On the attack against priests: Anne Barrett Doyle and Terry McKiernan of BishopAccountability.org

Visitors to the home page of BishopAccountability.org are greeted with the name of the site and the tag line, "Documenting the Abuse Crisis in the Roman Catholic Church." Prominently displayed on the top of the home page is a feature called "Abuse Tracker," while further down the page, the site solicits any visitors to "send us photos of survivors, offenders, affected parishes, and important events."

What other conclusion are first-time visitors then supposed to reach except that any priests profiled on the site are guilty of horrific child sex abuse?

The "posting policy" of BishopAccountability.org (which is buried on its site) begins with the oft-seen boilerplate language attempting to shield the site from potential defamation suits: "In the U.S. legal system, all accused persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty." But the site clearly gives initial visitors the opposite impression: that any featured priests are guilty of criminal abuse.

And it is an incontrovertible fact that the site brazenly and openly features numerous priests whose complete innocence has already been long established and who are merely victims of public rumors, innuendos, and scams.

Tromping innocent priests

For example, in 2007, after a quarter of a century of unblemished ministry, a troubled man sued the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph claiming that Fr. Stephen Muth abused him some fifteen years earlier. The accuser hired the notorious Rebecca Randles as his lawyer, a woman so unhinged that she has actually repeatedly claimed that child sex abuse was, in fact, a "collective objective" of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph and that the diocese "ratified" and "encouraged" abuse by priests.

As the accuser's charges were being investigated, it became so clear that the man's claims were baseless and bogus that even the ever-litigious Randles asked to dismiss her own tawdry suit.

In a statement to display how spurious the claims were, the judge overseeing the case not only promptly dismissed the case but he did so with prejudice, meaning that the accuser is never allowed to file suit against the priest in the same court ever again.

Despite the fact that Fr. Muth's only claim ever against him was essentially a fraud, BishopAccountability.org still continues to plaster Muth's name and picture in its database of "publicly accused" priests on its site as if the man were a dangerous child molester. It even includes a full-page and ominous-sounding "assignment record" of the innocent priest.

Such is the atrocious "posting policy" at BishopAccountability, which allows just about any accusation – no matter how old, flimsy, and/or discredited – to be broadcast on its site. [More on Father Stephen Muth]

Smearing the defenseless

"Where do I go to get my reputation
back?" Anne Barrett Doyle

In 2003, a year in which California opened up a window for accusers to sue the Church and receive money big money for abuse no matter how long ago they claimed it occurred, a man came forward in Los Angeles to claim that Fr. Michael Joseph Haran had abused him many years earlier.

In nearly three decades of ministry in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, there was never any hint, suggestion, or allegation of any impropriety against Fr. Haran. So, what did Fr. Haran say to the allegations suddenly lodged against him in 2003?

Well, Fr. Haran said nothing, as he died 30 years earlier in 1973. His lone accuser claimed his abuse occurred sometime after World War II, in 1948. And although there was absolutely nothing to substantiate the charges against Haran, BishopAccountability has the priest's profile and work history, just like that of Fr. Muth, pasted on its site as if it were a fact that Fr. Haran was a known child molester.

And Rev. Haran is hardly alone. In Los Angeles alone, Haran is among dozens of long-deceased priests who have been publicly accused of abuse even though there was never anything in their personnel files to suggest that they were guilty of any wrongdoing whatsoever. And in many other cities like Boston, there have been men like Rev. James H. Lane and Rev. Rickard O'Donovan, both of whom were dead for years before a single accuser came forward seeking money and alleging abuse. Yet the men's names and files are openly listed on BishopAccountability.org.

Indeed, in 2011, 45% of all priests who were accused of abuse were already deceased. Indeed, almost a decade ago, one major archdiocese was already then claiming, "Most of the lawsuits against us involve dead priests."

Yet this blatant injustice does not mean anything to McKiernan and Doyle at BishopAccountability. It has no problem in the public trafficking of rumors against innocent, dead, and defenseless priests.

[UPDATE, March 2018: Fr. Muth's accuser has reached out to TheMediaReport.com and stands by the accusations of abuse against Muth. We appreciate his taking the time to talk with us.]

