The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark and the Diocese of Orlando have settled a lawsuit brought by a woman assaulted in 2004 by a priest who broke into her house in Florida, the woman’s lawyer announced on Thursday. Neither side disclosed the terms of the settlement. The woman, identified in court papers as Jane Doe, accused church officials of failing to protect her from the priest, the Rev. Wladyslaw Gorak. He left New Jersey that year for what was supposed to be a three-year ministry in Florida.
The woman’s lawyer, Adam Horowitz, claimed that the Newark Archdiocese had known about Father Gorak’s “dangerous sexual improprieties with women” when the vicar general in Newark, Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli, signed an April 2004 letter approving the move to Florida.
In the letter, Bishop Serratelli — now bishop of Paterson, N.J. — wrote that Father Gorak had “good moral character,” no criminal record and no behavioral problems that would compromise his fitness for the ministry.
A lawyer for the archdiocese, Charles M. Carella, said on Thursday that “when Serratelli wrote that letter, it was 100 percent true.” Mr. Carella said church officials learned about complaints in New Jersey involving Father Gorak only after he was charged in the Florida break-in and assault. A spokesman for the archdiocese said Father Gorak had requested the move because he had a skin problem that would be eased in a warmer climate.
Father Gorak appeared at the woman’s house in Lakeland, Fla., in October 2004, broke the chain on the door and began ripping her clothes, according to news reports. “She literally ran out of her home in just her bra and panties,” Mr. Horowitz said on Thursday. “He literally terrorized her.”
Father Gorak pleaded guilty in 2007 to charges that included burglary, assault and aggravated stalking, news accounts said. He was sentenced to four years’ probation and ordered to seek treatment and counseling.
Father Gorak, 54, who uses the name Walter Fisher, is still a priest, but has not worked since the Florida charges were filed, an archdiocesan spokesman said. The spokesman, James Goodness, said the church had begun the process of removing Father Gorak from the priesthood.
Repeated calls to Father Gorak’s home in Lakeland went unanswered. The woman he assaulted is now living in Ireland, Mr. Horowitz said.
The settlement was reached several weeks ago. But Mr. Horowitz held a news conference outside the headquarters of the Newark Archdiocese to disclose the agreement, saying, “It is very topical” as the Catholic Church faces renewed questions about its handling of sexual abuse charges against priests.
“We are very, very disappointed in these actions” by the Newark Archdiocese, said Mark Crawford, director of the New Jersey office of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, who joined Mr. Horowitz at the announcement. “The interest is in covering up the truth when allegations of sexual misconduct come up,” he said.
Father Gorak, who was born in Poland, began working in the Newark Archdiocese in 1998. Over the next six years, he served as a parochial vicar at four churches. According to documents that Mr. Horowitz released on Thursday, Father Gorak was named in two sets of police reports in 2001 — from Upper Saddle River and Hillside, N.J. — on complaints that he stalked a woman he had been counseling as she considered divorce. One report noted that Father Gorak had not been charged.
Mr. Horowitz also released a memo written by the priest’s pastor in December 1998, when Father Gorak was at St. Adalbert Church in Elizabeth, N.J. The memo said a deacon had walked in on Father Gorak “embracing and kissing” a woman who was “pushing Father Walter away.”
The pastor, the Rev. Ronald J. Marczewski, wrote that he had spoken to the archbishop on Dec. 14, 1998, suggesting that Father Gorak “be assigned to a rectory with a pastor who spoke Polish to better evaluate the situation.”
“The archbishop promised that he would find a replacement,” the memo said.
The archbishop then was Theodore E. McCarrick, now a cardinal and the archbishop emeritus of Washington. A spokeswoman for the Washington Archdiocese, Susan Gibbs, said he was traveling on Thursday and unavailable for comment.
But she and Mr. Goodness, the spokesman for the Newark Archdiocese, said the memo never went to the archdiocese. Father Marczewski kept the memo at the parish, they said; the archdiocese learned of it only after the lawsuit had been filed.
Mr. Goodness said that Father Marczewski’s conversation with the archbishop did not involve any complaints about Father Gorak. “We weren’t aware of his actions until everything came out after the arrest,” he said.
A message left for Father Marczewski at his current church, in Bayonne, N.J., was not returned.
His memo described other episodes involving Father Gorak and women. It said Father Gorak had said “improper sexual things” to a woman who worked for the church.
“He stated at that time that he was only trying to learn the meaning of some English phrases,” Father Marczewski wrote. The church cook had also complained that Father Gorak made her uncomfortable, the memo said: “He hovers too close to her while she is working.”
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