Letters indicate church knew of abuse in 1950s

(UNDATED) A Catholic priest who specialized in treating sexually abusive priests warned church leaders — including Pope Paul VI — that abusers should be defrocked and possibly marooned on a Caribbean island, according to correspondence recently unearthed by National Catholic Reporter. During the 1950s and ’60s, the Rev. Gerald Fitzgerald, the founder of the Servants […]

(UNDATED) A Catholic priest who specialized in treating sexually abusive priests warned church leaders — including Pope Paul VI — that abusers should be defrocked and possibly marooned on a Caribbean island, according to correspondence recently unearthed by National Catholic Reporter.

During the 1950s and ’60s, the Rev. Gerald Fitzgerald, the founder of the Servants of the Paraclete order, repeatedly wrote to Catholic bishops and Paul VI to warn them about the persistence of pedophilia among abusive priests.

“Personally, I am not sanguine of the return of priests to active duty who have been addicted to abnormal practices, especially sins with the young,” Fitzgerald wrote to the pope in 1963. “Where there is indication of incorrigibility … I would most earnestly recommend total laicization,” or defrocking.


Fitzgerald’s letters were published Monday (March 30) by the independent National Catholic Reporter, which received them from a Los Angeles law firm that represents victims of clergy sex abuse.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests called the letters “a smoking gun.”

“They come from the consummate church insider,” said SNAP national director David Clohessy. “From a bishop’s perspective, there could be no more credible or trustworthy source of information about predators. Yet dozens, perhaps hundreds, of key church staffers deliberately ignored his crystal-clear warnings.”

The revelations come as the U.S. Catholic Church continues to deal with the consequences of clergy molestation of minors. Catholic leaders have received nearly 15,000 allegations of sexual abuse since 1950, according to annual studies by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The same studies have showed that the church has paid more than $2.5 billion in costs related to clergy sexual abuse since 1950.

Catholic bishops who transferred priests from one assignment to another rather than removing them from the priesthood have said that psychologists and others who treat abusive priests did not warn them that pedophilia was a serious and persistent problem.

Under current guidelines, adopted in 2002 after the scandal exploded in the U.S. church, any credible allegation results in a permanent removal from ministry, said Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the bishops’ conference.


Fitzgerald, who founded the Paracletes in 1947 primarily to treat alcoholic priests, recommended as early as 1957 that the church adopt guidelines for problem priests.

“We feel that the protection of our glorious priesthood will demand, in time, the establishment of a uniform code of discipline and of penalties,” he said.

In 1965, Fitzgerald put a 10 percent deposit on a Caribbean island for “rattlesnakes” who molest children, according to the newspaper. But the idea was nixed by his bishop.

A Paraclete spokesman in St. Louis said he did not know Fitzgerald’s letters had been published and “all the pioneer servants of the Paracletes are deceased.”

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