Settlement, revelations end church abuse case

Published 5:00 am Sunday, September 13, 2009

A former bishop of the Bend-based Diocese of Baker said he knew he might be breaking the law in 2005 when he burned confidential letters from a priest accused in at least two lawsuits of sexually abusing children decades ago.

The letters were among numerous writings penned by the now-deceased Rev. Jocelyn St. Arnaud, who is the subject of two legal settlements — one signed last week — involving four people who say in lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Portland and the Baker Diocese that he sexually abused them. Each of the victims alleges the church knew St. Arnaud was a danger to children before they were molested.

The most recent agreement comes after more than three years of litigation in a case filed in Deschutes County Circuit Court by a transgendered woman known as “K.C.” The terms of that settlement have not been made public, but K.C.’s complaint sought $22 million in compensatory and punitive damages for abuse she says happened to her between 1977 and 1980 when she was a boy living in Elgin.

The court file is more than a foot thick, and documents allege sexual abuse by St. Arnaud dating back to the 1960s, including claims that Catholic bishops shuffled the priest from place to place as allegations against him came to light.

Bishop Thomas Connolly — who is now retired and could not be reached for comment — testified in depositions that he knew nothing about any alleged abuse committed by St. Arnaud before he came to the Baker Diocese.

Court records show that, after coming to Oregon, St. Arnaud wrote Connolly numerous letters that weren’t destroyed in which he referred to himself as “sexy” and wrote about his “physical temptations,” “sensuous love” and “past sinfulness.”

Connolly also testified that he and Bishop Robert F. Vasa, now head of the Baker Diocese, reviewed St. Arnaud’s file in 2005 — after three men filed suit saying the priest abused them when they were young.

Connolly said he and Vasa found “between five and 10” letters in St. Arnaud’s file which they believed were subject to clergy- penitent privilege because the writings concerned “matters of spiritual direction.”

Connolly removed the documents from the file and burned them in a barrel behind his home, according to the depositions.

In an interview with The Bulletin, Vasa said other letters written by St. Arnaud were turned over after lawsuits were filed because they were not confidential and that Connolly was not trying to hide anything when he destroyed documents from the priest’s file.

“You have to disabuse (readers) of the notion that these were documents that would have changed the direction of this whole case,” Vasa said. “There were clearly other documents in the file which were embarrassing, but those were not destroyed. Why did the church destroy these documents? Because they were of a spiritual nature.”

Deschutes County Circuit Court Judge Stephen Tiktin agreed with Vasa’s determination and has denied several requests by K.C.’s lawyers to impose sanctions against the church for the destruction of the St. Arnaud letters.

But, before the suit was settled, Tiktin also allowed K.C. to ask for $10 million in punitive damages in her case against the Baker Diocese. In Oregon, a judge can only grant a request to ask for punitive damages if a jury could “reasonably” find a defendant “acted with malice” or “showed a reckless and outrageous indifference to a highly unreasonable risk of harm and acted with a conscious indifference to the health, safety and welfare of others.”

Early concerns

Documents filed in the K.C. case show that concerns about St. Arnaud’s sexual improprieties with boys were raised as early as 1969.

St. Arnaud served as a priest under the Diocese of St. Paul, Alberta, from 1952 until 1971, according to church records. He spent part of that time working as the director of a juvenile center and served as a military chaplain in the Canadian Army.

In late 1969, a base chaplain in Calgary wrote a letter to then-Bishop of Calgary Paul O’Byrne about an “irregular relationship” between St. Arnaud and an 18-year-old man. The letter came in response to the young man’s father — a corporal in the Canadian Army — saying St. Arnaud had engaged in a sexual relationship with his son from the time he was 12 years old.

The chaplain wrote that the corporal demanded that St. Arnaud be sent away “far enough that he has absolutely no more contact with his son …” or that the priest be charged and prosecuted.

O’Byrne responded by letter in November 1969 that St. Arnaud denied the affair. O’Byrne also wrote that he would advise St. Arnaud that he could no longer “exercise his priesthood” in Calgary but that O’Byrne could not make the priest leave the area.

“I am quite open in hearing from you as to how you think we can bring this matter to a head without legal action,” O’Byrne wrote to the corporal. “We are quite willing to cooperate with you, and equally anxious to eliminate the problem about which you are justifiably concerned. I will await your reply.”

During the next year, St. Arnaud made plans to move to the Mount Angel Abbey near Wilsonville, part of the Archdiocese of Portland.

In a 1971 letter to the Mount Angel Abbey about St. Arnaud, O’Byrne wrote, “I do not hesitate to recommend him.”

St. Arnaud was assigned to teach and supervise high school students who lived at Mount Angel Abbey Seminary High School, according to a now-settled lawsuit filed by former student Thomas Heidt and other unnamed former students of the seminary alleging they were sexually abused in the mid-1970s.

The suit also states the high school principal had been “repeatedly caught in compromising sexual activity with seminary students.”

Heidt’s complaint says St. Arnaud gave him alcohol and marijuana before engaging in sex acts with him while on a seminary-sanctioned camping trip to Lake Merwin.