Partners in bigotry: Terry McKiernan and Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability.org

When the media needs a quote to bash the Catholic Church for abuse from a half-century ago, one predictable source it often turns to is BishopAccountability.org.

The Massachusetts-based BishopAccountability.org professes to act as a sort of library of documents pertaining to sex abuse in the Catholic Church. It claims that it simply seeks to "gather and make accessible all public information about the Catholic abuse crisis and the bishops' role in it." However, a closer examination of the group reveals an organization which is just another anti-Catholic hate group using the old sex abuse issue as a pretext to bludgeon the Church.

Steeped in malice

Though it claims otherwise, BishopAccountability's ultimate mission has nothing to do with protecting children and everything to do with smearing Catholic priests and bishops as mercilessly as it can.

Both Terence McKiernan, BishopAccountability's president, and Anne Barrett Doyle, the group's catty "clerk/director," have been regular speakers at the conferences of notorious anti-Catholic groups such as SNAP and Voice of the Faithful, while Doyle has been especially vocal in trying to get legislatures to extend the statutes of limitations, a maneuver intended to further line the pockets of the Church-suing contingency lawyers she supports.

Smearing innocent priests

BishopAccountability's nastiest trait, however, is its extensive online database of "publicly accused" Catholic clerics. The group claims it maintains this database in order to track abusive priests so that bishops cannot transfer them about and harm other children.

However, it should be noted that this problem has already been solved. Many years ago, bishops implemented groundbreaking reforms to immediately remove any credibly accused priest from public ministry.

And BishopAccountability is not interested in the truth about accused clerics. No matter how flimsy, old, and/or thoroughly discredited an accusation may be against a Catholic priest, BishopAccountability will adamantly post the priest's name and history – and often his picture – on its site, suggesting the cleric is a child molester. (The group asserts that it removes the entries of those priests whose accusers have recanted, but we have already shown that this claim is demonstrably false.)

Take the case of Fr. Roger N. Jacques, who, after two decades of unblemished ministry, was suddenly the object of a single accusation in 2002. The case had several hallmarks of obvious fraud:

• the accuser invoked the discredited theory of "repressed memory" to claim that she only remembered her abuse after she allegedly underwent so-called "hypnosis therapy";
• she told conflicting tales about the very nature of the abuse;
• she lodged an additional, out-of-the-blue accusation of abuse against a second priest months after accusing Fr. Jacques.

After an intensive and thorough investigation by the Church taking four years, Fr. Jacques was fully exonerated. The priest then went to meet with McKiernan and Doyle from BishopAccountability to try to have his name removed from their database. He even provided the pair with extensive documentation demonstrating his innocence. But McKiernan and Doyle were steadfast and refused to remove the priest from their site. As a result, Jacques' name remains plastered on the site as if the priest were a rabid child molester. Needless to say, the long-time cleric is none too pleased to have his reputation tarnished.

"And my family isn't too happy about it either," adds Fr. Jacques, referring to his siblings and numerous other family members, individuals whom people often forget have to endure this embarrassment as well.

Sadly, the situation of Fr. Jacques with BishopAccountability is far from uncommon. BishopAccountability.org profiles countless innocent priests on its site; so many, in fact, that the number of troubling examples could fill an entire book.

[UPDATE, May 2013: Following this post and the persistence of Fr. Jacques, BishopAccountability.org has taken the rare action of actually removing Fr. Jacques from its database!]

How about a "JewishBankers.org" web site?

The mere premise alone of BishopAccountability.org is clearly bigoted and grossly anti-Catholic. While the best and most reliable evidence reveals that Catholic priests have abused at a rate far lower than that of men of the general population, BishopAccountability.org fosters the filthy stereotype that many, most, or all Catholic priests are child molesters.

Imagine if another organization maintained a vile and bigoted web site chronicling only Jewish bankers merely accused of monetary wrongdoing. Even though the organizers of such a wretched enterprise would likely argue that they are merely "informing the public," such a group would be rightfully dismissed as vulgar and anti-Semitic for propagating a false and repulsive stereotype about Jewish people. Media outlets would never even acknowledge the existence of such a despicable endeavor.

