Did California Jesuits sexually prey upon retarded men in their
employ? Yes. Did the leadership of the California Province of
Jesuits cover this scandal up? Yes.
Court records now surfacing in the California press allege that
Jesuits in the Province used two retarded pan-washers at their Los
Gatos Jesuit Center (Sacred Heart) as sexual toys for “as long as
30 years.” (The Jesuit leadership in California is admitting part
of the claim, saying two members of the order abused the men.)
According to the Los
Angeles Times, Debra Sullivan, a sister of one of the retarded
men, said her brother “identified six Jesuits at Sacred Heart who
sexually abused him: [Fr.] Burke, [Br.] Connor, two other brothers
named in the lawsuit, a ‘Brother Moniz’ and a man named
‘Angel.’”
The Times reports that some of these Jesuits are registered sex
offenders. Moniz “was convicted in 1995 after pleading no contest
to one felony count of lewd conduct with a minor for fondling a
7-year-old girl in Los Gatos,” reports the Times. “Mariano was
arrested about midnight Sept. 21, 1998, in Campbell, Calif., near
San Jose when a police officer caught him in a sex act with a
17-year-old student in a parked car. According to police reports,
Mariano arranged to meet two teenagers by posing as a 25-year-old
woman on an Internet chat room. He wore lipstick and rouge when he
met the boys.”
Where is this sex offender today? He is living at the residence
of Father Thomas H. Smolich, the head of the California Province!
“Since his arrest, Mariano lived at Sacred Heart off and on for
about four months,” reports the Times. Smolich says that he “needed
a place to come back to. The issues around Father Mariano’s
situation have nothing to do with mentally disabled adults.”
Today, says the Times, “Mariano is living under the supervision
of Smolich and his top assistant, Father Tony Sholander, at their
residence near Santa Clara University.”
By what Jesuitical casuistry has the California Province swept
these matters under the rug? Here’s Smolich on why he never told
parishioners at Mariano’s old parish about the priest’s
lipstick-and-rouge courting habits: “Why should they [know]? This
is an Internet cruising thing. This is anonymous sex. This doesn’t
involve people at the parish. It wasn’t a priest thing. He wasn’t
dressed in a collar.”
And why didn’t Smolich and his predecessors inform the
authorities about Jesuits helping themselves to the help at Sacred
Heart? Because — get this — the mentally disabled dishwashers
weren’t minors, the Jesuit leadership rationalizes. Reports the
Times: “The Jesuits have no obligation under California law to
disclose the information, said [Paul] Gaspari, the Jesuits’ lawyer.
‘We are not mandated reporters because these two individuals are
not minors.’”
The Jesuits didn’t even inform the retarded mens’ family of the
incidents. Brother Connor, who is accused of repeatedly molesting
one of the men, only left the Jesuit center after a cop pressured
the Jesuits to move him. Police detective Dianne Camarda told the
Times that she buttonholed the Jesuit superior at Sacred Heart at
the time and said, “You will move him. If you don’t, he is going to
jail.”
The Jesuits didn’t quite catch the spirit of the request, as
they then transferred Connor to a residence at a Jesuit boys’ high
school (in the San Jose area) named Bellarmine. The Jesuits didn’t
think it important to mention the reason for the transfer to school
officials. “Connor lived at Bellarmine for a total of five months,
two of them while school was in session,” reports the Times.
“A cloak of silence covered abuses,” concludes the Times, which
deserves kudos for researching the Bay Area story while the
pro-homosexual San Francisco Chronicle was too busy churning out
stories about Ellen Degeneres.
Now it appears the order’s coverup will cost Catholics millions
of dollars. The suit, brought on behalf of the two disabled men,
seeks $10 million in damages.
The moral meltdown of the Jesuits is historic. Never in the life
of this once-great order has criminality and degeneracy bubbled so
close to the top.
Will the Vatican save the order from its disintegration, or
continue to look the other way?
