From the Washington Post, 5.10.2008.

Brought to my attention by Peter Isely.

Thanks, Peter.

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Church Punishes Priests but Protects Bishops, Critics Say

By Jacqueline L. Salmon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 10, 2008; A03

It’s getting a little uncomfortable for Catholic Bishop Carlos Sevilla these days.

Several times in recent months, the Yakima, Wash., clergyman has had to defend himself against accusations that he concealed sexual misconduct by priests and employees. In one case, a priest who had worked in the diocese was convicted of felony abuse for fondling a 14-year-old girl. In another case, Sevilla hired a former seminarian after the man was charged with viewing child pornography.

“In hindsight, the bishop realizes he could have done more” to alert parishioners to the situations, said the Rev. Robert Siler, diocese spokesman.

Doing more, a lot more, is just what Catholic activists want the church hierarchy to do about bishops who have covered up cases of sexual abuse.

Sevilla is an example of the conundrum facing the U.S. Catholic Church as it struggles anew with the sex-abuse scandal, which Pope Benedict XVI brought up during his U.S. visit last month. The pope repeatedly expressed shame and remorse for church’s role in the disgrace and met with some of its victims. To the U.S. bishops, with whom the pope met in the District, he said that the scandal had sometimes been poorly handled and that it is their “God-given responsibility” to heal the wounds and restore shattered trust.

Since then, activists have launched letter-writing campaigns and petition drives to try to push the pope into taking action against bishops who they believe have moved slowly to stop predator priests.

“What is the pope going to do now? If it’s nothing, then that is a terrible thing,” said Terry McKiernan, president of BishopAccountablity.org, based in the Boston area. “There has been no public action by the Vatican since the pope’s visit.”

Measures enacted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002 after the scandal first exploded onto the national scene require bishops to permanently remove any priest who has sexually abused a minor. But unless the pope takes disciplinary action, bishops such as Sevilla face only private admonitions from their peers if they move slowly, or not at all, against priests accused of abusing children.

“Action has been taken against some priests, but action hasn’t been taken against U.S. bishops,” McKiernan said.

“Nobody loses a day’s pay,” added David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.

Sevilla is not alone, activists say. Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, waited months to remove an accused parish priest in Chicago, the Rev. Daniel McCormack, who was criminally charged in 2006 and pleaded guilty to sexually abusing five boys ages 8 to 12. George has acknowledged that he failed to act soon enough in McCormack’s case.

Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, whose archdiocese last year agreed to pay $660 million to settle legal claims with more than 500 victims, has been accused by abuse victims of moving sexually abusive priests to different parishes and of blocking efforts in court to expose them. Spokesman Tod Tamberg said Mahoney was one of the first bishops in the nation to implement policies on clergy child abuse and has moved aggressively to remove offenders from the priesthood.

Bishops say they cannot punish each other over the issue because that is solely the prerogative of the pope. In a 2002 “Statement of Episcopal Commitment,” the bishops promised to apply the sexual abuse rules to themselves and to offer each other “fraternal correction” — making recommendations to each other, or to the Vatican, if bishops need to step down or be removed.

Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, declined to say whether any bishops have been subject to fraternal correction. It is “brother to brother,” she said. “It’s not something that public announcements are made about.”

But activists say the system of informal oversight does not work. They want to see the pope force bishops into retirement, suspend them or otherwise discipline them for their actions — or inaction.

“It’s not like Enron, where shareholders can get rid of their board if they’re acting incorrectly,” said Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne M. Burke, who was a member of the lay board appointed by the bishops in 2002 to monitor reform efforts. Burke, along with other members of the lay board, met with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, in 2004 to complain about the conduct of some bishops.

“Until the pope takes action as regards to those folks . . . we can’t really believe that anything is going to change,” McKiernan said. “It’s quite intolerable that bishops who are responsible [for cover-ups] are still in positions of honor, positions of responsibility, in dioceses.”

In Yakima — a rural parish in central Washington that is nearly 70 percent Hispanic — bishop Sevilla has been scrambling to do damage control.

Last month, he apologized for hiring a former seminarian, Juan Jose González Rios, in 2003, even though Sevilla knew Gonzalez was under investigation for viewing child pornography. González, 37, who maintains his innocence, is awaiting arraignment on the child pornography charges.

