Albany diocese settles first Child Victims Act case for $750K
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany recently paid $750,000 to a 47-year-old Saratoga County man who was allegedly sexually abused as a child by a former priest, marking the organization's first settlement in the hundreds of pending lawsuits that were filed under New York's Child Victims Act.
A week ago, Bishop Edward Scharfenberger proposed a court-supervised mediation plan to compensate the roughly 400 victims of sexual abuse who have claims pending against the diocese.
Mittler's lawsuit was filed against the diocese and 73-year-old Mark A. Haight of Schenectady, a former priest who was ordained in 1976 and accused of sexually abusing boys for more than a decade. Haight, who will pay an additional $2,000 to Mettler under the settlement, was shuffled through parishes, schools and to his final post at Glens Falls Hospital as abuse allegations surfaced at nearly every assignment — with the church's response to keep moving him rather than contacting police or terminating him.
Haight was removed from his post at Glens Falls Hospital around 1997, where he had worked for nearly seven years without the diocese informing hospital officials of his history. Haight resigned from the priesthood that year, not long after the diocese paid two settlements to his victims. One of the payments included $997,500 made to a man who said he was abused by the priest as a teenager in the 1970s and 1980s.
Records disclosed by the diocese during the pre-trial discovery phase of Mittler's case indicate former Bishop Howard J. Hubbard, who also stands accused of sexually abusing children, had twice sent Haight to treatment programs at facilities used by the Catholic church to treat sexually abusive clergy: House of Affirmation in California in 1985 and Servants of the Paraclete in New Mexico in 1989.
Diocesan officials, including Hubbard, had claimed two decades ago that Haight was working at St. Joseph's Church in Scotia when the first sexual abuse complaint was lodged against him in 1989.
But testimony and the records turned over by the diocese during pre-trial discovery indicate that Hubbard and church leaders had received their first sexual misconduct complaint against Haight not long after he was ordained more than a decade earlier. In 1980, rather than seek treatment for alleged pedophilia at Hubbard's direction, Haight took a five-year leave of absence from the church and landed a job teaching children. The former bishop, according to court records, wrote a letter of recommendation for the priest without mentioning his sexual abuse history.
In a deposition last year, when Hubbard was asked about the diocese's practice of moving priests accused of sexual abuse to other parishes or assignments after some had received treatment, he acknowledged that they did that instead of calling police. In Haight's case, he was never prosecuted for alleged wrongdoing and is not on any sexual offender registries. His residence in Schenectady is three blocks from a middle school.
https://www.timesunion.com/state/article...285661.php
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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany recently paid $750,000 to a 47-year-old Saratoga County man who was allegedly sexually abused as a child by a former priest, marking the organization's first settlement in the hundreds of pending lawsuits that were filed under New York's Child Victims Act.
A week ago, Bishop Edward Scharfenberger proposed a court-supervised mediation plan to compensate the roughly 400 victims of sexual abuse who have claims pending against the diocese.
Mittler's lawsuit was filed against the diocese and 73-year-old Mark A. Haight of Schenectady, a former priest who was ordained in 1976 and accused of sexually abusing boys for more than a decade. Haight, who will pay an additional $2,000 to Mettler under the settlement, was shuffled through parishes, schools and to his final post at Glens Falls Hospital as abuse allegations surfaced at nearly every assignment — with the church's response to keep moving him rather than contacting police or terminating him.
Haight was removed from his post at Glens Falls Hospital around 1997, where he had worked for nearly seven years without the diocese informing hospital officials of his history. Haight resigned from the priesthood that year, not long after the diocese paid two settlements to his victims. One of the payments included $997,500 made to a man who said he was abused by the priest as a teenager in the 1970s and 1980s.
Records disclosed by the diocese during the pre-trial discovery phase of Mittler's case indicate former Bishop Howard J. Hubbard, who also stands accused of sexually abusing children, had twice sent Haight to treatment programs at facilities used by the Catholic church to treat sexually abusive clergy: House of Affirmation in California in 1985 and Servants of the Paraclete in New Mexico in 1989.
Diocesan officials, including Hubbard, had claimed two decades ago that Haight was working at St. Joseph's Church in Scotia when the first sexual abuse complaint was lodged against him in 1989.
But testimony and the records turned over by the diocese during pre-trial discovery indicate that Hubbard and church leaders had received their first sexual misconduct complaint against Haight not long after he was ordained more than a decade earlier. In 1980, rather than seek treatment for alleged pedophilia at Hubbard's direction, Haight took a five-year leave of absence from the church and landed a job teaching children. The former bishop, according to court records, wrote a letter of recommendation for the priest without mentioning his sexual abuse history.
In a deposition last year, when Hubbard was asked about the diocese's practice of moving priests accused of sexual abuse to other parishes or assignments after some had received treatment, he acknowledged that they did that instead of calling police. In Haight's case, he was never prosecuted for alleged wrongdoing and is not on any sexual offender registries. His residence in Schenectady is three blocks from a middle school.
https://www.timesunion.com/state/article...285661.php
Or behind the paywall link
https://archive.ph/oMgQO
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"
