The Catholic official who oversees sex abuse complaints against
priests in the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese, has himself been accused
of past sexual improprieties.
A Kansas City man wrote the bishop
of the diocese four years ago, alleging sexual harassment in 1984 by the
Rev. Robert Murphy, a priest who is now vicar general.
Brian
Heydon, a licensed professional counselor, said Murphy exposed himself
and propositioned him as a young man during a meeting at St. Catherine’s
rectory, where Murphy then lived.
The diocese has said Heydon’s claims are unfounded.
Murphy,
now a monsignor, has recently come under fire for the way he handled
the case of a priest charged last month with possessing child
pornography.
Murphy, who was named vicar general when Robert
Finn took over as bishop in 2005, handles the diocese’s sex abuse
complaints against priests and is on a diocesan review board that
assesses allegations against priests and makes recommendations to the
bishop.
Heydon first raised the issue in 2007 and contacted The
Kansas City Star. The newspaper did not publish the story at his request
out of concern for his privacy.
Heydon said he has now decided to come forward.
“In
light of recent reports detailing the continued cover-up of abuse in
this diocese, I feel that I can no longer in good conscience keep
silent,” Heydon said.
Rebecca Summers, the diocese’s spokeswoman,
confirmed in 2007 that Heydon had written to Bishop Finn. She said Finn
conducted an internal investigation into Heydon’s allegations and
responded in a letter to Heydon.
In Finn’s May 4, 2007, letter, which Heydon provided to The Star, Finn said the allegations were unsubstantiated.
“This
accusation has given rise to serious discussions and considerations,”
Finn wrote in the letter, which Heydon received three weeks after
writing to Finn.
“Your claims about events 23 years ago are detailed and
full of emotion. Monsignor Murphy firmly denies any sexual impropriety
or solicitation and does not remember the circumstances of his meetings
with you as you described them.
“As troubling as these accusations are, I cannot conclude that they are compelling in their most serious claims.”
Summers said at the time, and on Wednesday, that there would be no
further response to The Star from the diocese or from Murphy.
“Bishop Finn’s letter will serve as our comment,” she said.
Heydon, now 50, said he was stunned at the time by Finn’s response to his letter.
“I
was appalled,” he said. “Bishop Finn offered not healing but rather
dismissal, refute and complete invalidation, suggesting that my
experience was not compelling.”
Summers told The Star at the time
she believed the bishop had turned over Heydon’s letter to the diocese’s
review board. But it’s unclear how the letter got to the board.
Heydon
thinks the review board wasn’t contacted by the bishop.
He said Leslie
Guillot, the diocese’s victim advocate on the board, called him and said
she received a copy of his letter to Finn, not from the bishop but from
someone at the diocese who was concerned that the bishop wasn’t
following through.
“She told me that neither the bishop nor the
vicar general had informed her of my letter,” he said. She said, though,
that the board would want to talk to him about his claims.
Heydon, stung by Finn’s letter, chose not to meet with the review board at the time. He said he would consider it now.
Guillot, who is still the victim advocate and is on the review board,
referred questions on Wednesday to review board chairman Jim Caccamo.
Caccamo
said Wednesday that he had seen Heydon’s letter to Finn — and
remembered Heydon’s claims from 2007, when he was already on the board —
but that the review board would not have jurisdiction in such a
complaint.
“The review board’s charge is sexual abuse of minors,”
he said, “so other than to know about it, which I do, it doesn’t go to
the review board.”
Caccamo said he had no idea where Heydon could go to address his concerns.
“I simply don’t know,” he said. “It’s a tough one.”
He added, however, “I would be pleased to meet with him, and I did ask
the person who gave me his letters to call him and tell him that if he’d
like to talk about it I’d be glad to talk to him. The guy obviously
must be hurting.”
Summers agreed that the board is designed to
address complaints by minors, not adults. In 2007, however, she told The
Star that one previous case involving an adult had been referred to the
board.
At the time, Murphy was on a response team that
investigated abuse allegations and prepared reports for the review
board. He now is on the review board itself.
Murphy has been prominent in the case of the Rev. Shawn Ratigan.
Ratigan,
45, of Kansas City, North, was charged last month with three counts of
possessing child pornography — photographs taken around churches and
schools where he had worked.
He pleaded not guilty to those charges in
Clay County court and remains in custody on $200,000 bond.
After
Ratigan’s arrest, it was revealed that the principal of St. Patrick
School in Kansas City, North, had given diocesan officials a memo more
than a year ago detailing concerns teachers and parents had about
Ratigan’s interactions with children.
Finn told reporters that Murphy briefed him about the memo at the time but that he did not ask to read it.
“Monsignor Murphy told me that he had thoroughly discussed these
concerns with Shawn Ratigan and how he was to change his behavior,” Finn
said. “Shawn Ratigan expressed the willingness and the desire to make
these changes.”