Yet the world's leading media outlets like the New York Times, the Associated Press, and Reuters routinely swarm to BishopAccountability.org – a site that only targets Catholic priests – to get predictably hysterical and hate-filled quotes on decades-old scandals. And they turn to the group as if it were simply some neutral historian on the issue rather than a purveyor of anti-Catholic bigotry that it is.

Our analogy may seem audacious, but we make it to chronicle this noxious and prejudiced double standard.

Bishop Accountability's profitable prejudice

According to its 2011 Form 990 (the most recent form available), BishopAccountability.org has raked in close to $1.7 million over the last five years, except that the primary beneficiaries of all this money have been only McKiernan and Doyle.

Taken together, McKiernan and Doyle have personally pocketed over one half of all of the donations made to the group in the past two years, with McKiernan securing a comfortable $120,000 in 2011.

Meanwhile, the group has spent $56,000 on hotel rooms and travel just in the past two years alone, presumably all for McKiernan and Doyle.

Rachel Zoll, Associated Press and Andrew Stern, Reuters

The newly released annual audit of abuse in the Catholic Church reports that only seven credible abuse allegations were made against Catholic priests by current minors in all of 2011.

Yet nationally syndicated articles from the Associated Press' Rachel Zoll and Reuters' Andrew Stern might have you believe that child abuse is currently a major problem infecting the Catholic Church.

Both journalists are trumpeting the fact that decades-old abuse claims increased in 2011, but not bothering to mention the status of current allegations.

In truth, the number of credible accusations alleging abuse by a Catholic priest against a current minor went down. For 2010, the number of such allegations was eight. For 2011, the number went down to seven. (If there are roughly 41,406 Catholic priests in the United States, seven credibly accused priests would represent .000169 (or 0.0169%) of all U.S. priests.)

The raw numbers

Here are some other notable figures from the newly released report, most of which you won't see in the national media:

• 45% of all priests who were accused for 2011 were already deceased (this is a record high figure);
• 75% of all priests who were accused for 2011 are either deceased, already removed from ministry, already laicized, or missing;
• over 90% of all abuse accusations last year allege incidents from at least two decades ago (the most common time period was from almost 40 years ago: 1975-1979).

Indeed, current accusations against Catholic priests are rare.

Sound bites from the professional Church critics

Reuters' Stern took an unfortunately lazy route for his article and went to the hysterical anti-Catholic groups SNAP and BishopAccountability.org for comment on the new data. SNAP's media-ready "Outreach Director" Barbara Dorris predictably dismissed the audits as "nearly meaningless," while the punchy director of BishopAccountability, Terence W. McKiernan, called the report a "serious disservice to the public" without any accompanying explanation. Uh-huh.

The pair's huffy responses recall a memorable line last year from C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts: "If the Catholic Church were to put out a press release today saying that they were going out of business, SNAP would say, 'Why didn't they do this sooner?' No matter what the Church does, it will never satisfy SNAP." Indeed.

Trailblazing achievements

Although even a single instance of a priest abusing an innocent minor is an outrage, the Catholic Church has shown that it is achieving exceptional success in its efforts to protect children.

No other organization that deals with youth even bothers to report such statistics publicly, and the newly released figures suggest that the Catholic Church may be the safest environment for children today.

The new report praised the Church for doing "a tremendous job of creating safe environments." In fact, just last year alone, the Church spent an unprecedented $32 million in child protection efforts.

Indeed, the Church's strides in protecting children are unparalleled and unsurpassed. Just don't expect the media to report this.

Al Jazeera: Anti-Catholic

What has prompted Aguilar to unleash her venom against the Church? Does it really have anything to do with the awful abuse of children? Not really.

Aguilar does not like the fact that Catholic bishops have forcefully spoken out against the government’s recent attack on religious freedom that attempts to force them to provide contraceptives in health insurance. (Her article is entitled, “The birth control bishops,” if you can stomach it.)

Aguilar realized, however, that she could not attack the Church on her own. So she did what most slippery journalists do when an attack on the Church is in order, and facts and honesty are not all that important.

She went to the angry folks at SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) and BishopAccountability.org for support.

First up for Aguilar was SNAP “Outreach Director” Barbara Dorris, who, according to Aguilar, “says the [Church abuse] cover-ups are still happening across the country, yet we rarely hear about them in the national dialogue … ‘Bishops have gotten away with moving these predators from place to place, allowing them to start fresh. They are far more dangerous than the predators,’ [said Dorris].” Uh-huh.

