Statement of the Diocese of Bridgeport

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Michael Reck, attorney for the Estate of Mr. Michael Powel, has issued a press release today making accusations about circumstances two generations ago in order to engender bias in present judicial proceedings and to create false impressions regarding the Diocese of Bridgeport.

After making accusations in his press release regarding priestly misconduct in a particular parish, Mr. Reck artfully identifies himself as an attorney, who "represents the family of Michael Powel, a Connecticut man who was allegedly sexually abused at the parish between 1968 and 1972." While never so stating, he seeks to leave the impression that Michael Powel’s primary allegation is that he was a victim of priestly sexual abuse.

This is a false impression. In 2002, six years before he died, Mr. Powel sued a man, alleged to have owned a lawn mowing business serving many customers, by accusing him of sexual molestation. This resulted in a widely reported judgment in 2005. After he realized he could not collect this judgment, Mr. Powel filed a new lawsuit in 2006, then alleging that the lawn man was an employee of a Catholic parish; that Mr. Powel was an employee of the lawn man; and that the Diocese of Bridgeport should somehow be responsible because the lawn man injured his employee. His allegations regarding the lawn man’s misconduct, 37 years ago during the 1968 to 1972 time period, were based upon, as Mr. Powel admitted, a "memory" that he said he "recovered" in 2000.

Mr. Powel claimed that he “recovered” an additional "memory," after the year 2000, to the effect that a priest of the particular parish abused him on a single occasion 37 years ago. Mr. Powel admits he was not a parishioner of the priest he accused. That priest was deceased for over a dozen years when Mr. Powel "remembered" the priest’s alleged wrongful conduct.

Mr. Reck sensationally announces that "this is a public safety nightmare." It is not.

None of the priests from this parish who were found to have abused a child remains in ministry. The Diocese removes from ministry any priest who is found to have abused a child. The Diocese of Bridgeport has one of the most well conceived and thoroughly administered Safe Environment Programs in Connecticut. It has, from its inception, taught against sexual contact outside the bonds of marriage. The Diocese and the parishes within its territory have performed 30,000 background checks on laypersons and clergy who serve their parishes or the Diocese. They have conducted Safe Environment training for 95,000 individuals, and they scrupulously comply with child abuse reporting statutes and the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

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