Stand Firm

Diocese Central NY Bishop Accused Of Punishing Whistleblower In Sex Abuse Case

This newspaper article brings about a lot of emotions. Sympathy for the victims, regret that someone in trust would do this are just a few.

It’s sad that it’s taken this long to bring the offender to justice and that the diocese acted as it did. Wonder if the diocese, i.e. +Adams, could be charged with obstruction of justice. Maybe not, but he deserves it for his actions and lack thereof. From comments to the article, there were questions in the parish at the time. Hopefully, we’ve all learned from the past and will voice those questions and they will be received.

We pray the victim and Fr. Bollinger both will find peace, healing and prosperity in the future.

My recollection of Fr. Matt’s description of his negotiations with Bishop Skip on behalf of Good Shepherd is that calling the Bishop’s actions disingenuous would be a bit of an understatement.

Now, allegations of a) covering for a sex-predator priest under his jurisdiction and b) punishing a priest who raised the issue!

I think maybe the bishop could be charged. There was a lot of this stuff going on in the RC Church, and I know that authorities were planning to prosecute some of the officials responsible for the cover-ups. A particularly egregious example of a cover-up was the case of the Archdiocese of Boston, where Cardinal Law was rfesponsible for covering up for many, many priests who abused children by, among other things, moving them to other dioceses whern their offenses came to light. There, of course, they had whole new soureces of supply. The authorities wanted to prosecute. The pope moved Law to Rome, where he was given a church -the pope’s own church. (Apparently the pope has a church other than St. Peter’s. I believe it’s St. John Lateran or St. Mary Major - can’t remember which.) And there Law remains, out of reach of the authorities in Boston. When John Paul died, there were 7 Masses said for him during the week following his death. The celebrant of one was none other than Law, who walked down the aisle in procession in full regalia. It was disgusting. This b*****d should have been in jail, or at least in a monastery doing penance for the rest of his life. I can’t imagine the pain and frustration of his vitims and his victims’ families. I do believe those covering up are even more guilty than the actual abusers. The way the RC Church handled the abuse scandal is one very big reason why I would have an awful lot of difficulty swimming the Tiber.

Is this the same Skip Adams that said morality is shown to be an obstacle to encounter with God? Maybe that pedophile priest was just drawing them both closer to God, you know, by ignoring all those morals about sex?

Will Bishop Adams be discipline by the church is as important a question as if he will be charged with civil crimes.

In a church that disciplines bishops for aligning themselves with other Anglican authorities, one would think that its leadership is serious in general about discipline. Unfortunately, we have already seen how little the bishop from PA was disciplined for covering up immoral sexual conduct on the part of a priest until he became a publicity liability, and how little attention was paid to the victim in that case.

The facade must be protected at all costs…It’s the only approach for those who believe in relative truth.

What “appears to be” becomes more essential and of greater concern than what actually IS when one (or an organization) embraces that warped view of truth. Under that frame of thinking, I have to or can MAKE my own truth. We call it spin, but it’s really sin.

Will Gladstone aka “Skip” be disciplined? Hahahahahahaha… er, not on your life.

In my view, the diocese of Central NY is at much greater risk of a civil law suit seeking damages for the vitim(s)than is Bishop Adams for any criminal charges.

Criminal charges against RC Bishops arising out of similar facts have been few. Civil lawsuits and huge damage awards against RC dioceses have not been quite so unusual.

This might be an interesting test of the much vaunted hierarchical structure of TEC. If is hieracrchical when they move into to take parish property, I wonder if it’s still hierarchical when parish, or diocesan property is insufficient to cover the damages compensatory and punitive of a victim of sexual assault? If it is hierarchical, does respondeat superior apply?

Fr. Bollinger might be at risk for not having reported the allegations directly to the civil authorities. It depends on how the child abuse statutes are written. One wonders how Bp. Adams might have thought the coverup would be successful.

The Diocese seems to have had more than its share of sex scandals involving Priests, including a prior Rector at Adams old church (their tenures didnt overlap, and there is no suggestion that Adams himself was implicated in the abuse). Why is that?

This story really doesn’t tell a half of what happened in this case. Maybe not a fourth or a tenth. I only know a little bit more, but what I know or have heard from reliable people, I will tell.
When Fr. Bollinger heard of this, he got another priest to come up and joint him to hear the victim tell his story. They also got the victim to write up the story and sign it in the presence of the notary. I am not sure if this happened at the same time. Later I was present when a lawyer sent from the diocese on a “fact finding” mission to the parish, waived the victim’s affadavit in my and my husband’s faces and said, “The notary is supposed to sign here; it isn’t legal if she signs there, so there actually IS no victim’s affadavit.” That was pretty typical of the dioceses’ method of handling this.