(By the way, the article relays an oft-told story by Dorris of her walking in on a priest in 1991 at her parish abusing a young girl. Dorris has claimed that she called the police and social services, yet the man remains in ministry to this day. Yet, most notably, she refuses to divulge the name of this allegedly abusive priest. Why? Who is “covering up” now?)

Then there was the crabby Terence McKiernan from BishopAccountability.org, who, without a shred of supporting documentation, actually claimed, “Over the course of our conversation, a priest is abusing a child.”

Really?

Well, here are the facts: In all of 2010, there were eight credible allegations of Catholic priests contemporaneously abusing a minor in all of the United States. (See the 2010 CARA report.) Indeed, as we have reported several times before, almost all accusations against priests made today allege incidents from decades ago.

There are even more erroneous and mean-spirited claims in the hate-filled piece. (For example: “Catholic bishops in the US want every single act of sexual intercourse to lead to the conception and birth of a child, but once that child is born, they are on their own, especially if their priest abuses them.” Uhhh … no.)

The bottom line: Al Jazeera, SNAP, and BishopAccountability.org reveal – again – that honesty and truth are not important when attacking the Catholic Church.

(Thank you for the story tip, Matt!)

Such a comparison can be applied to the Boston Globe and the Catholic Church, except this bigotry is real, and there is no public outrage.

Today (Sun., 11/20/11), the Globe has a ridiculous, top-of the-front-page, 2,444-word article bashing the Catholic Church.

Three months ago, in August, the Archdiocese of Boston released a sweeping list on the Internet of all of its priests who were accused of abuse. Much to the consternation of many priests, the list even included those who have been exonerated.

Today’s article profiles complaints by critics of the Church that the archdiocese’s lists did not include the names of accused members of religious orders and members of other dioceses. Fair enough.

But today’s Globe article is remarkably dishonest for a number of reasons.

First, the objection by Church critics (about not releasing the names of religious order priests) was already widely aired and reported three months ago. Today’s Globe article simply rehashes this exact same issue with the addition of some different names. In fact, the themes and content of today’s hit piece are virtually indistinguishable from an article in August – by the very same Globe writer!

Second, the article profiles the case of a Rev. Czeslaw “Chet” Szymanski. The article quotes an anonymous accuser to give the false impression that the man was a known abuser. The Globe makes no mention of the fact that Fr. Chet was killed in a car crash in 1987 without any public accusations against him whatsoever, and his first accuser did not surface until 2009. (In nearly two decades of relentlessly pursuing the issue of abuse in the Catholic Church, the Globe has never cared to fully explore the issue of abuse accusations against previously unblemished and long-deceased clerics.)

Third, the article features a crafty individual by the name of Terence W. McKiernan, who runs a high-profile web site called BishopAccountability.org. BishopAccountability.org will publicly post the names, pictures, and cases of accused priests, no matter how flimsy the allegations may be. A lone individual could invoke the discredited theory of “repressed memory” to lodge an allegation against a long-deceased priest with a previously unblemished record, and BishopAccountability.org will still do everything in its power to post the priest’s name and picture on its site as if the cleric were a convicted child molester.

Again, this dubious practice has never seemed to be an issue that concerns the Boston Globe.

(By the way, I personally busted McKiernan and his site a couple months ago for dishonestly violating their own posted policy of not posting the cases in which accusers have recanted their claims. Readers can learn about this episode.)

We must demand justice and compassion for victims of clergy abuse. This is not optional. Abusive priests devastated countless lives. They pulverized the faith of legions with their revolting, criminal, and sinful acts.

But fairness and perspective have long gone out the window in the reporting of the Catholic Church abuse narrative. Egregious prejudice and bigotry have taken over.

Anti-Catholicism is alive and well at the Boston Globe.

The site recently added the nine-year-old case of falsely accused priest Fr. Ronald L. Bourgault, from the Archdiocese of Boston, to its database of "publicly accused" clerics. BishopAccountability has plastered the innocent pastor's photo on its site, and it has stamped the word "Accused" in his entry.

