Vermont’s Roman Catholic Diocese faces another wave of lawsuits for past abuse
Vermont’s Roman Catholic Diocese, having spent more than $30 million to settle some 40 priest misconduct lawsuits dating as far back as 1950, faces another wave of court cases alleging more past child sexual abuse.
The state’s largest religious denomination is the subject of at least 16 more civil actions, records show.
The first case was expected to be heard this week in Chittenden County Superior Court. It involved the state’s most problematic priest, the since-defrocked former Rev. Edward Paquette, who has sparked more than three dozen civil actions based on his tenure in Burlington, Montpelier and Rutland from 1972 to 1978.
Speaking for the plaintiff, attorney Celeste Laramie simply noted that while she has heard church leaders express regret for the misconduct, “at the same time, the diocese continues to try to avoid liability and protect its assets from survivors of priest abuse,” she said. “When will the diocese practice what it preaches?”
Vermont Catholics first learned of the decades-long sex abuse scandal in 2002, when the state’s attorney general’s office reviewed allegations against 10 then-practicing and 30 past priests. The office didn’t charge anyone because the claims found credible were too old to prosecute under criminal statutes of limitations.
Accusers, however, were free to file civil lawsuits. The diocese spent at least $2 million to end nine of the first cases before reaching a $20 million settlement to cap almost 30 more in 2010 and, three years later, another $6.75 million to resolve what was thought to be a final 12 cases in 2013.
To pay for past civil actions, the diocese sold its historic 32-acre Burlington headquarters overlooking Lake Champlain for $10 million in 2010 and 26-acre Camp Holy Cross in Colchester for $4 million in 2012.
To protect the rest of their properties, church leaders placed each of their local parishes into separate trusts in 2006 so that the estimated $500 million in collective assets could only be tapped for “pious, charitable or educational purposes” and not jury verdicts, according to the “deed into trust” documents.
The latest lawsuits come as the diocese has seen its numbers decline from some 150,000 members, 130 parishes and nearly 200 fellow priests when new Vermont Catholic Bishop John McDermott was ordained as a priest in 1989 to nearly one-third fewer members, half as many parishes and only 36 active priests today, its website reports.
https://vtdigger.org/2024/09/11/vermonts...ast-abuse/
Vermont’s Roman Catholic Diocese, having spent more than $30 million to settle some 40 priest misconduct lawsuits dating as far back as 1950, faces another wave of court cases alleging more past child sexual abuse.
The state’s largest religious denomination is the subject of at least 16 more civil actions, records show.
The first case was expected to be heard this week in Chittenden County Superior Court. It involved the state’s most problematic priest, the since-defrocked former Rev. Edward Paquette, who has sparked more than three dozen civil actions based on his tenure in Burlington, Montpelier and Rutland from 1972 to 1978.
Speaking for the plaintiff, attorney Celeste Laramie simply noted that while she has heard church leaders express regret for the misconduct, “at the same time, the diocese continues to try to avoid liability and protect its assets from survivors of priest abuse,” she said. “When will the diocese practice what it preaches?”
Vermont Catholics first learned of the decades-long sex abuse scandal in 2002, when the state’s attorney general’s office reviewed allegations against 10 then-practicing and 30 past priests. The office didn’t charge anyone because the claims found credible were too old to prosecute under criminal statutes of limitations.
Accusers, however, were free to file civil lawsuits. The diocese spent at least $2 million to end nine of the first cases before reaching a $20 million settlement to cap almost 30 more in 2010 and, three years later, another $6.75 million to resolve what was thought to be a final 12 cases in 2013.
To pay for past civil actions, the diocese sold its historic 32-acre Burlington headquarters overlooking Lake Champlain for $10 million in 2010 and 26-acre Camp Holy Cross in Colchester for $4 million in 2012.
To protect the rest of their properties, church leaders placed each of their local parishes into separate trusts in 2006 so that the estimated $500 million in collective assets could only be tapped for “pious, charitable or educational purposes” and not jury verdicts, according to the “deed into trust” documents.
The latest lawsuits come as the diocese has seen its numbers decline from some 150,000 members, 130 parishes and nearly 200 fellow priests when new Vermont Catholic Bishop John McDermott was ordained as a priest in 1989 to nearly one-third fewer members, half as many parishes and only 36 active priests today, its website reports.
https://vtdigger.org/2024/09/11/vermonts...ast-abuse/
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