Sevilla has also acknowledged that he had not alerted his flock to the case of the Rev. Jose Joaquin Estrada Arango, 42, who had worked at four churches in Yakima between 2001 and 2003, before being transferred to a nearby diocese in Oregon, where he was convicted of sexual abuse for fondling a 14-year-old girl. Estrada was deported to Colombia.

“Should I have publicized Father Estrada’s conviction? Perhaps so,” Sevilla said in a news release. “But I certainly didn’t hide it.”

In another case, in 1999, Sevilla determined in that a deacon had molested a 17-year-old boy. The deacon fled to Mexico and took a job as an Episcopal priest, but Sevilla did not write the Mexican archbishop to alert him of the deacon’s past until 2005. Siler, the diocese spokesman, said Sevilla assumed the archbishop had conducted a background check on the priest, who has since been permanently barred from the Episcopal priesthood.

Siler said the cases are isolated. But local activists are angry.

“Our diocese has repeatedly erred on the part of protecting offending clerics,” said Robert Fontana, a former Yakima Diocese employee who now works with an activist group, Voice of the Faithful. “There is no mechanism in place to challenge the bishop’s behavior except media exposure and lawsuits. We still haven’t gotten beyond that. That’s amazing to me.”

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer, 5.11.2008.

Brought to my attention by Tom Byrne.

Thanks, Tom.

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Trial to start in theft from Catholic diocese   Sunday, May 11, 2008 Damian G. Guevara Plain Dealer Reporter The buildup to Joseph Smith’s trial on charges that the former chief financial officer for the Cleveland Catholic Diocese stole from the church has included accusations of kickbacks, secret bank accounts and double dealing. But if Smith’s trial - scheduled to begin with jury selection Monday at the U.S. District Courthouse in Cleveland - is anything like that of his co-defendant Anton Zgoznik, the controversial claims of indiscretions and hidden payments may not help Smith if the jury hears them. Smith, 51, of Avon Lake, was the Cleveland diocese’s top financial officer and highest-ranking lay person until 2004, when irregularities in the church’s finances came to light. Smith was close to former Bishop Anthony Pilla, who testified in Zgoznik’s trial and will probably be called in Smith’s as well. Smith and Zgoznik pulled off a seven-year kickback scheme that lined Smith’s pockets with at least $784,000, prosecutors said. Smith awarded $17.5 million worth of diocesan business to Zgoznik, an accountant. Zgoznik then made payments to businesses that Smith ran from his home. The payments were designed to look like legitimate business expenses but were really kickbacks for getting the church business in the first place, prosecutors said. Zgoznik and Smith’s defense all along has been that Pilla and the Rev. John Wright knew of the payment scheme and approved of it as a way to supplement Smith’s salary. Diocesan officials say that explanation is hogwash. “The Diocese of Cleveland is not on trial,” diocese officials said in a written statement last week. “Any suggestion that [church officials] knew or approved of [Smith’s] activities . . . or engaged in similar conduct, is false.” Still, the scandal has led to greater scrutiny of the diocese, and embarrassment. The scheme was initially revealed after a tipster sent anonymous letters to the diocese, attorneys and The Plain Dealer outlining inflated payments by Smith and Zgoznik. Smith was put on paid leave in February 2004, after the allegations surfaced. He then took a job as chief financial officer in the Columbus Catholic Diocese. He eventually resigned from that job, months after he was indicted in federal court in August 2006. Since then, Smith’s attorney Philip Kushner has launched an all-out legal attack on the diocese and its credibility. In court papers, Kushner and Smith claim the diocese had hundreds of secret “off the books” accounts used to move money around and take care of people financially as church leaders saw fit. The diocese has denied those claims, and Pilla testified that any financial moves he ever made, personally or on behalf of the diocese, were done based on Smith’s advice. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Siegel declined to comment for this article but wrote in court filings that he would challenge any line of questioning that involved Pilla’s financial transactions and accounts. Kushner said in court documents that Pilla’s records are relevant because they counter the bishop’s claim that no one had off-the-books accounts, including himself. Such an admission could destroy the bishop’s credibility, Kushner wrote. Kushner declined to comment on the upcoming trial, but recent court filings show that the defense will stick to this argument. What remains to be seen is if any of that is relevant or helpful to Smith’s criminal case. It wasn’t when Zgoznik, of Kirtland Hills, went on trial last year. Pilla and Wright denied knowledge of payments in question between Smith and Zgoznik. A jury convicted Zgoznik of 15 counts of conspiracy, money laundering, mail fraud and obstruction of justice after the five-week trial. He is to be sentenced June 18. That trial included admissions by Wright that there were some significant financial church transactions that were done without Pilla’s knowledge. Wright testified that he approved a $250,000 bonus for Smith that wasn’t documented in the diocese’s ledger. Wright said he signed off on the payment to keep Smith from fleeing to a higher-paying job in the private sector. Wright also admitted that he approved a double-dipping deal for a retired chief executive officer of the Catholic Cemeteries Association, a deal that Pilla said he knew nothing about. Those revelations have put Wright, who preceded Smith as the diocese’s chief accountant, squarely in the crosshairs of Smith’s lawyers. Also, government witness Zrino Jukic - a former business partner of Zgoznik’s - has said that Wright arranged for other secret payments to a woman whom Jukic called Wright’s girlfriend, according to a motion filed by Kushner. If Jukic’s claim is true, Kushner wrote, Wright would have broken his priestly vows. “Either way, the jury will be concluding that at least one of Mr. Smith’s chief accusers is not credible,” Kushner wrote. Wright adamantly denies doing anything improper, said his attorney Kevin Spellacy. “It’s a baseless accusation,” Spellacy said. “It’s a desperate man who makes accusations not based on fact. His strategy is to trash everybody around in hopes that nothing sticks to him. “It didn’t work for the other defendant, and it probably won’t work for him,” Spellacy said. Judge Ann Aldrich, who has presided over the case, said during Zgoznik’s trial that she would not tolerate testimony that made the diocese or its members “look bad for the sake of making them look bad.” Aldrich has yet to address pending motions regarding what evidence can be presented in Smith’s trial. To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: dguevara@plaind.com, 216-999-4128

