome decided that, according to Church law in place at the time of the abuse, [Father F. Lee] Ryan did not commit a serious crime by the Church’s standards and could not be permanently removed from ministry,” the Joliet Herald-News reported.
The Chicago Tribune reported:
Bishop Conlon’s spokesman told the Tribune that the Vatican cited Canon No. 2359 in the 1917 Code of Canon Law to explain why the priest was not found guilty of violating church law. The code stipulates that a cleric who violates the commandment forbidding adultery, by indecently touching a person under the age of 16, has committed a canonical crime.
Though the victim said a church official told him over the phone that age was the key issue, the diocese did not explain why the accuser’s claim did not meet the criteria.
In 1994, American bishops amended the law to change the age of consent from 16 to 18 because it was “awkward to have canon law not mirror civil law,” said Nicholas Cafardi, a canon law professor at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. But the accuser said inappropriate contact took place before age 16, meaning that the significance of his age remains unclear.
In March, while the Vatican was reviewing the allegation, Conlon wrote a letter to the accuser about the case but declined to document the particulars.
“I would be very happy to sit down and discuss the matter in detail with you, but I am not comfortable putting those details in writing,” the bishop wrote in the letter, which was provided to the Tribune by the accuser.
Additional sources for this story: See www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=15569
Prelate [Daniel Conlon]: bishops’ credibility on abuse is ‘shredded’
CWN – August 30, 2012
The August 30 issue of Origins includes “Help for Bishops in Rebuilding Trust,” a recent talk by Bishop Daniel Conlon of Joliet, chairman of the US bishops’ Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People.
“For the last few years I operated with the conviction that consistent implementation of the ‘Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,’ coupled with some decent publicity, would turn public opinion around,” he said at a conference of safe-environment and victims’ assistance coordinators. “I now know this was an illusion … I was wandering in a hall of mirrors.”
Stating that bishops’ “credibility on the subject of child abuse is shredded,” Bishop Conlon said that the lay diocesan employees “may have a better chance. People–in the Church, outside the Church, and hanging on the edge–need to know that real progress is being made” in the “daunting task of repairing the damage.”
Bishop Conlon also addressed the issues of the abuse of vulnerable adults, child pornography, and “boundary violations” that do not constitute abuse.
“Boundary violations by definition are not abuse and are not explicitly treated in the Charter,” he said, adding:
Whether boundary violations are covered explicitly in diocesan policies or not, they must be handled with finesse. For example, is administrative leave and public notice at the time of an investigation warranted? At what point is the violation considered sufficiently serious to render the lay person unsuitable for employment or the cleric unsuitable for ministry, at least with minors? In today’s climate, will the public revelation of a serious boundary violation leave any choice?
Additional sources for this story: Bishop Conlon: Help for Bishops in Rebuilding Trust (USCCB) www.nccbuscc.org/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/upload/Sec-Vac-Conference-Talk-120813.pdf
The man is a homosexual, and as such he has no business being a Catholic Priest, let alone still having some kind of “ministry” that protects children. What about the rights of God? What about the sacredness of the priesthood? What about the damage to souls these types of men in the priesthood do?
The only way this man stays in the priesthood, is because other homosexuals and those who agree with homosexuality are protecting him. If the bishops actually want to recover from this, they have to deal with the root cause, which they won’t because most of the them are homosexuals themselves.
[His Excellency has finally come to his senses]
Joliet bishop revoke priest’s conditional return
By Manya Brachear
September 18, 2012
www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/suburbs/joliet/chi-joliet-bishop-revokes-priests-conditional-return-20120918,0,370317.story
A Joliet-area priest reinstated last week after being removed from ministry over an allegation of sexual abuse has been withdrawn once again, Joliet Bishop R. Daniel Conlon confirmed today.
Last week, parishioners learned that the Rev. F. Lee Ryan could minister to homebound parishioners of St. Edmund Catholic Church in Watseka, south of Kankakee, and St. Joseph Mission in Crescent City. He had been removed from ministry in May 2010 because of an alleged relationship with a teenager in the 1970s.
But Conlon, who also serves as chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People for U.S. Catholic bishops, returned him to limited ministry last week because the allegation did not meet the criteria of a crime under church law at that time.
“Subsequent discussions that have occurred since that decision have highlighted that any action needs to fulfill the larger need of the Church to confront the scandal of child abuse in its midst and work to diligently restore trust,” Conlon said in a statement. “For the sake of the greater good of the Church, I have decided to revoke my earlier permission and once again place Fr. Ryan on full administrative leave.”
In late May 2010, then Joliet Bishop J. Peter Sartain informed the parishioners of St. Edmund and St. Joseph that Ryan was being placed on administrative leave because of a “serious allegation of sexual abuse of a minor.”
A now-52-year-old Florida man alleged that he and Ryan had a relationship that lasted for more than a year, starting when the accuser was 14. The man said he confided in Ryan that he was gay, and as the two became closer and the relationship became sexual, he believed that the two were dating.
The accuser told the Tribune that he did not inform police or church officials at the time, and that only two years ago he decided to tell his mother about an inappropriate relationship with their family priest. His mother talked to a victims advocate who works for the diocese, and the advocate arranged for him to submit a complaint to the church, he said.
The complaint was initially assessed by a local review board and then sent to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Through a spokesman, Bishop Conlon told the Tribune that the Vatican cited Canon No. 2359 in the 1917 Code of Canon Law to explain why the priest was not found guilty of violating church law. That code stipulates that a cleric who violates the commandment forbidding adultery, by indecently touching a person under the age of 16, has committed a canonical crime.
Though the victim said a church official told him over the phone that age was the key issue, the diocese did not explain why the accuser’s claim did not meet the criteria since inappropriate contact took place before age 16.
The reinstatement came on the heels of a landmark speech by Conlon to a national conference of church child welfare workers in which he said the hierarchy’s credibility has been marred by the clergy sex abuse scandal of the past decade.
“Our credibility on the subject of child abuse is shredded,” Conlon told the National Safe Environment and Victim Assistance Coordinators Leadership Conference in Omaha, Neb. Comparing the scandal to the Reformation, when “the episcopacy, the regular clergy, even the papacy were discredited.”
Conlon said he long had hoped the bishops’ child protection policies would sway public opinion, but he now knows “this was an illusion.”
On Tuesday, Conlon said he would initiate further conversations with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith about Ryan’s case.
“What is of paramount importance is to manifest the Catholic Church’s commitment to safeguard youth and vulnerable adults,” he said.