After Fr. Bollinger went to see the bishop and told him of this accusation, the bishop stood up in front of General Convention and said that there had been no such allegations in the diocese, and that therefore the committee which had been formed for dealing with them had nothing to do! (I wasn’t there, this is what I was told, so please anyone who has the details better, correct me.) Fr. Bollinger confronted the bishop in the hall afterwards, and said, “Why did you say that, after what I told you?” The bishops said “This is all your fault; if you had handled this correctly we would have no problem at all.”

Eventually 17 men came forward and said that they had been abused in some way by the Fr. Johnson. The Bishop sent at one point sent a lawyer to talk to the parish, who told us that those who had come forward thus far were not credible witnesses; he characterized one as “a transient” because he had only lived in the town for a year. (By the way, since these revelations were in the 2000’s and the events had occurred in the 1970’s, they were past the statute of limitations.)

Before this all happened, the parish had undergone the routine review of its financial records and everything was judged to be appropriate. After this started though, and Fr. Bollinger refused to help bury the initial allegation, the bishop hired a firm of forensic accountants and paid them more than the church’s annual budget to do a forensic review of the books. And of course, they found issues. Two discretionary funds, one the result of a bequest and another one under diocesan rules, had been merged, and some money had been spent according to the more liberal rules of the bequest, although none without the knowledge and consent of the wardens and vestry. There was some money which had been given to a member of the parish who was sponsoring an immigrant family, so that the family would perceive the help as coming from their sponsor rather than from the parish, as they were more comfortable with such help. These two things were made to look as if Fr. Bollinger was stealing from the parish, although no one in the parish or on the vestry remotely thought that he had, and he was “inhibited.” He was not allowed to come to the parish at all. He couldn’t come get his books from his office. People from the parish were led to believe that they should not talk to him or go to his house, although this was not really something the bishop had the authority to tell them. This suspension was renewed after it expired, and the bishop tried to depose him. Fr. Bollinger countersued for the loss of his livelihood. In the end, the bishop did not want to reveal what evidence had been gathered, perhaps because then it would have to be given to Fr. Bollinger’s lawyer who might use it in the countersuit. The bishop would not give the evidence even to his own tame and subservient standing committee, which sufficiently annoyed them that they refused to depose Fr. Bollinger. Or perhaps even they did not have the chutzpah to try to do this when no evidence was presented to them.

Meanwhile, the parish was only able to maintain Fr. Bollinger’s medical insurance for so long after he was no longer serving them; I know they did so for the better part of a year but eventually they were forced to drop him.
His wife’s insurance was not as good. His daughter at the time had thyroid cancer and expenses were high. An article in the paper a few months ago when the issue of medical coverage was big in the news, featured Fr. Bollinger’s wife saying that they had had to declare bankruptcy because of Fr. Bollinger’s loss of his medical insurance. During this time, also, Fr. Bollinger had a serious heart attack so that by the time he knew he was not deposed, he was no longer able to work. I wonder if he is even able to pursue his beloved hobby of trout fishing, since it requires scrambling around streambeds. I hope so. But you can see that Fr. Bollinger lost a very great deal because he refused to participate in a cover up of Fr. Johnson’s misdoings. You can also see that the Episcopal Bishop of Central NY, Skip Adams, is as unprincipled and vindictive a man as you are ever likely to meet.

I corrected some mistakes in this,like judge to judged. Now I see that there are more “the bishops” instead of the bishop, “the Fr. Johnson” instead of Fr. Johnson.
I fear that I wrote it under renewed emotion of anger and resentment at what was done to Fr. Bollinger, whom I genuinely like, and that under that emotion mistakes escaped not only the first writing by one proofreading. Please correct them in your minds for me. Thanks!
Susan Peterson

Depending on the specific facts and circumstances, the statute of limitations may not be a problem. Some of the RC cases went back as many years. I hope someone with standing will pursue it.

Next time you encounter a revisionist TEC leader thank them for what they have wrought.

Unbelievable. I realize that sin infects us all, and history has proven that no church is immune, but it is a toxic culture allows a Bishop like this to get elected and stay in office? Those in the Diocese should flee.

