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In The News Archive
Star-Ledger Victims snap into action when the church won't
by Jeff Diamant, Star-ledger
December 14, 2008
Resident agrees with praise given to Lasch
Observer-Tribune
Thursday, September 27, 2007 3:46 PM EDT
EDITOR: As former members of the Church of Saint Joseph, my husband and I would like to thank you for your editorial in the Observer Tribune in praise and support of Monsignor Kenneth Lasch.
We belonged to St. Joe's since moving to Mendham in 1970 and leaving that church community was, and is, painful in many ways but staying there was even more painful. We were both born Catholics and practiced our faith the best we could over the years.
When Father Lasch came to Mendham, it was as if someone opened all the windows and doors and let in the sunshine and fresh air. This man was our shepherd. He did not preach, he taught. He did not push, he led.
He listened to the voice of the community and responded with fairness, compassion and love. Under Father Lasch's pastoral care, we came to understand that we are the Church.
The treatment that Kenneth Lasch has received from the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is shameful and un-Christian and has undermined our faith in that institution. Our faith in the Lord we came to know through Father Lasch, though, is unshaken and we would like to believe that some day, if we continue to speak out through groups like Voice of the Faithful, we may see a change.
Again, thank you for your support of our Pastor and friend, Monsignor Kenneth Lasch.
Paula D'Amato
Maple Avenue
Mendham, NJ
Champion for victims is honored Observer Tribune
Thursday, September 20, 2007 1:10 PM EDT
by PHIL GARBER, Managing Editor
MENDHAM - It has been often painful and often lonely but Monsignor Kenneth Lasch has given over most of his life to helping people who were sexually abused by priests and to battling with the Catholic church to institute changes that would make guilty priests and the church hierarchy accountable.
Lasch, 70, of Morristown, will be among three priests from around the nation to be honored next month for their integrity, by Voice of the Faithful, a 35,000-member, national lay organization that was formed to press for reforms in the wake of the national clergy sex abuse scandal.
It is an honor that Lasch reluctantly accepted only after he was prodded by another priest who has himself been ostracized by the church for his efforts at forcing reform.
Lasch, the former pastor of St. Joseph's Church in Mendham, will be named a "Priest of Integrity" at the annual convention of Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) to be held next month in Rhode Island.
A spokeswoman for the Paterson diocese offered a brief statement in saying, "It is always good to see one of our priests honored."
Serrano Claims
Lasch was the pastor of the Mendham church in 1985 when a parishioner, Mark Serrano, came forward with allegations that he had been sexually abused as a youth by the church's former pastor, James T. Hanley. Hanley has since admitted to molesting at least a dozen children and he has been dismissed from the church.
Serrano's startling revelations changed Lasch's life and began a journey for the priest that led him to making St. Joseph's Church a national focus of the emerging and ongoing clergy sex abuse scandal. It also led Lasch to numerous confrontations with representatives of the Paterson diocese, who Lasch urged to acknowledge the depths of the problem of sexual abuse by priests.
Lasch said he had turned down the VOTF honor for the last two years but this year, he heard from an old friend and confidant, the Dominican priest, Thomas Doyle. Doyle urged Lasch to accept the award on behalf of clergy sexual abuse victims around the nation.
Doyle was the first priest to be honored by VOTF as a "Priest of Integrity" in 2002. He was a canon lawyer who had worked at the Vatican embassy when he wrote a controversial 1985 report that predicted that molestation charges against clergy would erupt soon.
Because of the document, and his subsequent outspoken advocacy on behalf of victims, Doyle, who lives in Vienna, Va., has been ostracized by the church hierarchy and was relieved of his job as an Air Force chaplain.
Doyle said he first met Lasch more than two decades ago when both were promising, canon lawyers. Doyle said the two developed a friendship and eventually began work in parallel directions.
"Ken Lasch epitomizes what a priest should be in that his primary concern is honesty and helping people in real need," Doyle said in an interview on Saturday.
Doyle said Lasch took tremendous risks in confronting the diocese.
"You risk your relationship with your brother priests, your standing with the diocese and the wrath of the bishop," Doyle said. "When I see men like Ken, I know there really is hope for the Catholic priesthood. He alone has kept the essence of the church and Jesus Christ alive in a lot of people."
Doyle said Lasch is among the few who have stood up to the church hierarchy while very few bishops have acknowledged the church's role in the sex abuse scandal.
"Most (in the church hierarchy) are concerned with themselves, their image and their power," Doyle said. "We have ignored the victims, intimidated them and shuffled them around. Ken didn't do any of that."
