THE QUESTION: WHY IS FR. GEORGE GILLEN STILL PASTOR OF ST. GENEVIEVE'S PARISH IN ELIZABETH, NEW JERSEY?

The Archdiocese of Newark settled a case of sexual abuse for 2 Million dollars in August 2008. The case clearly implicates Fr. George D. Gillen in the chain of events that sent one man to prison and scarred several youngsters by perpetuating a pattern of sexual abuse.

The facts are clear, simple, and typical of the heritage of tolerance of abuse and cover-up inculcated by Theodore E. McCarrick, cardinal and former archbishop of Newark (1986-2000). There is documentation that records McCarrick’s sexual activity and sleeping arrangements with seminarians and young priests even when he served as the first bishop of Metuchen after serving as auxiliary and secretary to Francis Spellman, cardinal of New York. The current archbishop of Newark is aware of McCarrick’s sexual habits with seminarians and priests. So were the bishops of Metuchen, Paul Bootkoski and Edward Hughes. They had clinical reports that recorded McCarrick’s behavior with several priests.

During McCarrick’s tenure Father Gillen began counseling a 12-year-old boy, John Schulte III. There is credible evidence that Gillen began a sexual friendship soon after the counseling began and continued even after Schulte reached majority.

Gillen hired Schulte to head up the youth activities in St. Joseph the Carpenter, the parish where he was pastor at the time. He failed to supply any supervision for Schulte and his activities.

What happened was predictable. Schulte repeated the pattern of behavior he experienced at the hands of Gillen. He started to sexually assault young boys who were approximately the same age as he was when Gillen’s assaults began. Only now, one of the boys told his father and the police became involved.

(Cf. the Confidential Memorandum about the case included below.)

One factor makes the documents of this case notable (but by no means unique): It demonstrates the pattern of the genealogy of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic priesthood: behavior and/or tolerance of abuse is indulged from the Top Down.

Most sexual activity of Catholic clergy is not taken seriously. Bishops and superiors relegate sexual activity by priests and themselves to a wastebasket of a “slip,” a “sin” (like everybody else), “human weakness,” or a “passing phase” and “forgivable” blunder.

Sex of an adult with a minor is criminal activity in the United States. Sexual activity of a priest or a bishop with a consenting adult (seminarian-priest) is not always criminally prosecutable, but it is always harmful to the core fiber of ordained ministry. In light of the mandated celibate requirement and expectation it is, at the very least, hypocritical.

I

Identification

1.      My name is A. W. Richard (Aquinas Walter Richard) Sipe. I have been asked to render an opinion on the alleged sexual behavior of Fr. George Gillen, a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey.

2.      I was trained as a counselor/psychotherapist to deal with the mental health problems of Roman Catholic clergy and Religious.

3.      My area of expertise is the sexual/celibate behaviors of men who profess “perfect and perpetual (chastity) celibacy” and are presented to the public by their sponsoring organization as sexually safe. I have authored seven books on the subject. A complete and correct copy of my CV is attached to this memo as Exhibit A.

II

Background and Experience 

4.      I was educated in Roman Catholic institutions from grade school through seminary training in the U.S. and Rome, Italy. I was ordained a RC priest in 1959 and served until dispensed from my vows by the Vatican in 1970. I was married in the Roman Catholic Church and continue as a member in good standing.

5.      My formal training as a counselor occurred between 1964 and 1970 and was supported with grants from the NIMH, the Danforth Foundation, and The Seton Psychiatric Institute where I was also employed for 3 years.

6.      I have been on the staff and taught at various Roman Catholic seminaries, universities, and colleges from 1967 until 1996. One was a Pontifical Seminary and University.

7.      I have been on the staff of a psychiatric hospital that treated numerous priests, some of them for the sexual abuse of minors; and held a part-time appointment in the division of child and adolescent psychiatry in a medical school for 25 years.

8.      I have consulted or counseled several hundred priests and also counseled several hundred victims of clergy sexual abuse and reviewed the case histories of several hundred sexually offending clergy and clergy victims over a period of 40 years.

9.      I have been qualified in both State and Federal courts as an expert witness and testified before numerous juries and Grand Juries on the issue of sexual abuse of minors and by Roman Catholic clergy.

