Dear Editor,
I’m writing to thank VTDigger reporter Kevin O’Connor for shining a light on corruption in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington in its effort to prevent justice for survivors of clergy sexual abuse in Vermont. There is plenty of shame to go around.
Let’s start with Vermont’s former bishop, Christopher Coyne, and his once second-in-command, John McDermott. According to a whistleblower, a woman who applied for the position of chief financial officer of the diocese, Coyne and McDermott moved the diocese’s money so they could claim that the diocese was broke when it came time to pay the many victims suing them over clergy sexual abuse. If not for the courageous actions of the whistleblower, who said she was pressed by both Coyne and McDermott about whether she would be comfortable moving money, the public and the courts would never have known of these efforts. What did Coyne and McDermott get for apparently trying to shield assets from victims and the courts? They were promoted by the Catholic Church, with Coyne becoming archbishop of Hartford, Connecticut, and McDermott being named bishop in Vermont.
Then there are the diocese’s legal bills: $2 million in the last two years. But how much did the diocese pay attorneys for decades to avoid doing penance for their sins? The judge in the bankruptcy case is concerned that there will be nothing left for victims after lawyers get their large piece of the pie.
Coyne and McDermott are no better than their predecessors. Bishop John Marshall was an architect of the cover-up and recently had his name removed from a Catholic school in Morrisville, partly because leaders there didn’t want their fine school named for a man who covered up for child molesters. Bishop Salvatore Matano was the first money mover. He was so brash about it that he even wrote a letter to Vermont Catholics to inform them of his plans. And now, a recent Rhode Island attorney general’s investigation has detailed a pattern of cover-up by Providence church leadership — including Auxiliary Bishop Kenneth Angell — during his time there. He did the same thing in Vermont. It was under Angell that the plan was hatched to pay survivors of St. Joseph’s Orphanage a pittance to stop them from suing the diocese or even talking about the abuse they suffered.
So where do we go from here? First, I ask other Vermont media to report on this story, too. To Saint Michael’s College, I say: Why are you willing to host the bishop’s chancery offices in light of what the diocese is doing?
I also call on Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark to investigate the obvious attempt to hide money from victims. Those abused deserve justice.
Maura Labelle
Colchester, Vt.