From the National Catholic Reporter, 5.9.2008.

Brought to my attention by my Tucson friend Lawrence Quilici.

Thanks, Lawrence.

My comments on the NCR story precede it and are in red bold.

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From my point of view Archbishop Myers creates a very false comparison when he implicitly compares the crime of raping a child with alcoholism. This statement from a church official is self-serving propaganda, more of the same old, same old from the institutional church: deflection, denial, obfuscation, and minimization, with the emphasis in this case on minimization.

The church’s position all along is that canon law trumps civil law.

That’s baloney. That position was discredited by the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. If church officials had their way, clergy sex abuse of minors would still be a deep dark secret in the institutional church closet and not a subject for the civil criminal justice system. Are we to believe that if I rape a kid, I’m subject to the civil justice system and if a priest rapes a kid he is subject to canon law, not civil law?

Thank God for the Boston Globe, the rest of the American free press, and the U.S. tort system that allows victims of clergy sex abuse to sue their perpetrators and those that shield them from justice. If addressing this terrible problem were left to the institutional church, we’d be back in the Middle Ages, which is where the institutional church still finds itself on this issue.

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Top archbishop suggests ways to deal with abusive priests

By Jeff Diamant Religion News Service

Published:

May 9, 2008

NEWARK, N.J. — A top U.S. archbishop, recently named to the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, said the panel of cardinals and bishops could help resolve a key issue in the clergy sex abuse scandal: how to remove priests from ministry who abused children decades ago.

Under the church’s Code of Canon Law, the statute of limitation for clergy sex abuse of minors expires 10 years after the victim’s 18th birthday. In older cases, a bishop can ask the Vatican to bypass that rule, but Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark, N.J., said he wants to explore ways for bishops to act in such matters without asking Rome.

One possibility for these older cases, Myers said, would be a canon law change that treats molestation and sexual abuse of minors more as an illness than as a violation requiring a penalty. That would allow a bishop to more easily deem these priests unfit for ministry, he said.

