Everyone associated with it assumed the priest sexual misconduct trial would be explicit.But spectators in Chittenden Superior Court on Friday were surprised when a Vermont Catholic official stopped reading aloud personnel records as instructed because he felt they were too lurid.
The Rev. Wendell Searles, former second-in-command at the diocese, sat on the witness stand in the case of James Turner, a 46-year-old Derby native who charges the Rev. Alfred Willis performed oral sex on him when he was 16 and staying at a Latham, N.Y., hotel in 1977.
Turner's lawyer, Jerome O'Neill, alleges the diocese knew Willis was just one of several priests who had questionable sexual histories but were still assigned to Vermont churches where they went on to molest children.
To prove his point, O'Neill asked the 78-year-old Searles to read aloud confidential church paperwork.
O'Neill began by having the priest read a document about how Willis fondled an unnamed 14-year-old boy in front of a 13-year-old friend on a camping trip in 1977.
"The effect on both boys was obviously traumatic," the letter said.
"The agony experienced by these two families is amply documented."
O'Neill then asked Searles to read 1981 secret church trial testimony about "defendant's constant preoccupation with sex as evident in his unabashed double-meaning language which often embarrassed hearers, his ready hugging and kissing of practically anyone (his habit of 'grab-assing,' i.e., placing his hand beneath or pinching the buttocks of others), his defense of pornography, his apparent use of alcohol to lower the inhibitions of minors, his insensitivity to the wonderment he was causing, his ability to lie and to 'con.'"
Searles began reading another paragraph before pausing."I'm sorry," the priest said. "I have to read this aloud? Do I have to?"
Judge Ben Joseph apologized but said yes, only to have O'Neill offer to read the paragraph himself.
The lawyer then read about someone else testifying of Willis: "'On Good Friday,' he said, 'I just love to see the people come up and kiss the Cross and I put the crotch ... where they can kiss the ... Lord's crotch.' Now, if that isn't sick, I ... I ... I said, 'There's something wrong with you, Al.'"
The lawyer stopped."Is that what it says, Father?"
"Yes," Searles replied.
But the diocese didn't defrock Willis until four years later in 1985, O'Neill said, after finally ruling the priest broke the sixth commandment.
"What's the sixth commandment?" O'Neill asked Searles."Thou shall not commit adultery," the priest said.
"That assumes various forms of sexual misbehavior?" O'Neill asked."Yes," the priest said.After Searles read aloud one last letter, O'Neill pointed out most of the paperwork came under the tenure of former Vermont Bishop John Marshall, who served from 1972 to 1992 and died in 1994.
O'Neill asked Searles: "Of all that you read here, can you point to anything in there where Bishop Marshall at any point at any time ever expressed any concern for the welfare of who had been abused or might have been abused by Father Willis?"
"I do not see that stated in these documents," Searles said.
Later, upon questioning by diocesan lawyer Thomas McCormick, Searles explained his uneasiness with having to read the letters aloud: "I was shocked by the content — many of them were marked 'personal' and 'confidential' and here we were opening them to public scrutiny."
Searles, a Vermont priest for more than 50 years, added of many of the names blacked out on the letters: "They were people that I knew."
Searles added at another point: "I have to say again I was in no way involved."
Later in the day, O'Neill offered videotaped testimony from the Rev. Kenneth Angell, former Vermont bishop from 1992 to 2005.
The lawyer, citing another priest who molested dozens of boys during Marshall's tenure, asked Angell if his predecessor should have contacted authorities rather than deal with the abuse internally.
Angell paused before saying, "I certainly would get some advice. I would talk to my legal counsel."
O'Neill asked the question again. Angell paused again before saying, "I still don't know if (Marshall) would believe he had this obligation or not."
Asked two more times, Angell paused before saying, "It's apparent (the priest) did a great deal of harm and all. I'm still having problems how Bishop Marshall could justify not putting him out immediately. But I don't know about this question of calling the authorities. I certainly would talk with my attorneys."
Turner, now living in Virginia Beach, Va., is asking the jury for damages of more than $1 million. That led lawyers for both sides to argue whether the diocese could afford such a payment.
Arthur Woolf, a former state economist who now teaches at the University of Vermont, reviewed insurance and municipal records to place a "market value" of all Vermont Catholic Church-related property at between $270 million and $500 million, he testified Friday.
But the diocese views its assets differently. In May 2006, fearing the potential costs of priest misconduct lawsuits, it placed each of its more than 120 Vermont parishes and missions in individual charitable trusts.
The diocese still owns its headquarters on North Avenue in Burlington, which its insurer has valued at $11.5 million. But in terms of cash holdings, the diocese reported a deficit of $1.3 million for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2006. That shortfall came after the church spent more than $1.5 million in the past five years to settle at least six other civil misconduct lawsuits out of court.
Church leaders say they aren't paying settlements with regular collection money or the diocesan Bishop's Fund but from loans and other sources. The church also is suing its former insurer in U.S. District Court in Burlington in hopes of recovering legal fees and settlement costs for alleged abuse that took place in the 1970s.
Willis, now 62 and living in Leesburg, Va., has called the charges "unfounded" but has settled with Turner for an undisclosed sum.
Turner is expected to testify when the trial resumes Monday.
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