West Virginia is trying something new in the war on clerical sex abuse: It’s leveling its consumer protection laws against a former bishop and the state’s sole diocese.
State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, has sued former Bishop Michael J. Bransfield and the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese for having “knowingly employed pedophiles.”
Such a civil case — as opposed to a criminal one — has the possibility of massively opening up the church’s secrets and opening up the church to liability.
His office filed its suit under West Virginia’s Consumer Credit and Protection Act, alleging on the first count that the diocese engaged in false advertising when it promised to provide “a safe learning environment” for children enrolled in its schools and camps. The second count alleges the diocese failed to “warn of dangerous services” when it employed priests that church officials knew had been credibly accused of sexual abuse “and intentionally failed to warn the purchasers of educational and recreational services.”
Morrisey’s lawsuit is notable for two reasons. First, it shows a state attorney general’s office going after an entire diocese, as opposed to individual priests. We should probably expect that to become the norm.
Secondly, filing the suit under West Virginia’s consumer-protection law is an undeniably big development in law enforcement officials’ ongoing efforts to shine a light on the cancer of clerical sexual abuse, something the notoriously secretive Church itself has been unable (or unwilling) to do. By using the consumer law, West Virginia officials stand a better chance of “[unlocking] the church’s files through legal discovery,” the Washington Post explained.
The New York Times explains elsewhere, “Criminal prosecutions of individual abuse cases have often been hampered by statutes of limitation, but the West Virginia lawsuit is a civil action, and is directed at the church’s handling of the problem.”
“It’s the logical next step after the [Pennsylvania grand jury report],” Villanova University’s Charles E. Zech told the Post. “The consumer fraud is just to get the foot in the door. And then you can open up all kinds of avenues, once you’ve established that. The diocese is unwilling to provide it, this is the only way to do it.”
The lawsuit, which is the culmination of an investigation that launched back in September 2018, alleges the diocese and Bransfield, who has been barred from performing his priestly duties following an investigation into allegations he sexually abused adults, failed to disclose “the inherent danger to parents who purchased its services for their children.” The diocese also failed to conduct adequate background checks” for people employed by diocesan Catholic camps and schools, reads the attorney general’s complaint. Worse, it adds, the diocese often worked to cover up the alleged abuses.
For example, the diocese covered up the abuses of Father Patrick Condron, who admitted to church officials that he had “groomed” a minor in the 1990s for “genital sexual intercourse.” Condron remained in active ministry, serving at Wheeling Catholic Elementary School until 2001.
The diocese also took on a priest who even admitted on his 2002 application for employment that he had been “accused of sexual abuse of a child in 1979.”
Then there was Victor Frobas, who worked for the diocese from 1965 through 1983. Frobas came to that job even with an allegation of child sexual abuse dating back to 1962 trailing behind him. He was eventually promoted to the role of director of Camp Tygar, where he reportedly abused several children. The dioceses neither removed him nor informed the parents of his abuses. Frobas was indicted eventually in St. Louis for “inappropriate contact with two minors,” the West Virginia complaint reads. “He pled guilty and agreed to a five year prison term, of which he served about two years. Frobas died in 1993.”
“Parents who pay and entrust the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese and its schools to educate and care for their children deserve full transparency,” Morrisey said in a statement.