“We used to think of alcoholism as a moral failure, and now it’s pretty much considered an illness,” said Myers, 66. “I’m not saying that’s what will happen [with clergy sex abuse of minors], but it wouldn’t be impossible for us to move in that direction.

“If we can find a way to work it so we don’t have to apply [for removal] in each instance, but we can make the judgment locally, that would be better,” he said of bishops acting without making requests to the Vatican.

Last month, during Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States, The New York Times reported that Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Vatican’s powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, suggested that church authorities are considering changing canon law on the statute of limitations regarding clergy sex abuse of minors.

David Clohessy, national director for the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, said he favored “anything that speeds up removing a predator from ministry,” but he cautioned that such a reliance on church procedures puts undeserved faith in bishops’ discretion.

What are needed, he said, are stronger civil and criminal statutes of limitation, which now vary from state to state.

I received the following book review from Tom Doyle today, 5.10.2008, via email.

Tom asked to me to include the following note with the review:

I was asked to review “The Power and the Glory” by David Yallop for a prominent independent Catholic publication. After completing a requested revision and shortening of the review, I heard nothing for weeks. Upon inquiry I was advised that it had been rejected because it was thought to be “biased.” The review may well be biased but then most book reviews are. On the other hand this is a review of a book that is critical of the papacy of Pope John Paul II. The review is not critical of the criticism but is a positive assessment of a book that should be an integral part of any history of the Church under the late pope. TPD

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THE POWER AND THE GLORY” INSIDE THE DARK HEART OF JOHN PAUL II’s VATICAN

By David Yallop

New York, Carroll and Graf, Publishers, 2007

530 pages

Reviewed by Thomas Doyle, O.P., J.C.D.

“Few papacies have inspired so many myths as the reign of Pope John Paul II.” The Power and the Glory, p. 152.

After reading the first chapter of this momentous, and at times shocking book, one is led to the conclusion that not only few papacies, but few popes have been surrounded by as much myth and misconception as Karol Wojtyla, priest, bishop, cardinal, pope, and in the minds and emotions of many, saint. Wojtyla’s life and 26 year papacy had already prompted devoted followers to begin calling him John Paul the Great within the first year after his death.

Even John Paul’s most ardent supporters, including those clamoring for his fast-track canonization, would have to agree that his life and reign as pope were not without significant controversy. In spite of the massive superhuman aura surrounding him, critical studies of his papacy and his theology have come forth from reputed scholars. Nothing however, comes close to the detailed and critical examination that David Yallop concluded and which resulted in this book. The author’s widely acknowledged investigative skills are at their best in his fearless quest to discover the real Karl Wojtyla and the unvarnished truth about the Vatican that he shaped and dominated as Pope John Paul II. Yallop devoted eight years to research, interviewing knowledgeable sources and probing deeply into the reality of the man and the papacy that dominated the Catholic Church for a quarter century.

This book will shock and enrage the ardent supporters of the late pope yet one must honestly ask if the adulation and emotional attachment is actually for the carefully crafted larger than life image as opposed to the man himself. David Yallop’s detailed study of just about every aspect of John Paul II’s personal and public life leave no other conclusion than that the adoring faithful were really enamored of an image and not reality.

Even those who have been highly critical of the late Pope’s reign, characterized by some as “autocratic,” and of his apparent efforts to redefine the memory and spirit of Vatican Council II will be uncomfortably surprised at Yallop’s well researched and solidly supported de-mythologization of Karol Wojtyla’s early years in Poland, first under Nazi and later under Communist occupation. He first flattens the notion, no doubt created by Vatican spin meisters, that young Karol was an active participant in Polish partisan activities to protect Jews from the Nazis. No such thing according to Yallop’s research. Instead, the future pope “actively attempted to persuade others to abandon violent resistance and trust in the power of prayer.” (P. 239). Even more shocking are the results of the author’s interviews with several Jewish authorities who said straight out that there are no records of Wojtyla doing anything to protect or save Jews during World War II.