“After Thomas Heidt told other priests of the sexual abuse, St. Arnaud’s name was changed, and he was transferred to the … Baker Diocese in Elgin, Oregon, where Pacome St. Arnaud, aka, Jocelyn St. Arnaud became resident priest/pastor at St. Mary’s Catholic Church,” the lawsuit reads.

A history of St. Arnaud’s service compiled by the Catholic Church shows he spent a brief period at a hermitage in La Pine before he was assigned to St. Mary’s in 1977. At the time, Bishop Connolly wrote a letter stating he “had no complaints about Fr. Pacome.”

St. Arnaud’s correspondence

During his time in Elgin, St. Arnaud wrote numerous lengthy letters to Bishop Connolly, who was then head of the Baker Diocese.

They covered a range of topics, from financial matters to Christmas dinners, but many contained references to St. Arnaud’s apparent struggle with sexual temptations.

In one, St. Arnaud wrote that his favorite prayers were “1st — ‘Lord, make me as prayerful as you’ve made me sexy’ — 2nd ‘Lord, the day you’ll package up all my sex energy — activities — tendencies, etc. etc of my oh! at least 55 years of existence and turn it into prayer power, Lord we’ll blow up the world in love of God.”

In another, St. Arnaud wrote to Connolly in 1977 that he was interested in a course on “… ‘transmutation of sex energy’ — I really don’t need it anymore, but could be helpful to others, let’s be honest I was and am the sexiest, but others suffer from the disease too — again it’s all in God’s hands and I can’t care less.”

When asked during a deposition if St. Arnaud’s letter detailing his favorite prayers raised any “red flags,” Connolly replied, “I think that he’s crazy.”

Connolly also maintained in that deposition that, “I had no suspicion of anything until the suits were filed.”

He and Bishop Vasa have both refused to answer questions about the letters that were burned or discuss their contents. But both acknowledged the letters were among documents that a Marion County judge had ordered the church to disclose.

In August 2005, K.C.’s lawyers asked Connolly during a deposition if he realized he was “violating civil law” when he burned some of the St. Arnaud letters.

“Yes. Possibly,” Connolly re- plied.

But Bishop Vasa said in a Thursday interview that, under canon law, the documents never existed because they were never intended to be seen by anyone other than a spiritual adviser.

Vasa said that, under canon law, the documents never existed because they were never intended to be seen by anyone other than a spiritual adviser.

“In effect, he destroyed a document which no one had the right to see, and, the reality is, that is the best way to protect that privilege,” Vasa said.

He also said that, despite having read the documents, he “had no knowledge of them” because he never should have seen them and, therefore, cannot be aware of their contents under canon law.

“In some ways, it’s unfortunate that the focus is on those documents because, in 99.9 percent of the cases, there are not going to be documents that are a matter of spiritual direction in a file,” Vasa said.

“Bishop Connolly, God bless him, should have destroyed those documents the day he got them.”

K.C.’s complaint

K.C. says she decided to file suit against the church after hearing St. Arnaud abused boys she knew when she was young.

“That was my whole motivation for getting involved in this thing,” she said.

The lawsuit she filed in 2006 states that she was introduced to St. Arnaud by her best friend when she was a 10-year-old boy. Her mother had been killed in a car accident a year earlier.

“My mother was killed in a drunk driving incident where my father drove into a parked flatbed truck 2 days before Halloween,” K.C. wrote in an e-mail to The Bulletin.

She was not Catholic, but her friend thought St. Arnaud could help K.C. deal with her grief.

K.C. said she and her friend both knew they were homosexual from a young age. When the two boys told St. Arnaud of their sexual preferences, he said it was natural for boys to experiment and that “God still loved them,” according to K.C.’s lawsuit.

They were picked on and beaten up by other boys in Elgin, so finding acceptance from St. Arnaud was a welcome respite. St. Arnaud let the boys drink wine and smoke cigarettes, and encouraged them to engage in sexual activity in front of him.

“In the end, we just felt like, ‘Hey it’s better than getting beat up or taunted, and heck he’s just a dirty old man anyway,’ and I guess we were gay so it was normal,” K.C. wrote to The Bulletin. “That was our feelings. Though we didn’t talk about it to each other much if at all. It was like it didn’t happen.”

The two visited St. Arnaud about once a week, and eventually St. Arnaud began engaging in sex with them, according to K.C.

Her complaint says the abuse happened from 1977 until 1980, when she moved away to live with relatives. The lawsuit states she “has suffered injuries including but not limited to depression, anxiety, stress, gender identity issues and gender confusion.”

The document goes on to say that the Baker Diocese had “documents evidencing Fr. St. Arnaud’s instability and preoccupation with sex, and the fact that he was a threat to children.”

Two other men who made similar allegations that St. Arnaud abused them have also settled lawsuits with the church. They said the abuse happened in Elgin, where St. Arnaud worked as a priest at St. Mary’s Church until the late 1980s. He then transferred to Jordan Valley, where he died in 1992 of a respiratory illness.

