Valley parishioners blast bishop’s decision Gerry’s action in removing priests called ‘cruel’

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MADAWASKA – The parishioners of two Roman Catholic priests recently removed from their St. John Valley churches by Bishop Joseph Gerry this week vented their disagreement with his actions, recounted their hurt and frustration over his decision and spoke of their support for the two men they had grown to love during their tenures.

Gerry’s actions were “cruel … [and] lacked compassion for the priests, their elder mothers and parishioners,” some said during sessions held Tuesday and Wednesday night.

Parishioners called the “ordered public confessions” made by the two priests at the behest of the bishop “horrendous.” Others said the bishop “just did not get it.”

The feelings came out during two two-hour meetings held by Gerry and Auxiliary Bishop Michael Cote of the Diocese of Portland with parishioners of the Revs. Michael Doucette and John Audibert.

The meetings were held at the St. Thomas Aquinas Parish Hall in Madawaska and St. Agatha Parish Hall. Each session, prefaced by the celebration of a Mass, was attended by about 200 people. About 25 people spoke at Madawaska, and a similar number spoke at St. Agatha.

“Say whatever you want to say,” Gerry said at the outset of the two meetings. “I want to hear it all.”

The bishop told people at both meetings that his actions to remove Doucette and Audibert were driven by the events occurring in the Archdiocese of Boston, an unrelenting news media, a change in the minds of experts about sexual offenders, and knowing “that they [the priests and the church] would never have peace.”

Commenting later about his two-day visit to northern Maine, the bishop said, “I wanted to let them [the parishioners] know they could disagree with us. That’s what motivated me to come.

“I wanted to listen to all of them because they are all hurting,” Gerry said outside the meeting during a session with reporters. “These people want answers, and they wanted me to hear what they had to say.

“They told me the impact these two priests had on their lives, the marriages they saved, the lives they saved from ruin,” he said. “They also showed their hurt, the pain they have for someone they love dearly and deeply.”

Nearly everyone at the discussions supported the two priests. They remembered them as “devoted,” “priestly,” “awesome,” “great,” “in awe of their strength of faith,” “loving,” “friends,” “counselors,” “priests who served the diocese well for years,” “good priests and good human beings,” “exemplary priests” and “we were blessed to have them.”

Comments from those at the discussions about the treatment the priests received from the diocese included “cruel,” “lacking of compassion,” “made two more victims,” “they were thrown to the wolves,” “their removal was a waste,” “did not allow for closure for them and us,” “you never talked about all the good they did” and “you have shaken our faith.”

“I am concerned that the church is concerned with the secular political world,” one man said. “You owe the parishes and these two priests a profound public apology.”

Parishioners were blunt with the bishops, and some did not mince words. Many wept during the sessions. Dozens went to the bishops for private words and to shake their hands after each session.

“You screwed up,” one man from St. Joseph’s Parish in Sinclair said. “You did not treat these men correctly.”

“How could you do something so cruel?” a woman asked.

“If others don’t want them, I know an 84-year-old who would,” a woman from Madawaska said.

Many wondered what would become of their priests removed “under cover of darkness.” They feared Doucette and Audibert were left destitute.

Gerry said Audibert, 61, had spoken of retirement. He said he would be meeting with Doucette, 55, next week.

The bishop told the gatherings that the two men are receiving their priestly stipends. He said their future was mostly of their own choosing.

Talking to the media outside the sessions, Gerry said the focus in the St. John Valley is on “their priests and what happened to them.”

“The further away you go from where the two priests were, the focus changes to the victims of the abuse,” he said. “Overall, people have been encouraging to me.”

“The support for the two priests and from parishioners was overwhelmingly in their favor,” Gerry said. “We also saw that others would not give these two priests any peace.”

Gerry said threats made by people to go public in the Maine news media about the two northern Maine priests accused of sexual abuse of minors more than two decades ago, as well as the case of John J. Geoghan, the former priest from the Boston archdiocese convicted of multiple charges of sexual abuse of minors, was the basis for his decision to require the public confessions by Audibert and Doucette two months ago.