Although it is widely believed that Pope John Paul II was the single most important force in the collapse of the Soviet Union, there is no lack of serious foreign policy experts, historians and political scholars who would dispute such a claim. Yallop’s chapter 3, A Very Polish Revolution puts the pope’s role in a much dimmer light, portraying him as highly cautious and retreating to reliance on prayer rather than decisive action. If one takes this rendition of the late pope’s non-role in the demolition of Communism and mixes it with his tacit approval of military dictatorships in Argentina, Chile and El Salvador as well as his negative reaction to liberation theology, one can only wonder at the veracity of the claims that this man was a world class human rights advocate.

Other reviewers of this book claim that the most “explosive” chapters present the author’s exhaustive research into the complex Vatican financial scandals and the papal and Vatican response to the clergy sexual abuse revelations that began in the U.S. and quickly became an international reality. Although the two prominent financial sagas, the so-called Banco Ambrosiano debacle that began in the 70’s and featured Roberto Calvi and Archbishop Paul Marcinkas as leading players, and the Martin Frankel insurance fraud of the 90’s, are complex and difficult for the average person to follow, Yallop lays both out in clear and logical terms. The theme throughout, which puts the pope in the middle of it all, is that money has a powerful way of blurring the line between integrity and greed for the denizens of the Vatican.

While I admit to being perplexed by some of the complex details of the Vatican’s financial wheeling and dealing, the clergy sexual abuse phenomenon is something I am only too well aware of in painful detail. People have reacted to the clergy abuse scandal, now in its third decade, with wonder, anger, rage, shock and disbelief. A constant question has been why has the Pope done nothing to stop it? The question is certainly valid given the harsh reality that Pope John Paul II knew in detail about what was happening in the United States from the outset of the first revelations in 1984 and 1985. For eight years after the first explosion in 1984, the Pope said nothing. Then in 1993 he issued the first of 12 public statements, all of which said about the same thing. His theme was that clergy abuse was evil, the priests who did it were sinners, the poor bishops who had to put up with it were suffering and the victims needed prayer. The papal master spin doctor, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, stated in 1994 that this was primarily an American problem and then parroted the papal line that western secularism, materialism and sensationalism had a lot to do with exaggerating the problem. Within a year the Irish government fell because its leader had been implicated in the obstruction of justice in the notorious Brendan Smyth affair. But much more explosive was the exposure of Hans Hermann Groer, the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, as a sexual abuser turned prince of the church, in mid 1995. This man had been appointed from nowhere by John Paul II in 1986, according to some, largely because of his promotion of Marian devotion. The pope not only did nothing when the scandal first broke, but, according to Yallop’s research, was outraged at the Austrian bishops for failing to keep the lid on the terrible publicity. In spite of it all the proof was conclusive and Groer was not only forced to resign but ordered not to perform any public functions as a cardinal or bishop.

Yallop’s chapter Beyond Belief, is a highly detailed and fact-intense short history of the clerical sex abuse problem and how it was handled during the reign of John Paul II. The stories of clergy abuse and hierarchical cover-up abound so it is not necessary to repeat them here. Suffice it to say that Yallop’s rendition of the multi-faceted and totally tragic sex abuse saga is not only factually correct but his reasons as to why the pope remained impotent are on target. He best sums it up with a short sentence on the papal silence: “He brought with him… to the Vatican practices that he had embraced throughout his life as a priest. They included an intense pathological hatred of any revelation that indicated the Catholic Church was not a perfect institution… All dissent must be kept behind closed doors, whether of church politics, scandalous behavior or criminal activity.” (P. 314). The clergy sex abuse scandal contains ample doses of all three and the late pope appears to have sacrificed open advocacy for living children in favor of tacit protection of a non-living structure. He never publicly apologized to the countless victims and he consistently refused to ever meet with them. Perhaps the most egregious of his responses to the scandal was the much-publicized short-circuiting of the canonical process investigating accusations made against the celebrated founder and superior general of the Legionaries of Christ, Marcial Maciel-Degollado. That disastrous intervention plus the rehabilitation of Bernard Law by making him Archpriest of St. Mary Major Basilica convinced abuse victims that the pope cared little for them and much for the Church’s hierarchical aristocracy. Yallop’s description of the facts confirms this conviction.