Community reaction

When initial reports of the 2002 lawsuit filed by Heidt and others were published in a local newspaper, residents in Elgin and the surrounding area publicly came to St. Arnaud’s defense.

A letter of support printed in The Observer in La Grande was signed by nearly 90 people.

“By his outstanding Christian example and character he changed the lives of countless people for the better, including his accusers,” the letter reads.

Documents filed in both the Heidt and K.C. cases portray St. Arnaud as a priest who did not hesitate to assist anyone in his community — Catholic or not.

Depositions of a church deacon and Elgin residents taken earlier this year say St. Arnaud would buy groceries and diapers for families in need. The documents say he visited the sick and took people to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and that he was always available to minister to anyone who needed it.

And the La Grande Knights of Columbus named its council after St. Arnaud, according to an online listing of Oregon councils.

A former secretary of Stella Mayfield Elementary School, located on the same street in Elgin as St. Mary’s Church, recalled St. Arnaud “taking an interest in boys that had problems,” according to her deposition.

St. Arnaud would visit the school regularly, she said, and take male students to the church where he had a small radio station.

She described St. Arnaud as a very personable and caring man whom she “liked very much.”

But, when asked directly if he had concerns about St. Arnaud’s “involvement with young males in the community,” Deacon Joseph Garlitz said he did.

“Well, I had some concerns. And so did other people,” Garlitz said. “Because he gave them too much freedom in the church building.”

And Monsignor Matthew Crotty, former vicar general of the Baker Diocese, said in a deposition taken for an unrelated clergy sex abuse case that he had heard allegations of sexual misconduct against St. Arnaud.

“Yes, there was some allegations that when he was in Elgin, there was some rumors again there,” Crotty said. “But the contradictory rumor was that he was terrific with high school kids in their religion classes. And then the other thing, the back side of it, that he was supposed to have molested someone. And that was about all I knew of it.”

Both Vasa and Connolly have said they heard nothing about St. Arnaud’s alleged abuse prior to lawsuits being filed.

Resolution

Bend lawyer Greg Lynch, who represented the Diocese of Baker in the K.C. lawsuit, said he did not want to rehash the litigation but added that the resolution of K.C.’s lawsuit was a good outcome.

He said the Baker Diocese has “no secrets” and believes that it will not be served with any more lawsuits alleging clergy sex abuse.

“The fact is we haven’t had the kind of horrible lawsuits that the other dioceses have had, and we haven’t had to file bankruptcy, and we haven’t had those same problems, and virtually every case that has ever been filed against the Diocese of Baker has involved allegations against priests that have long since died,” Lynch said.

“This bishop is committed, and the priests as I know them are committed, to their calling and to their parishioners, and I just am absolutely certain that we are not going to see anything even remotely similar to what is alleged to have happened in this case.”

A string of allegations against the late Rev. Jocelyn St. Arnaud

At least four people have filed lawsuits against the Bend-based Diocese of Baker alleging the now-deceased Rev. Jocelyn St. Arnaud, who worked as a priest in the diocese for more than a decade, sexually abused them when they were children. The lawsuits say St. Arnaud had abused children before coming to Oregon and that the Catholic Church moved him as allegations against him surfaced. Court documents and a timeline compiled by the church outline his history:

June 29, 1952: After studying at the Diocese of St. Paul in Alberta, St. Arnaud was ordained as a priest.

1953-1956: St. Arnaud worked as a pastor in Atmore and Jarvie, Alberta.

1956-1965: St. Arnaud served as a military chaplain in Calgary, then traveled to Germany before returning to Canada. It is during this time that St. Arnaud is alleged to have started an inappropriate relationship with the 12-year-old son of a corporal in the Canadian armed forces.

1965-1967: St. Arnaud acted as a jail chaplain in Calgary.

1967-1969: St. Arnaud served as a hospital chaplain. In 1969 the Canadian corporal notified the Bishop of Calgary of an alleged affair with his 18-year-old son that he said had been going on for six years. The Bishop responded that St. Arnaud would be asked to leave Calgary.

1969-1971: St. Arnaud worked as the assistant director of a juvenile center.

June 1971: St. Arnaud asked to join the Mount Angel Abbey, near Wilsonville, where he worked as a teacher at a Catholic boarding school. The Bishop of Calgary recommended him for the position.

1976: St. Arnaud is alleged to have sexually abused a student at Mount Angel Abbey Seminary High School after giving the teen alcohol and marijuana.

October 1976: St. Arnaud asked to join a hermitage in La Pine but only stayed there briefly.

February 1977: The then-bishop of the Diocese of Baker, Thomas J. Connolly, assigned St. Arnaud to St. Mary’s Church in Elgin. At the time, Connolly wrote he “had no complaints” about the priest.

1977-late 1980s: St. Arnaud served as a priest at St. Mary’s. He is alleged to have molested at least three boys while assigned to the church. St. Arnaud was transferred to St. Bernard’s Catholic Church in Jordan Valley.

1992: St. Arnaud, a longtime smoker, died of a respiratory-related illness.