Finn said that when he finally read the memo recently, “I was ashamed at the fact we had not done enough to respond to that.”
Letter’s claims
In
his six-page letter to the bishop in 2007, Heydon, who grew up in
Catholic schools, said he first contacted Murphy in the summer of 1984
about his desire to become a priest.
Heydon wrote that he sought counseling from Murphy, who was director of vocations for the diocese at the time.
Heydon
wrote that when he was 23 he met with Murphy at a restaurant on the
Country Club Plaza.
But Heydon wrote the two weren’t able to discuss
vocations because Murphy became drunk.
The two agreed to meet at a later
date, Heydon said, and he drove home. Murphy followed him, he wrote.
“When I drove to my house and was greeted by the drunken Father Murphy
standing in my yard, I asked what he was doing,” Heydon wrote in the
letter to Finn.
“His response was that, ‘the evening has been so nice
that I just didn’t want it to end.’ It did end there though, as I
suggested he go home, which he did.”
Heydon wrote that he met
Murphy for dinner a few weeks later. After dinner, he said, Murphy
suggested they go to the rectory of St. Catherine’s parish, where he
lived, to get Heydon some information on priestly formation.
At
the rectory, Heydon said Murphy brought him one beer after another,
which he could not finish. Then he wrote that Murphy commented on the
heat and excused himself, returning in a pair of gym shorts and a tank
top.
“Upon sitting down, Father Murphy proceeded to widely open
his legs,” Heydon wrote, exposing himself and propositioning him in
vulgar terms.
“Suffering a mixture of disbelief, emotional
numbing, anger, sadness and complete confusion, I got up and hurried out
of the room,” Heydon wrote.
“My encounter with Father Murphy was
the most outrageous experience I’ve ever had with anyone in my life…,”
Heydon continued. “His meeting with me was a planned, orchestrated
sexual encounter. I was genuine in my intent to discuss vocations. He
never even asked me one question about myself.”
Heydon said he
wrote that letter after seeing Murphy interviewed on TV and quoted in
newspaper articles in April 2007 about a $60,000 lawsuit the diocese had
settled with a man who alleged abuse by two priests. He couldn’t keep
quiet any longer, he said.
“A shocked, apologetic Monsignor
Murphy, while presenting the Diocese’s official position of denying any
knowledge or culpability regarding ‘alleged’ acts … encourages ‘anyone
who has seen or suffered sexual abuse by anyone in the church to come
forward so that we can begin the healing process,’” he said in his
letter.
“It was a directive that I could not ignore.”
Heydon
said he sent copies of his letter in 2007 to several top Catholic
officials; the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; former
Bishop Raymond Boland; the Rev. Benedict Neenan, president and rector of
Conception Seminary College; and the Rev. Thomas Doyle, a priest who
has been outspoken about clergy sex abuse.
Only Doyle could be
reached for comment Wednesday. He said he didn’t recall the letter but
said it was possible he’d received it.
Heydon in his letter told Finn he would be monitoring the diocese’s response.
“I am watching in sincere hope that this diocese will do the right
thing,” he wrote, adding that he would inform others “that the Vicar
General is inappropriate at best, and at worst a continuation of the
coverup.”
In the letter responding to Heydon, Finn said the allegations did not match Murphy’s known past.
“The
suggestion that he was repeatedly inebriated, and that he used strong
vulgar language or erupted in anger, does not square with others’
life-long knowledge of this priest,” Finn wrote.
Heydon told Finn in his letter that it was the second time he’d contacted the diocese about Murphy.
Heydon told Finn that he wrote to Boland in 2002 with complaints but did not specifically name Murphy.
Summers told The Star in 2007 that she had talked to Boland about Heydon’s letter.
“He remembered it,” she said. “But he clearly said, ‘Without being given names, there’s very little I could do with this.’ ”
Stepping forward
David
Clohessy, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused
by Priests, said Wednesday he was proud of Heydon for stepping forward.
“Brian
is about as credible as they come, and it’s heartbreaking that church
officials conveniently deemed his abuse report unsubstantiated,”
Clohessy said.
“Finn owes it to Brian, parents, victims and his flock to
explain how and why he and his staff reached this reckless conclusion.
“This case shows, once again, that no institution can police itself,
especially not a rigid, ancient, powerful, secretive monarchy like the
Catholic church.”
Doyle, the Dominican priest and canon lawyer
who Heydon said was among those who received his 2007 letter, said
Wednesday that Murphy should not be serving on the review board.
“It can’t be independent if he’s on the board,” Doyle said. “He’s the
vicar general. And if there’s been an accusation against him, he should
certainly recuse himself. But he shouldn’t be on the board at all
because of his position.”
Heydon, now a psychotherapist, said he
is not seeking legal action against the diocese. What he wants, he said,
is for Finn and Murphy to step down.
“I feel that the people of
our diocese deserve better than these two men,” he said. “Our children
deserve better. Their safety is at stake.”