In a tragic series of events in 2002 and 2003, a man claimed that the priest had molested him decades earlier. The archdiocese removed Fr. Bourgault from ministry for eight months, after which the accuser and his lawyer both finally admitted that the man had "misidentified" his alleged abuser. (Read about the clear-cut case in a February 2003 article in the Boston Globe.)

The popular Fr. Bourgault has never had any other charges of such wrongdoing in nearly five decades of ministry.

Here is BishopAccountability.org's stated policy:  

13. If a survivor publicly withdraws an allegation, recants, or states that the alleged perpetrator has been misidentified, and if there are no other allegations of abuse against the accused cleric, that cleric is removed from the database. If an allegation is withdrawn by a victim and this withdrawal is not reported by the news media, then there is a chance that the current status of this allegation is not reported in the database, despite our best efforts. If notified, we will correct our database entry.

There is no doubt that the case of Fr. Bourgault fits the criteria for not posting the case.

It seems BishopAccountability.org has tried to justify its action by stating, "Bourgault's name is included on the list of unsubstantiated cases released by Boston 8/25/11." Indeed, this is true (and very unfortunate), yet it seems that this should have no bearing whatsoever on the fact that the case does not qualify to be posted. There is no question that the accuser recanted his claim.

Unfortunately, the case of Fr. Bourgault is not the only one of its kind. BishopAccountability.org has also posted the case of Jesuit priest Fr. John M. Costello of New York. In a case very similar to that of Fr. Bourgault, the accuser recanted his claim after concluding that "another priest" had abused him.  (Sources: 1, 2)

Again, the site has posted the innocent priest's picture along with the word "Accused" in an entry for Fr. Costello.

There are more, but one gets the point.

Posting the names and pictures of innocent priests on a web site as "publicly accused" child molesters, especially in those cases in which the accusers have recanted, does absolutely nothing for the protection of children or for the justice of real victims.

Most notably, the reputations of good and honest priests are irreparably tarnished.

*** UPDATE (9/20/11): BishopAccountability.org responded to this post with the following reply:

[Note: I would like to thank Mr. Dave Pierre for calling to our attention (see below) an error in our Database of Accused Priests. When Rev. Ronald Bourgault was included in Cardinal O'Malley's list two weeks ago, we mistakenly added him to our database as well. His name has been removed. We previously had never listed Fr. Bourgault in the database, because we were able to confirm that the survivor, who was abused as a very small child, had misidentified the perpetrator. Accordingly, Fr. Bourgault was excluded by our posting policy. We don't believe he should have been included on Cardinal O'Malley's "unsubstantiated" list, because the allegation against Fr. Bourgault was never a real allegation. Cardinal O'Malley also included on his list Rev. Edward C. McDonagh, who, like Fr. Bourgault, previously had not been listed in our database. We mistakenly added Fr. McDonagh's name to our database after Cardinal O'Malley listed him. His name has now been removed, pending a review of the archdiocesan file. We take our posting policy very seriously, and we apologize for these errors. The case of Rev. John M. Costello, S.J., which Mr. Pierre also mentions, is an entirely different circumstance. Our posting policy states: "If an individual is 'cleared' or 'exonerated' by an internal church investigation and/or a diocesan review board decision, the individual remains in the database." If we receive or discover independent confirmation that, as the Jesuits claim, the survivor has recanted in the Costello case, we will reevaluate Fr. Costello's inclusion in the database. Inclusion of a name in our database does not mean that we consider an allegation credible. The database gathers all allegations, excluding only those that involve mistaken identity, either willful or accidental. I would like to thank Mr. Pierre again for calling this matter to our attention. — Terence McKiernan, President, BishopAccountability.org]

Our reply: McKiernan and his organization are still "bearing false witness," a sin. The accuser of Fr. Costello recanted – plain and simple. This fact has never been disputed.

And it is odd that the site removed Fr. McDonagh from its database. (My post made no mention of Fr. McDonagh at all!) Indeed, the priest is 100% innocent. Rev. McDonagh was exonerated and cleared just like over two dozen other Boston priests have been. Why doesn't BishopAccountability.org remove the files of these innocent men as well? BishopAccountability.org's posting policy is disgraceful – and un-Christian.]