Doyle said that, as a result of the work by people like Lasch, victims can come forward in the courts even if the church hierarchy remains "in a defensive mode."
Lasch said he has been dealing with his own emotional turmoil after so many years of working with abuse victims. He agreed to accept the award, he said, because "Catholic people need to know there are people willing to go out on a limb for the victims."
Lasch said he has been involved in personal therapy in part because of his own unresolved trauma when as a teenager, a priest made sexual advances at him.
He said it is not uncommon for people in helping professions to develop the symptoms of the people they help, including depression and anxiety. The profound collision of his own views and those of the church have greatly added to his own personal battles, he said.
"It is a very complex picture that takes an emotional toll," Lasch said.
He said that in some ways, he identified with the recent revelations of the "crisis of faith" experienced by Mother Teresa during her many years of working with the poor in India. Mother Teresa was a Catholic nun who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work in ministering to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying in Kolkata (Calcutta), India. She died in 1997.
Her personal battles with faith were disclosed in personal writings that were recently made public.
"Mother Teresa experienced a dryness as she was cut off from God," Lasch said. "I understand that dryness and lack of motivation."
Lasch compared the church to a wife and said that, in part, his battles with the church were so painful because he wanted nourishment and support and did not receive it.
He said that when he began to advocate for clergy sexual abuse victims, he had no idea it would be such a long, hard task. But he said he has no regrets.
"Given the enormity of the situation, I had to respond to advocate for victims of sexual abuse," Lasch said. "Working with victims of any sort is part and parcel of any ministry. I felt the church could have and should have responded differently."
He said the church hierarchy continues to avoid confronting the issue and that neither the former bishop of the Paterson diocese, Frank Rodimer, nor its current bishop, Arthur Seratelli, have ever visited St. Joseph's Church to meet with victims.
Lasch said the church has not dealt with the problem of teenagers who have been sexually abused by priests nor has it begun a dialogue about such critical and related issues like mandatory celibacy and the role of women in the church and ministry.
"The bishops treat sexual abuse as a phenomena that happened and they dealt with it legally," Lasch said. "That's not reform. We need to talk about the root causes."
Moral Compass
Serrano has been a longtime friend of Lasch and said the priest "has a great moral compass.
"We've come to learn that that is not a given among priests," said Serrano, who was among the founders of the nationwide, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests or SNAP. The network provides emotional and legal support for clerty sexual abuse victims.
"I give Ken great credit in that he has often strived to put the interests of those suffering first," Serrano said.
Serrano said the campaign for change in the church in the wake of the early revelations about clergy sex abuse might have been very different if not for Lasch.
Serrano said that in 1985, he spoke to Rodimer about Hanley and that the next day, Lasch invited Serrano to speak at the masses.
"There are few parishes in America where victims of clergy abuse have been asked to speak from the pulpit," Serrano said. "(Lasch) was responsible for forming a center of healing at St. Joseph's. There is no way it would have happened without Ken Lasch.
Posted from the Daily Record Newsroom
September 14, 2007
Priest pays price for speaking about abuse Monsignor Kenneth Lasch said he once overheard fellow priests talking about him.
Why doesn't Lasch keep his mouth shut?"
Lasch said he wrote those priests to suggest getting together to explain why he had become an advocate for victims of clergy sexual abuse. No one took him up on the offer, he said, and even priests who remained his friends became quiet when he brought up the issue. He wrote for years to the present bishop, Arthur Serratelli, asking for a meeting.
Lasch said an attorney wrote back telling him that wasn't going to happen.
So Lasch became in some ways an outsider in the church he says he loves.
"It's like the death of a wife," he said.
National recognition Lasch, 70, of Morristown, will be one of three priests receiving a national Priest of Integrity Award next month from Voice of the Faithful, a lay group that discusses possible reforms to the Catholic Church. The award was created to honor priests who have been supportive of sex abuse victims. It comes at a time when Lasch has been pulling back from some of his advocacy for victims because it was affecting his health.
He said he had been having panic attacks over the past few weeks, waking up with tightness in his chest. "It was the stress of dealing with this issue with such intensity for so long," he said.
He had been asking to meet with Serratelli, but says he was rebuffed over a period of more than a year. Church officials did not respond to that Thursday, but Marianna Thompson, the bishop's spokeswoman, issued a brief statement offering congratulations on Lasch's award.
"It is always good to see one of our priests honored," Thompson said in the statement.
