This is another footnote to my posting two days ago entitled "As Catholic Dioceses Release Lists of Priests Credibly Accused of Abuse of Minors, Important Things to Watch for: The Case of Arkansas." In that posting, I told you that Father Bede Mitchell, OSB, of Subiaco Abbey in Arkansas, was listed by the Fort Worth diocese in its recent list of priests credibly accused of abuse of minors, but was not listed on the list of credibly accused priests released by the diocese of Little Rock last year.
Today, Max Brantley reports at Arkansas Times that Bishop Anthony Taylor of Little Rock has just added names to the list of credibly accused priests he released last year. Brantley's report points to a statement Bishop Taylor placed on the diocesan website today in which he states that he is now adding names to the list of credibly accused priests compiled by the Little Rock diocese. One category included in Bishop Taylor's statement is as follows:
Additional priests of other dioceses or religious orders who have served in Arkansas, against whom credible allegations outside of Arkansas have been confirmed by other dioceses or religious orders: Information regarding these priests can be found on the Diocese of Little Rock website.
Under this category, Bishop Taylor now lists Father Bede Mitchel, OSB.
I also reported to you on Wednesday that the list of names released recently by the diocese of San Antonio contains a name of a priest who was ordained in the diocese of Little Rock and later held ministerial positions in Texas, Father Francis Sales Strobel. As I noted, Strobel's name is not on the list of names released by the diocese of Little Rock — and I still do not see it there, after Bishop Taylor did his recent update.
I am also concerned about the discrepancy between what Bishop Taylor reports in his statement of this morning, linked above, about another priest, Father Ralph Esposito, and what the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported in an article mentioning Esposito in September 2007. Bishop Taylor notes that Esposito was a diocesan priest in Pittsburgh from 1967 to 1978 and then in Arkansas from 1978 to 2002. He retired in 2002 and went back to New Castle, Pennsylvania, at that point.
In 2004, Esposito was named in a lawsuit filed by 32 plaintiffs against the diocese of Pittsburgh which named 17 priests against whom sexual abuse of minors was alleged. As Bishop Taylor's statement indicates, in 2007, the Pittsburgh diocese settled that lawsuit for $1.25 million. Bishop Taylor states,
Although there have been concerns expressed about boundary violations with minors during his time here in Arkansas, at this time none of these seem to rise to the level of child sexual abuse. He [Esposito] retired in 2002, returned to Pennsylvania in 2005, and has not engaged in any priestly ministry since then.
As I say, I'm concerned about the discrepancy between what Bishop Taylor reports in these statements and what the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported about Esposito when this case was settled in 2007. On 17 September 2007, in an article entitled "City Diocese Settles Abuse Cases," Post-Gazette reporter Ann Rodgers states,
Ralph Esposito … was transferred to the Diocese of Little Rock in 1978 before retiring in 2002 and being restricted from ministry after the allegation in 2004.
If it is correct that Father Esposito was restricted from ministry after the allegation made against him in 2004, then Bishop Taylor's statement that Esposito "has not engaged in any priestly ministry" since 2005 doesn't quite tell the entire truth about this case, does it? Note, too, that the case in which he was named in the Pittsburgh diocese — which the diocese settled with a sizable payout to the plaintiffs — involved allegations of abuse of minors in that diocese, whereas Bishop Taylor states, "Although there have been concerns expressed about boundary violations with minors during his time here in Arkansas, at this time none of these seem to rise to the level of child sexual abuse."
Were Esposito's ministrial faculties suspended when the Pittsburgh case was filed? If so, why? Why did that diocese settle this case?
I think people in both the Little Rock and Pittsburgh diocese deserve a full accounting regarding this priest who served in two dioceses and was accused in a lawsuit in one diocese of having molested a minor, and has had accusations of "boundary violoations with minors" made about him in another diocese.
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