SPRINGFIELD – Bishop Christopher Weldon’s name will be removed from Mercy Medical Center’s rehabilitation center, all honorable references, memorials and photographs of him will be removed from Catholic properties and his remains buried at the entrance of the Gate of Heaven Cemetery will be exhumed and moved to a less prominent location in the cemetery and his grave marked with an ordinary size stone.
But the biggest change announced by the Roman Catholic Diocese in Springfield on Wednesday will be to create a new system to handle complaints of clergy abuse that calls for welcoming survivors’ accusations and examining them thoroughly and with compassion, said The Most Rev. Mitchell Rozanski, bishop of the diocese.
The changes were unveiled after retired judge Peter Velis announced a year-long study determined that the late Bishop Christopher J. Weldon had sexually abused a boy. The victim came forward in 2014 as an adult to report the abuse by Weldon and two other clergy members.
“These allegations were unequivocally credible,” he said.
Weldon, who died in 1982, served as Springfield’s Bishop for 27 years. In the past, there were at least two prior instances where Weldon’s name was part of a lawsuit or a complaint, but neither was deemed credible.
Mandatory reporters in the diocese who first heard the alleged victim’s account of sexual abuse by the bishop failed to report the matter to law enforcement officials. The accuser requested a meeting with Rozanski last June after the diocesan review board said the individual did not allege sexual abuse by Weldon during his June 2018 appearance before the board. Three people attending the meeting supported the account of the victim.
Rozanski hired Velis to conduct an independent review of the allegations a year ago giving him a free hand to review any records and interview anyone in the diocese. Velis said in his first meeting with the Bishop he asked about the goal of the investigation and Rozanski struck the table with his fist and said “I want the truth.”
During the announcement about the findings, Velis called the initial investigations about the survivor’s allegations “woefully deficient.” The review board was hampered because members were not given all the information they should have been given before they made the decision and “were shocked” after receiving additional facts.
“It was clear in my examination that the process included an inexplicable modification and manipulation of the reports received and acted on by the Diocesan Review Board. Additionally the complaint process was compromised in that mandatory reporters failed in their duties to report the allegations to prosecutorial authorities,” Velis said in his report summary.
In the report, Velis included a list of recommendations that he said he hoped are complied with including a system of checks and balances.
That is “sorely needed within the hierarchy of the Catholic church in accessing the investigatory process which, is the real nucleus of this entire problem,” Velis said.
“I can honestly tell you that is the best thing you can do for the future because deeds have already been accomplished. The misdeeds, the evil deeds have already been accomplished,” he said.
Rozanski, who will leave Springfield in August to take over as archbishop of St. Louis, Missouri, apologized to the victim for the “terrible abuse that he had to endure as a child” and the time-and-time-again mishandling of the investigation that started in 2014.
“In almost every instance we have failed this courageous man who none the less preserved thanks in part to a reliable support network as well as a deep desire for justice,” he said.
But Rozanski said an apology does not go far enough and he announced a series of reforms that will begin immediately or have already started. Weldon’s name will also be added to the Diocese’s public list of clergy who have credible or proven accusations of abuse filed against them.
On Wednesday the new, independent Task Force on Response of Sexual Abuse will start work and will be headed by retired judge Daniel Ford.
In addition the office for victim assistance and safe environment is now being revamped to be more responsive.
Ford called the actions that happened in the past was “disgraceful” but he said the benefit is the truth has now been revealed and reforms can now begin.
When Rozanski asked him to chair the task force Ford said they met to discuss the findings from Veils.
“He stressed what he wants from us is a document that identifies what he thinks are the best practices to deal with the scourge of child sexual abuse in the future,” Ford said.
The task force will examine all the recommendations Velis has made in his report and will also collect additional data and seek input from a variety of people in the diocese including clergy, survivors of clergy sexual abuse and other members.
The group will review the recommendations made by Velis and discuss if each should be adopted. It will also debate modifying any of the proposals and debate the need to make other changes not discussed in the report, he said.
The Diocese has made other steps in the recent past to deal with clergy abuse allegations including revamping the office for victim assistance. In May officials also announced they will notify area law enforcement and the proper district attorney’s office once it learns of any allegations of clergy sexually assaulting minors or any other “vulnerable persons” at Western Massachusetts parishes.