Sex-abuse policy's author questioned

By Andrew Wolfson
The Courier-Journal

The primary author of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville's 1993 policy on sexual abuse said Archbishop Thomas C. Kelly told him nothing about previous allegations of abuse by priests when Kelly ordered rules be drawn up for protecting children.

Brian Reynolds, the archdiocese's chief administrative officer, also conceded in a deposition this month that when he wrote the policy, he didn't know priests could be prosecuted for sex abuse decades after the fact because there is no time limit in Kentucky for prosecuting felonies.

''Do you find it unusual that the archbishop would not share with you . . . his knowledge of the specific priests against whom allegations had been made?'' Reynolds was asked by attorney William McMurry, who represents most of the 195 plaintiffs who have sued the archdiocese since April.

''That was not my responsibility, to have information on individual priests,'' Reynolds answered.

''Don't we learn from our mistakes?'' McMurry asked.

''That's a true statement,'' Reynolds said in the deposition, which was taken Oct. 10 and 11 and transcribed this week.

In an interview and in his sworn remarks, Reynolds, who recently also was named the archdiocese's chancellor, said his ignorance of Kentucky law didn't matter because the proposed rules were reviewed by the church's lawyers, who he said knew that Kentucky has no statute of limitations for serious crimes. Reynolds also said the committee that helped him write the rules included two high-level officials who knew about prior misconduct by the Revs. Louis E. Miller and Daniel C. Clark.

Reynolds said it wasn't important for him to know how well or poorly the church had dealt with previous incidents. ''Policy should be developed based on good practice and good norms and what needs to be done for the victims,'' he said.

But during a contentious, eighthour examination, McMurry tried to show that Reynolds would have drafted a tougher policy -- one that required all abuse allegations to be reported, including those made by adults who claimed they were molested as children -- if he'd known at the time that the church employed admitted pedophiles and had settled a half-dozen abuse claims since Kelly was installed in 1982.

During his deposition, Reynolds acknowledged that Kelly never told him about a psychiatric evaluation of Miller that was prepared in 1990 for the church. The evaluation said that the priest admitted molesting children as often as every other month for two decades and that he was moved from one position to another by authorities in response to complaints about him.

David Clohessy, executive director of the 4,300-member Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, a national organization, said Reynolds should have had such information. ''Can you imagine sending a surgeon into the operating room and saying, 'You don't need to know the patient's history -- just start cutting.'

''I'm sure this man tried to do the right thing,'' Clohessy said of Reynolds. ''But clearly he wasn't given the tools to do the job well -- to keep kids safe.''

Reynolds was the 11th witness whose deposition has been taken in the case, in which plaintiffs allege the archdiocese concealed abuse by failing to report it to civil authorities, as required by state law.

Reynolds, who began working for the archdiocese in 1990 as a personnel director, said Kelly directed him two years later to start work on the church's first written policy for preventing and responding to sex-abuse charges. The policy was published in 1993 and 10,000 copies were distributed.

Reynolds said in his deposition that he thought he was given the project solely because the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had asked every diocese to draft such a document. He said he didn't know about any sex-abuse allegations against the archdiocese until 1995, when he helped negotiate a $10,500 payment for counseling for a man who said he'd been molested at St. Polycarp Church by the Rev. Arthur L. Wood, who died in 1983.

Defending the 1993 policy, Reynolds noted that no new cases of childhood sex abuse have been reported to the archdiocese since it was adopted. ''I think our policies have protected children,'' he said.

''Are you aware that Father Clark was recently arrested'' for allegedly abusing children, McMurry asked him.

''I'm aware of that, but no report came to the archdiocese prior to that arrest,'' Reynolds said.

Clark, who has pleaded innocent and is being held at the Bullitt County Detention Center, is charged with abusing two brothers at their homes numerous times between 1998 and May 2002. Clark pleaded guilty in 1988 to sodomy sexual abuse of two other boys; he was permanently removed from ministry by Kelly in July.

Reynolds acknowledged that the 1993 policy drew no distinction between abuse reported by minors and allegations from adults who claimed to have been molested when they were minors. Yet the archdiocese, citing an attorney general's opinion, has contended since that it has no obligation to report what it calls ''historical'' abuse claims made by adults.

''Do you think that enforcement of felony laws on sexual abuse 10, 20 years after the abuse occurs serves to protect children in the future?'' McMurry asked.

''Yes,'' Reynolds said.

''Do you wish you had known in 1993 that pedophiles could be prosecuted decades later?

''Yeah, I think that would have been helpful to me,'' Reynolds conceded.

The 1993 policy says that anyone who knows or has reason to know of an incident of sexual abuse ''shall comply with the applicable reporting and other requirements of state and laws.'' But the manual doesn't spell out those laws.

McMurry asked Reynolds why the laws weren't spelled out so even nonlawyers could understand their obligations?

''I think what we have written was sufficient,'' Reynolds answered. ''Could it have been improved upon? Yes.''

He said he didn't make the policy intentionally vague to protect the archdiocese from litigation.

In response to other questions during the deposition, Reynolds said:

* The archdiocese knows about sex-abuse allegations against priests other than the 26 who are named in pending lawsuits. He declined to identify them or estimate how many there are.

* The archdiocese won't comment on settlements it has reached in abuse cases since the current wave of lawsuits began in mid-April.

* The archdiocese has not sent any of its priest disciplinary files to the Vatican to avoid having to produce them in local courts.

Since April, however, Reynolds has funneled all abuse complaints to the church's law firm, where the documents are exempt from disclosure under the attorney-client privilege.

Reynolds acknowledged that the new practice is ''not consistent'' with the church's sex-abuse policy, which requires all oral complaints to be documented and for records of those to be sent to the archbishop and to the clergy personnel director.