David Ferrick, now 57, says Patrick Sexton, a defrocked priest, molested him on multiple occasions in 1979 and 1980 when Father Sexton helped run the parish at St. Cecilia Church in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Ferrick’s lawsuit, one of several filed under New York’s Child Victims Act, claims the Diocese was aware of Father Sexton’s pedophilia tendencies and yet failed to protect children in his presence.
In its official response to Ferrick’s lawsuit, attorneys for the Church denied its leaders “knew or should have known that Father Sexton was a known sexual abuser of children.”
But last month, the judge overseeing a separate lawsuit involving Sexton, ordered many of the former priest’s personnel files be unsealed. Some of those files show high-level Church officials expressing knowledge of sexual misconduct allegations as far back as 1979, the very same year Ferrick says Sexton began fondling him.
“They’ve been exposed. Documents have been released,” Ferrick said. “The information is there that this happened.”
One of the unsealed documents, dated Sept. 6, 1979, and marked “Confidential,” describes an internal discussion in which Fr. Sexton admitted to a high-ranking monsignor that he “took pictures of [four boys] naked in the shower” at Jones Beach.
“He does admit that it was an irresponsible act,” the monsignor wrote.
In another letter, dated Nov. 2004, a top administrator of the Brooklyn Diocese wrote that the sexual abuse allegations against Sexton “began shortly after he was ordained to the priesthood” in May of 1977. That letter was addressed to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in April 2005, about five months before Ratzinger would be elected in a Vatican conclave to become the next pope — Pope Benedict XVI.
According to a post on the Brooklyn Diocese website, it was in April of 2006, about a year into his papacy, when Benedict “laicized” Father Sexton — meaning the accused priest’s clergy status was revoked.
When asked how the Church claimed — in court — to be unaware of sex abuse committed by Sexton, while at the same time possessing documents confirming Sexton took photos of naked boys in 1979, a spokesperson for the Diocese, declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
“The allegations in this case date back nearly fifty years ago,” wrote Adriana Rodriguez, the Diocese of Brooklyn Director of Communications. “Since then, the Diocese has taken many actions to ensure the protection of children, including mandating sexual abuse awareness training for all clergy, employees, and volunteers who interact with children.”
An attorney for Patrick Sexton did not respond to requests for comment via email and phone. In sworn depositions, Sexton has denied ever having sexual contact with children, though he admitted to taking the pictures of nude boys at Jones Beach.
In an effort to keep Father Sexton’s personnel files hidden from the public, attorneys for the Diocese originally argued that unsealing the documents would violate the Church’s First Amendment right to free practice of religion.
But Judge Joanne Quinones disagreed, noting that some of the documents were newspaper clippings that had already been widely disseminated about alleged priest misdeeds.
"Sealing is not proper where disclosure would merely result in embarrassing allegations being made public ... or damage to defendants’ reputations," Quinones wrote in her order forcing the files to be made public.
Anelga Doumanian, the attorney for Ferrick, said she believed the decision to unseal Father Sexton’s records would be the first of many orders to make priest personnel files public on court dockets across New York.
“This decision is the first of its kind in the Child Victims Act litigation, and it paves the way for the hundreds and hundreds of other cases like this one,” Doumanian said. “The Diocese of Brooklyn has fought aggressively to keep these documents away from the public.”
Last week, Bishop Robert Brennan sent a letter to Brooklyn Catholics, announcing the Diocese wishes to hire a neutral mediator to resolve approximately 1,100 clergy sex abuse lawsuits filed under the Child Victims Act.
The letter said the church leaders were “cost-cutting and setting aside significant funds to compensate victim-survivors, adding that a global financial settlement could "avoid the time, expense, and emotional strain for victim-survivors that would be caused by individual trials."
Mitchell Garabedian, an attorney who has represented clergy sex abuse plaintiffs worldwide, including 25 plaintiffs in Brooklyn, called the mediation announcement "a step in the right direction" but added that "the settlement program must be without delay, uncomplicated, and fair."
Doumanian was more critical, calling the proposed mediation plan a "PR stunt," intended to distract from the priest personnel files that are being unmasked in court.
"Now, just as cases are finally moving forward and the truth is coming to light, they are attempting to pull the rug under survivors once again by announcing a global resolution that doesn’t exist," Doumanian said. "This is a pseudo-offer at best, and survivors won’t be fooled."