The St. Paul parish sure didn’t need more bad news. For 1998 through 2008 Members declined 72 percent, ASA 58 percent, and Plate & Pledge (when adjusted for inflation) 43 percent. A sad history and I would predict a sad future. Kyrie eleison. Statmann

I grew up in a rich middle class suburb with 50’s liberal parents (mom was a feminist, dad journalist, maybe early 60’s liberal would be a better term, but moral so not late 60’s antinomianism), I rebelled into a 80’s gen-X firure it out myself way.

I’ve seen some crazy stuff. The Wakefield HS teacher who confessed to use of marijuana, but we were there to hear about wicca. I was sought after when playing in area I should not have been from a high ranking individual (director of busiest quadrant) for things in this area. My cynicism of people of power in DC comes from what I’ve seen. Hanging out with the “wrong crowd” I also had friends of the ‘throw away’ sort, one was raped by a PG County officer in back of his cruiser.

What this man with a title bishop has down is certainly is worse (maybe just above before Susan Peterson wrote, but farther below after her revelation) than what happen to my friend in the back seat of the cruiser. I think both Bill Clinton and Mark Stanford should be impeached and kicked out as Rod Blagojevich, for the same reason, breach of trust and undeserving of that office, and if that tenth of what was posted above is worthy of his dismissal for “professional negligence,” but is what Susan wrote is true, this is so much worse in abuse of power.

After the last snowfall, there was a story on the wire of a taxi cab that flipped over with a passenger in Albany, NY, an individual instead of helping the driver of passenger out, instead open the door and stole the drivers tip money. This was read on a secular rock station and the DJ, whose other quotes about sexuality do not lead me to believe he has any relationship with the Living God can say, “you know there is a special spot in hell for folks like this,” how much more for one who represent the Divine yet uses it to harm innocence!

On the internet one can not tell tone of speech. Often I may seem opposite my mocker, meaning less-than-loving, a post was deleted with an accusation of harboring bitterness, not true, everyone of you is a set of ASCII characters on a screen to me, often my push back is to see what I get (logically) in return. Tonight two threads “tweaked me,” got to my emotions. I really am at risk of defaming an image-bearers name due to the actions that defame it already. I am more forgiving of KJS, VGR, +Lee or Chane or other than I am of one who permits abuse and prosecutes those who attempt to defend, maybe more than the criminal who did the act (at least I can understand some base perverted seeking pleasure), but to gain any reward from the crime but seek to punish those who would speak out, I am utterly confused at what would motivate such a recourse, if merely a good name than passivity, but if Susan [and “bumped from 2007”] be true ... I’m at a loss for words on my anyone would obey Satan’s bidding as such without self reward, at least the thief in the taxi case got money, the vandal of the SFIF booth shut down an opposing message ... but a selfless action to oppose what is right just seems such the opposite of the Cross (selfless act for God), that it boggles my mind. This story did get “my goat” as it were.

If the Diocese and the Bishop don’t get sued, I will be shocked. And Father Bollinger will make a great witness for the Plaintiff. Wish I were licensed to practice in New York, I’d take this on a contingency in a heartbeat. Definitely a seven figure settlement.

I am delighted and intrigued by your interest in representing the potential plaintiffs in this case.

Let’s think outside the box for a moment. Is there a denial of civil rights issue here? Is going to church and participating in church activities without being sexually assaulted by a priest a civil right? If one or more of the injured now lives outside New York State, is there a diversity of citizenship issue here? Might one or more of these issues get you into federal courts, where state licensure might not be an issue?

God bless you for seeing merit in the potential case and possibly being willing to take it on a contingent fee basis, possibly setting right a gross injustice. Let’s find a way to make that possible.

Ol’ Bob, the arguments here are exactly the same as the ones presented in the Catholic abuse cover-up cases. It is not a civil rights issue, per se. The facts would be better, though, if they could show the diocese (and the Bishop) knew of the abuse WHILE it was occuring but failed to stop it. I have not heard that was the case, yet.
Also, regrettably federal court licensure is not as easy as one may think. Each federal district has its own licensing requirements.

Also, you’d probably want this in state court anyway. State courts are usually much more pro-plaintiff.

How is this any different from what Charles Bennison did? He was supposedly deposed for knowing that his brother was having illicit relations with an underage woman. Gladstone was given an affadavit legally stating that this priest was abusing young people. What’s the difference? They both knew and did nothing. Depose his sorry *** (butt). Does no one in Central New York have a backbone? We know there isn’t a single one in the HOB.

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