Great Falls-Billings Diocese files for bankruptcy to settle clerical abuse claims

This week, the Great Falls-Billings Diocese filed for bankruptcy to settle sex abuse claims against diocesan priests. Great Falls-Billings is fifteenth Catholic diocese to take this step and the second diocese in Montana to do so.

According to an attorney for some of the plaintiffs, the diocese will try to hold on to some of its real estate and cash, arguing that these assets are held in trust for local parishes and are not actually owned by the diocese. Good luck with that.

A spokesperson for the diocese, who will take charge of negotiations with some of the abuse victims, put the best face on this disaster. "Reaction of pastors and the laity has been largely a kind of 'What can we do to help?'" he said. "There is a feeling of we are in this together from our smallest parishes to our biggest ones."

But of course we are not all in this together. For nearly half a century, laypeople faithfully went to Mass, made their weekly cash donations, and listened to their priests and bishops. And all the while, Catholic priests were raping little boys while the Catholic hierarchy covered it up and someone washed the sheets that were stained with blood and semen.

As a Catholic convert who has loved the Church for over 20 years, I am beginning to feel like one of Hitler's camp followers who were huddled in the bunker with the Fuhrer as the Russian army crept closer, block by block. "How in the hell did we get in this mess?", those people must have asked themselves.

Christ can heal the suffering, we are told. No wound is so ugly that it cannot be salved by the Savior's blood. But we know for sure that child abuse victims never recover. They never recover. They never recover.

And so, returning to my bunker analogy, I ask myself: Is it is time for me to slip away through the rubble, leaving the fools who created this mess to their fate? I've stopped contributing to the Catholic Church altogether, sending my financial donations to a homeless shelter in Houston.

I would feel much better if the Catholic Church paid a real penance for all this suffering--if just one of the son of a bitches who covered up child rape was put in the slammer. But that has not happened and it will not happen.

Monsignor Richard Mouton

References

Dan Morris Young. Great Falls-Billings Diocese becomes 15th to file for bankruptcy. Catholic Reporter, April 3, 2017.

Which sin is worse--divorce or child rape? Let's ask Monsignor Richard Mouton

Awhile back I posted a letter I had written to Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel, reporting that I been treated rudely by Monsignor Richard Mouton in the confession booth. After asking several shocking sexual questions, Monsignor Mouton refused to confess me because I was divorced.

I delivered the letter to Bishop Deshotel on September 14, 2016. It is now December, and I have yet to receive Bishop Deshotel's response. I don't expect one.

Since that experience, I have learned that Monsignor Mouton was one of the priests in the Lafayette Diocese who figured in the the sexual abuse scandal involving Father Gilbert Gauthe, who was eventually convicted of sexually abusing children. In 1984, the Lafayette Diocese settled claims by nine child victims for more than $4 million, with the children's attorneys getting about a third.

Father Gauthe's hellish behavior, which included anal intercourse and oral sex with children, first became public in 1983, but it came to light in the course of litigation that Monsignor Richard Mouton had received reports from parents in 1976 that Father Gauthe had kissed two boys.

Monsignor Mouton was the pastor of the Catholic church in Abbeville at the time, and Father Gauthe was the assistant pastor. According to reporter Jason Berry, who wrote a book about the Gauthe tragedy, Monsignor Mouton responded to this news by "ordering [Gauthe] to move to an upstairs bedroom in the rectory."

Seven years later, Gauthe's sexual predations came to light; and parents of some of the victims contacted  a lawyer.

 Monsignor Mouton, apparently hoping to quiet things down, invited Roy Robichaux, father of three of Gauthe's victims, to come to the rectory for a little chat. Robichaux told Monsignor Mouton that he was notifying other parents whose children might also have been victimized by Gauthe.

According to reporter Berry's account, Monsignor did not approve. "Should anyone get hurt, Mouton admonished, the guilt would rest on Roy [Robichaux] for making it public."

Monsignor Mouton then said something that shocked Mr. Robichaux profoundly: "Think how Gauthe's mother would feel."

Robichaux responded as any good Cajun father would under the circumstances. "How in the fuck do you think the mothers of these kids feel?"

But Mouton continued to downplay what happened to Robichaux's three children. "The boys were young, Mouton said gently. They would bounce back and get over these things."

Later, Mouton telephone Robichaux and offered to hear the three children's confessions. Robichaux reportedly said no. "My sons do not need confession! They did nothing wrong."

So here's a theological question. In the eyes of God,who is the worst sinner--a priest who puts his penis in a child's rectum  or a divorced Catholic who seeks the consolation of the sacraments?

I'll ask Monsignor Mouton that question the next time I see him, but I think I already know his answer.

Father Gilbert Gauthe

References

Jason Berry. Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children. New York; Doubleday, 1992.

Jason Berry. The Tragedy of Gilbert Gauthe (Part 1). Times of Acadiana, May 23, 1985.

Mary Gail Frawley O'Dea. Perversion of Power: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2007.