Mendham beginning Lasch was pastor of St. Joseph's in Mendham in 1985 when a parishioner named Mark Serrano came forward with allegations that the former pastor, James T. Hanley, molested him. Hanley has since admitted to molesting at least a dozen children. Church officials acknowledged sending Hanley to work in another parish for a year after learning of the allegations. They removed him after the Serranos came to them, outraged, after seeing a photo in the diocese newspaper showing Hanley celebrating Mass with children.
Hanley later was sent to work at a hospital in Albany, N.Y.
In 1995, Lasch sent letters to parents and called them to a meeting where he talked about the allegations. He said a diocese attorney told him not to hold the meeting but he ignored the advice.
Lasch said he expected things to change for the better after the meeting. He sent a letter to Bishop Frank Rodimer, then the head of the diocese, suggesting a summit on sex abuse to be attended by clergy, journalists and psychologists.
He waited for an answer that never came.
"I naively hoped for a response," he said.
Emerging advocate
Over the years, victims called Lasch and asked for advice. He created files on cases of sexual abuse, hoping that one day church leaders would be more open about the issue. He said he gave up in 2001 and decided to burn the files on a hibachi. He took the ashes to the St. Joseph's cemetery and scattered them.
"It was time to let go of this stuff," Lasch said.
Then came the scandal in Boston, and Serrano decided to go public with his story in March 2002. Lasch's church hosted a meeting of Hanley's victims and their family members a month later. He allowed a victims' group, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, to meet at his church. He allowed a monument to victims to be placed at the parish. He talked to other priests about the issue and some thanked him for being a victim's advocate. But this is what he said he usually heard:
"Silence."
Message from Ken Lasch in response to the above story:
In the interest of truth, justice, balance and fair play.
In his commentary on my involvement in the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church in general and in the Diocese of Paterson in particular over a period of over twenty years, Abbot Koloff attempted to capture the highlights of my experience.
I agreed to the interview because of the surrounding publicity attached to my having been nominated along with two other priests for the "Priest of Integrity" award by the National Voice of the Faithful. The awards are typically presented at the annual meeting of VOTF that will take place this year on October 19 - 20 in Providence, RI.
This is the third time the nomination was submitted by the New Jersey Chapter of VOTF and the second time by the National Office. I declined the nomination all five times and declined it again this year. It was only after the insistence and persistence of the nominating committee that I reluctantly agreed with on condition that I might not be able to be present for the actual presentation of the award.
When Abbot Koloff asked if I would be willing to be interviewed about my involvement in the sexual abuse scandal, I agreed. I assumed that this might be a new opportunity for healing -- my own and the healing of many victims whose voices have not yet been heard.
It was naïve and unfair of me to assume that a reporter could summarize the experience of over twenty-two years in the limited space provided by a front page or back page story. The interview lasted over two hours.
So in the interest of truth, justice, balance and fair play, I need to make the following observations for which I hold myself accountable.
1. Although 'silence' of authorities and the clergy has been a prevailing theme throughout my experience, it is not fair for me to state that there have been no notable exceptions including the most recent outreach of Msgr. Mahoney, Diocesan Vicar General. Five other priests have written words of support. My friends have stood by me but in many instances simply did not know what to say.
2. Bishop Serratelli as many bishops, have been guided by the advice and counsel of their attorneys. While I may disagree with the fact that the legal forum is the most effective way to deal with the abuse issue, I do not assume that he is not interested in bringing closure to the issue.
3. The most important issue, however, is spiritual and pastoral. All of us desperately need healing on this and other issues that face the church in these difficult times and the only way that this can happen is for all parties to come to the table to air their wounds and hurts.
Going to war is not a solution. Bashing bishops or any other Church authority will not work if for no other reason than that it is not the way of the Lord.
It is my fervent prayer and desire that reconciliation will take place in due course. The gospel for this weekend is a strong reminder of the compassionate God whom we all worship, the God who has he qualities of both man and woman, the God whose 'Son' Jesus, demonstrated for us in very concrete ways how we can make life work for the good of all.
The sexual abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church has become a quagmire not unlike the conflict in Iraq. We can and must find a new way to collaborate in the healing process through dialogue free of rancor.
I apologize sincerely for any word or action that has contributed to this quagmire and renew my earnest desire to work for the healing of all parties -- victims and their families, predators and their families, and everyone and anyone who has been caught in the cross fire.
In the meantime, I will be taking 'a sabbatical' from my public advocacy.
I have stated often enough over the course of the last twenty years that if you want to be an instrument of healing and wellness for others, they you must be well yourself.
If only we could re-write and re-right history, how different things would be today.
Ken Lasch
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