10.  I conducted a 25-year ethnographic study (1960-85) of the celibate/sexual behaviors of RC clergy and in 1986 rendered the opinion that 6 percent of Catholic clergy get involved sexually with minors.[1]

III

Documents Reviewed to Understand This Case

11.  I have reviewed the following documents in order to understand the specifics of this case:

12.   In addition to the documents provided by Plaintiffs’ lawyers I have reviewed the unsealed settlement documents of complaints of sexual harassment and sexual assault upon a seminarian and priest by Theodore Edger McCarrick, Archbishop of Newark (1986—2000). The file includes letters to the priest and tape recordings of telephone messages from McCarrick and eyewitness of McCarrick involved sexually with another priest.[2]

IV

FACTS UPON WHICH MY OPINIONS ARE BASED

13.  Father George D. Gillen counseled John Schulte III for some period of time beginning when Schulte was 12-years-old in offices of Union Catholic High School.

14.  Gillen had received training in pastoral counseling at Fordham University and Seton Hall University.

15.  The explicit presenting problem for counseling John Schulte was the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his uncle who was convicted and imprisoned for the behavior.

16.  Gillen maintained a friendly relationship with Schulte from that time until November 2002, when Schulte was arrested for abusing minors. (Cf. records of ski club and peer ministry at Union Catholic High School: Gillen was moderator/Schulte participated)

17.  Schulte was charged, convicted, and sentenced to Avenel, a NJ facility for the rehabilitation of sexual offenders, for the abuse of 3 minor students at St. Joseph the Carpenter School where Gillen was pastor.

18.  Schulte claims that the relationship with Gillen involved sexual exchanges while he was a minor and after he reached his majority.

19.  Gillen hired Schulte in 1995 and subsequently in 1997 until the time of his arrest as the part-time and eventually Full-time Parish Coordinator of Youth Ministry without informing other members of the staff of St. Joseph the Carpenter Roman Catholic Church, where Gillen served as pastor, that Schulte had a history of being abused.

20.  Gillen placed Schulte in a supervisory position over minors even before he completed training programs at Seton Hall.

21.  Gillen provided Schulte with offices—where doors did not have glass windows—where Schulte could meet with students even after school hours.

22.  There is no evidence that Gillen provided any supervision of Schulte’s hours, activities or contact with minor students in St. Joseph the Carpenter School.

23.  Gillen was aware of priests of the Newark archdiocese who had problems of a sexual nature. (Frs. Dugue and Mieliwocki)

24.  Theodore E. McCarrick was Archbishop of Newark at the time that Gillen counseled and hired Schulte as the youth minister of St. Joseph the Carpenter School.

V

OPINIONS OFFERED IN THIS CASE

25.  I offer the following opinions based on the review of the documents listed above, my training, research, experience:

1.) The association, friendship, contact, and interaction recorded between Fr. Gillen and John Schulte is typical of many sexual relationships between a priest and a man that begins in childhood and continues into adulthood. In a stable clerical setting such as a school or parish employment the sexual elements are subsumed and disguised in the environmental context. (The USCCB has pointed to numerous records of priest abusers that involve only one victim.)

2.) Children who have been sexually abused by a trusted family friend or relative are particularly vulnerable to sexual relationships with other trusted adults and are frequently blamed for “seducing” a member of the clergy who may have limited sexual experience. John Schulte and George Gillen fit this profile.

3.) Fr. Gillen has not disclosed his sexual orientation and history. He, like every human being, has both. But nothing so far disclosed about him precludes a sexual relationship with John Schulte.

4.) It is well known that minors who have been sexually abused have a higher likelihood as adults of abusing other minors. (Although only 20 percent of victims go on to abuse others, 80 percent of child abusers have themselves been abused as minors.) John Schulte admits to this pattern. Within the Catholic ministry there is a demonstrable pattern of this phenomenon.[3]

6.) The period during which Gillen allegedly established Schulte as a sexual victim-partner was 1995-97-2000. Gillen hired Schulte as a church employee; he gave him supervisory responsibilities over minors; Gillen did not supervise Schulte, but treated him as a trusted partner/intimate not needing supervision. The events recorded in November 2002 would not have been possible without this antecedent relationship.

7.) Theodore E. McCarrick was archbishop of Newark during the time Gillen established his relationship and employment of Schulte. Father Gillen could not have been ignorant of the fact that McCarrick had seminarian/priest companions whom he referred to as “cousins” of one another and asked them to call him “Uncle Ted.” Gillen could not have been ignorant of McCarrick’s sleeping habits. It is not illegal for a priest, bishop, or cardinal to have consensual sexual friendships with adults, men or women, but such behavior, especially in a superior, creates an atmosphere of sexual permissiveness.

8.) From all the documents reviewed, and my experience, I find that John Schulte III is a credible witness to his relationship with Fr. George D. Gillen.

 August 14, 2008