Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori looks on as Baltimore Auxiliary Bishop Adam J. Parker answers questions from the local media about the church's abuse crisis.
Photo: CNS The Archdiocese of Baltimore has published an additional 23 names of priests who had been accused of child sexual abuse after they were deceased.
All of the allegations have been previously reported to law enforcement, in most cases more than a decade ago. Released on April 24, the 23 additional names join 103 other clergy and religious brothers whose names had already been published by the archdiocese.
In 2002, the Archdiocese of Baltimore was one of the first in the country to publish names of those credibly accused of child sexual abuse. At that time, 57 men were named. Other names have been added in the intervening years as allegations became known. More were added in 2018 after a Pennsylvania grand jury report detailed allegations that included some priests who had served in Maryland or cases where the alleged abuse occurred within the boundaries of the archdiocese.
Harassment
“Here in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, there is absolutely zero tolerance for any bishop, priest, lay employee or volunteer credibly accused of the sexual abuse of a minor or the sexual harassment of an adult,” said Baltimore Archbishop William Lori in a news release accompanying the publication of the names.
“My decision, in consultation with our Independent Review Board, to add these additional 23 names is the result of a further review of deceased members of the clergy who were accused after their deaths and who were previously reported to law enforcement. We are confident that we’ve implemented rigorous standards of accountability and transparency and we will continue applying those standards,” he said.
Auxiliary Bishop Adam Parker, who serves on the archdiocesan Child Protection Team with five other members of the staff, noted that the archdiocese began looking at the criteria for inclusion on the list last summer at the urging of the Independent Review Board and the encouragement of Archbishop Lori.
In every case, the allegations had been reported to law enforcement. “The report to law enforcement is to be made at the time that the allegation is made known to us. We now do that immediately. Publishing the names – in the cases of these 23 additional priests – this is coming much, much later after we received the allegations themselves” in some cases, he said.
The most recent alleged incidents related to these newly published names are from more than 30 years ago, in the 1980s, according to Sean Caine, vice chancellor for the archdiocese. A large majority of the allegations occurred more than 50 years ago. The earliest is from more than 80 years ago, in the 1930s.
One of the newly released names is Bishop Carl Fisher, a Josephite priest who was ordained in 1973, and became an auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles in 1987. He died in 1993. “Multiple individuals have accused Fr Carl Fisher of sexual abuse that occurred in the 1970s in Baltimore,” the archdiocese said on the list.
“Our main motivation was increased transparency,” Bishop Parker said. “We’re trying to be as transparent as we can about what we know with regard to child sexual abuse cases.” He said it was important to have a “reasonable threshold” to add the names of deceased clergy to the list, since the accused person cannot defend himself.
The Independent Review Board recommended that an accused person’s name not be added to the list if the allegation of child sexual abuse could not be substantiated or was ruled out, or where the allegation was from a third party and the archdiocese could not speak with the alleged victim.
Bishop Parker said the review board gave the archdiocese a mandate to publish additional names, but also said that because of the difficulty in assessing credibility on decades-old incidents, the threshold for publishing a name should be high.