In his first public statements on sexual abuse of minors by priests, Gerry told parishioners that he changed his mind about the priests after receiving more allegations March 6. The two priests were removed from their parishes on March 8. Parishioners found out at weekend Masses on March 9 and 10.

He did not specify what the “two more allegations” were, except that an allegation of sexual impropriety, which may have occurred before 1990, against Doucette was corroborated by a second person.

In Doucette’s defense, a St. Agatha parishioner said Wednesday night that the priest had denied the March 6 allegations to churchgoers during a Mass.

On March 5, the bishop had decided, he said, to allow the two priests to remain in their parishes at Madawaska, St. Agatha, Frenchville and Sinclair, and had drafted a letter to Maine Catholics to that effect. The draft letter was not made public before the March 6 allegations.

Before the Feb. 9 public confessions by the two priests, Gerry said he had received telephone calls from “victims who said they were going to the press” about Doucette if the diocese did not make his actions public.

“One man called Father Doucette several times about the abuse he did,” Gerry said in a discussion outside the parishioners’ meetings. “That’s part of the reason we went public.”.

The two priests were said to be the only priests in active service against whom allegations of sexual abuse had been made. The allegations against the two priests involved incidents that took place 22 and 26 years ago.

“I decided to have them make the public announcements,” he told parishioners this week. “I believed then that they would remain in their parishes.”

Gerry told the parishioners that for generations priests accused of the sexual abuse of minors were treated like priests who had problems with alcohol or a similar condition.

“They were brought to Portland, scolded for their indiscretions and placed in another parish.” he said. “That can no longer happen.”

The bishop also told parishioners that psychologists and psychiatrists today disagree with what their counterparts said 10 years ago about those who sexually abused minors. Today experts claim many of them will do it again.

“I knew if there was any place in the diocese where these two men could continue serving, it was in the Valley,” Gerry told both groups of parishioners about why the two priests were in the St. John Valley when the controversy broke. “The faith here is like something you can touch with your hand, it’s so real.

“I was not playing games with your parish councils when I asked for their input,” he said. “I truly wanted this to be their decision.”

Gerry and Cote called the media “unrelenting,” “merciless,” “often misquoting” and “they just would not let go.”

Parishioners went further, calling the media “vultures” and “leaders of mass hysteria.” A reporter at one of the sessions was accosted verbally by a male parishioner at the end of a session.

All but a small handful of parishioners at Madawaska blamed “the press” for the ongoing controversy in the Roman Catholic Church in Maine and for the loss of the priests in the St. John Valley.

The emotional sessions, interspersed with some humor and laughter, for the most part were very tense.

At the Madawaska session, a young girl was reduced to tears when she was told by Gerry that there was no chance he would change his mind on the fate of the two priests. The next night in St. Agatha, he responded, “Miracles do happen,” when asked the same question.

A young Madawaska boy started crying when he tried to tell the bishops a story about “Father John.” He also could not continue.

People cried openly at St. Agatha when a weeping boy told the bishops that the “priests should have been forgiven.”

“Forgive them,” he urged his two bishops.

Only two people at each meeting sided openly with Gerry’s decision. They were among the few who did not receive applause after speaking.

Attorney James Lavertu of Madawaska said the bishop had no other alternative because of the crises across the country. Jackie Levasseur of Madawaska, nearly in tears, said Gerry did what had to be done.

“The church needs to be there for the children. They need the refuge of the church,” a woman in St. Agatha said.

“We needed to purify our church, [and] we needed to protect the victims,” another woman said.

Nothing was said about the ongoing controversy by the bishop during the celebrations of Mass.

A woman announcing general intercessionary prayers after the sermon at Madawaska asked parishioners to remember victims of sexual abuse in their prayers and ask that “they find healing comfort.” She also asked for prayers for “Father Bob” Vaillancourt, who is returning to their parish as pastor later this month.

The bishops said in meeting with reporters that what they heard was a “family discussion of great pain.” They also said they believe the Catholic family in Maine will live through these trying times.

“Look at the crowds of people we had at services during Holy Week,” Cote said. “People have not lost their perspective, their faith, and we see that in church.”