The Power and the Glory is a book that had to be written, not to support the mythological anti-papal or anti-Catholic forces, but because the Church and contemporary culture sorely need a reality check on the hagiographic forces that have gone out of control and threaten to seriously distort a vitally important chapter of modern-day history. This book had to be written for the good of the Church as well. John Paul II was well on the way to becoming a cult figure….far removed not only from historical reality but from the role of pope as pastoral father and not supreme emperor. His memory and the good he did is much better served if remembered as it actually was and not through the lens of myth. “His obituaries abound with myths, fantasies and dis-information” says Yallop. “The cult of personality which John Paul so reveled in focuses precisely on the man but at great cost to the faith.”

This book is about much more than Pope John Paul II. It is about the grave scandals that have been so much a part of the contemporary Church. It is about the thinly veiled political aspect of the Church that has confused earthly power with the propagation of the Word. It is about the actions, inactions and questionable responses of the late pope and the Vatican bureaucracy he created to these scandals and to the socio-cultural forces at work in the modern world. Finally, it is about a model of “Church” that has grown increasingly at odds with the vision of Vatican II or perhaps worse, it is about a model of “Church” that has always been there, yet reduced in recent times to lurking in the shadows, waiting to be once more empowered.

We have seen in the era of John Paul II a dramatic rise in the power, influence and presence of the papacy, a rise described by its followers as a one approaching the peak of perfection of what papacy and Church ought to be. Yet with this rise, propelled by John Paul, there came the need to deny, cover or convert anything that threatened his image of the Church as perfect society. David Yallop may not have helped John Paul II’s cause for canonization, whether or not such a step is even relevant in today’s world. But he surely has helped the People of God by reminding us that the center and focus can never be on any leader no matter how fascinating, dramatic or colorful. It must always be grounded in the Church as People of God and not as Kingdom of the Few.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 5.9.2008.

Brought to my attention by Peter Isely.

Thanks, Peter.

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Church cash may be missing

Preliminary audit finds ‘grave concerns,’ Brookfield parishioners are told

By MARIE ROHDE
mrohde@journalsentinel.com

Posted: May 9, 2008

A preliminary audit of a large Brookfield Catholic church has raised “grave concerns” about the possibility that cash donated during weekly services over an extended period could be missing, parishioners were told in a letter sent by the parish administrator.

Father Paul Hartmann, pastor of St. John Vianney in Brookfield, declined Friday to speculate on how much money could be missing or over what period of time it could have been taken. Neither police nor the Waukesha County district attorney’s office has been involved in the investigation.

Three members of the parish, one of the largest in the Milwaukee Archdiocese, began the preliminary inquiry in early December, a short time after then-pastor Father Leonard Van Vlaenderen was arrested and charged with possession of cocaine, a misdemeanor. He entered a no-contest plea to the charge and is scheduled to be sentenced this month.

The three parishioners, who were not named, asked that professional outside auditors be called in for a more detailed analysis of parish finances after finding patterns that raised concerns, Hartmann said. The accounting firm that has been hired to do the job is Virchow, Krause & Co.

In his letter, Hartmann cautioned parishioners not to jump to conclusions.

“Sadly, since there are yet no definitive proofs about the degree of the problem or who, if anyone, is culpable, the very act of keeping you informed sets the stage for more speculation and rumors,” Hartmann wrote. “I implore all of you: Please do not start down that path.”

The cause for concern, he said, is circumstantial but grave enough that archdiocesan officials, church lawyers and insurers as well as the district attorney’s office and police could be involved.

Hartmann said Friday that the investigation is going back to at least 2000, not because it appears that problems go back that far but to provide a basis for comparison.

Still, it could be difficult to ascertain the depth of the problem. Some parishioners may have stopped giving cash because changes in federal tax law now require proof of donations; a change in the Mass schedule also could have resulted in a different pattern. For now, the connection to Van Vlaenderen is only the timing of his arrest and the examination of the books, Hartmann said.

Kathleen Hohl, speaking for the archdiocese, said Archbishop Timothy Dolan is aware of the situation and is supporting the parish but said the investigation is being handled internally by the parish.

The parish has about 8,500 members, Hartmann said.

Van Vlaenderen, the former priest-secretary to now-retired Archbishop Rembert Weakland, was arrested by St. Francis police in the parking lot of a vacant commercial building Dec. 8.