The Pennsylvania statute of limitations is in their favor and they know it. They are dismissive of priest abuse victims who come forward knowing that as the law stands they will not be held accountable for hiding and transferring their abusive priests. I’m talking about the Diocese of Scranton in Pennsylvania but the same holds true for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the other Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania-Pittsburgh, Erie, Altoona-Johnstown, Harrisburg, Alltentown, and Greensburg. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has remained unchanged even after the scathing Philadelphia Grand Jury Report condemned their criminal behavior.
And now the Diocese of Scranton releases information about a sexually abusive priest, Rev. Robert Gibson who abused a young man in the early 1970’s. The victim, now a grown man, reported the abuse in 2007 but didn’t know that his was not the first report against this priest. The Diocese of Scranton had received at least one earlier report and had actually sent the sexual offender priest to a treatment facility a decade earlier. Yet now the Diocese of Scranton decides to release information about Rev. Gibson. According to the article in the Scranton Times-Tribune, here’s what the church knew and when they knew it:
“In 2007, Michael Baumann, who now lives in Chesapeake, Va., told the diocese that the Rev. Gibson had sexually abused him in 1973 and 1974, when the Rev. Gibson was his eighth-grade religion teacher at Notre Dame Junior/Senior High School in East Stroudsburg.
Mr. Baumann describes the experience as “nine months of pure hell,” during which he was repeatedly abused in a church rectory and while on a trip with the Rev. Gibson to Disney World.
He never spoke of the experience, but neither did he forget about it. Now, he said, “I’m tired of being embarrassed and ashamed of it. It took me a long time, but it finally dawned on me that I’m not the one to blame for this.”
When Mr. Baumann made his report, he found he was not the first person to come forward about the priest’s actions. The Rev. Gibson had been transferred a decade before to a monitored Missouri treatment facility for troubled Catholic priests, including pedophiles and other sex offenders.
In a statement to The Times-Tribune, William Genello, a diocese spokesman, recounted that past:
On Jan. 5, 1995, the diocese was approached by an attorney for a man who claimed he had been sexually abused by the Rev. Gibson 20 years earlier.
The priest admitted the abuse and four days later resigned as the pastor of St. Bernadette Church in Canadensis, where he was stationed at the time.
The diocese sent the priest for treatment at the Villa St. John Vianney
Hospital in Downington, a behavioral health center for members of the clergy. After the Rev. Gibson was released, the diocese instructed him to continue therapy and assigned him to live under supervision, and without a pastoral role, at the St. Ignatius Rectory in Kingston.
In the spring of 1997, a mother reported that the Rev. Gibson was paying a troubling amount of attention to her son. After an internal investigation, the diocese found the priest was “likely ‘grooming’ the boy for improper activity.” In September, the diocese’s Clergy Review Board, a group of clerics and lay people that reviewed such allegations, determined that the Rev. Gibson “could not be trusted to have any public ministry or reside in any Diocesan facility.”
On Feb. 1, 1998, the Rev. Gibson was placed at the St. John Vianney Renewal Center in Dittmer, Mo., the residential treatment facility run by a religious order that ministers to troubled priests. Bishop James C. Timlin, the head of the diocese at the time, barred the Rev. Gibson from wearing clerical clothes outside the center and stripped him of his priestly faculties. For the last 10 years, he has had no public ministry or contact with young people and has been monitored 24 hours a day.
In all, four people have reported to the diocese that they were abused by the Rev. Gibson, a number Mr. Baumann suspects is “very low.”
What troubles him about the diocese’s response is that the accusations against the Rev. Gibson have never been publicly investigated, despite the fact that the church considers the priest a threat.”
As history and experience has shown, the Catholic Church won’t move on such an issue unless and until it is forced to by the civil authorities. This isn’t a case dating back to the 1950’s where the Church claims it didn’t know how to deal with such an issue. They heard reports about this priest a decade ago and never did anything. He was never reported to law enforcement. Some things never change until society demands a change.