By Free Republic | Created at 2024-12-22 23:05:34 | Updated at 2024-12-23 03:23:53
4 hours ago
“It’s shocking in 2024, but not surprising,” said Patrick Wall, a survivors’ advocate and former priest who used to work as a “fixer” for colleagues accused of sexual abuse. “It’s almost as if Cardinal McCarrick has never left the Archdiocese of Newark — that his spirit still reigns in the archdiocese.”
Confronted with the findings of the McCarrick report, which was prepared by an outside law firm and also included allegations against about a dozen other university priests, school leadership praised Reilly as someone whose “honesty and humanity are impeccable.”
The university said that it made “a number of significant structural changes” following the McCarrick investigation, and noted that Reilly participated in it. He continued to serve in leadership roles “with the endorsement of the University’s leadership and the Archdiocese of Newark” and the Board of Regents unanimously selected him as president.
“Monsignor Reilly prioritizes the safety and wellbeing of students and seminarians at Seton Hall,” the university said in a statement. “As president, he shares the University’s unwavering commitment to fostering a safe and supportive environment for all members of our campus community.”
But a person with knowledge of the investigation, who was granted anonymity to discuss the confidential report, said “it doesn’t make any sense” that the university hired Reilly as president — especially since some current Board of Regents members, including the chairperson, were on the board when investigators detailed their findings about Reilly.
“These people have fucking memory loss,” the person said. “Did they think that what happened is never going to come back? Did they think it was going to disappear? It didn’t.”
The office of Tobin — who is also a member of the Vatican’s highest court, which sometimes adjudicates sex-related cases — did not respond to messages seeking comment sent over the last two weeks.
The McCarrick scandal
McCarrick led the Archdiocese of Newark from 1986 to 2000, when he was named archbishop of Washington, D.C. He became a cardinal the following year, despite decades of allegations that he had sexually abused children and seminarians. Since then, he has faced allegations across multiple states, and was stripped of his ministry.
The Vatican issued a 449-page report in 2020 that faulted multiple church leaders, including former Pope John Paul II, for allowing McCarrick to rise to the top rungs of Catholicism. He’s the first cardinal to be laicized — or removed from the priesthood — for sex crimes.
It was against that backdrop that Seton Hall hired two law firms — Gibbons, P.C. and Latham & Watkins — to review McCarrick’s “influence and actions” at the university during his 24 years leading the Newark archdiocese.
Seton Hall is a diocesan university within the Archdiocese of Newark, and the archbishop serves as president of the university’s Board of Regents and chair of the Board of Trustees. In the Roman Catholic Church, the archbishop of a diocese has the “ultimate” authority over it.
The university has not made the review public, instead releasing a summary that said the investigation revealed decades of sexual harassment and a “culture of fear and intimidation” under McCarrick. But the investigation’s written findings, reviewed by POLITICO, show sexual misconduct allegations extended beyond McCarrick. And although Reilly was not accused of abuse, the investigation found he knew about allegations on campus and appeared to be aware of rumors about McCarrick since his earliest days in the ministry.
Reilly — who attended high school at Seton Hall Prep and graduated from Seton Hall University — was ordained a priest in 1991. In 1994, he spent the year as secretary to McCarrick, according to the school’s investigators.
Investigators presented their findings verbally to the university Board of Regents in August 2019 and followed up that September with a written memo, which was reviewed by POLITICO.
It said that Reilly once went to McCarrick’s beach house but — because he had heard rumors of the archbishop sharing a bed with seminarians — made sure he stayed in a downstairs bedroom. The memo also said Reilly made sure seminarians didn’t visit the beach house alone.
Reilly became rector of the university’s College Seminary at St. Andrew’s Hall in 2002 and then, in 2012, rector and dean of Seton Hall’s Immaculate Conception Seminary, a high-ranking position that oversees the preparation of men for priesthood.
That year, he investigated a student complaint of sexual assault “in house” and did not report it or follow the school and federal Title IX policies and procedures, according to the memo. It said the seminarian who was accused of the abuse was dismissed, but the university was not alerted to issues that led to his departure and he continued as a student.
The memo also said Reilly dismissed a seminarian in 2012 who was an alleged victim of sexual abuse without investigating the incident or escalating the matter, a violation of university policy.
A Responsive Action Plan, which the university approved in August 2019, said any employee or board member “with knowledge of sexual misconduct claims involving ICS seminarians” could not continue to serve on any board or any leadership position if they had failed to report the conduct or take other actions required under the school’s sexual harassment policies.
After the memo was issued, the university formed a special task force committee to carry out disciplinary actions.
Reilly did not fully cooperate with investigators before they issued the September 2019 memo, but he then agreed to speak with them in January 2020, according to a separate document reviewed by POLITICO. During the interview, Reilly disclosed that he received information about a 2014 allegation of sexual harassment at St. Andrew’s Hall but did not report it and was instructed by the archdiocese not to answer questions about it. He did not, however, discuss the 2012 allegations in that interview.
The task force cited him for failure to report abusive conduct and recommended his removal from Seton Hall boards and leadership.
Reilly left the Board of Trustees and, in 2022, stepped down as dean of the seminary to take a sabbatical.
Presidential appointment
Reilly reportedly planned his return before taking that year-long break, having secured a different role as vice provost for academics and Catholic identity. Tobin and the president at the time, Joseph Nyre, said the university and archdiocese were “fortunate” to have Reilly as a spirit of Christ who enriches “our spiritual lives.”
Seton Hall’s Board of Regents is the school’s main governing body and is made up of about two dozen members or more. Many current members were on the board or named to it when investigators shared their findings, either verbally or in writing: Robert Basso; Most Rev. Kurt Burnette; Edward Cerny; Rev. James Checchio, who is bishop of the diocese of Metuchen; Richard Giuditta; Mike Lucciola, Anthony Masherelli; Stephen Waldis; Leo Zatta; and current chair Hank D’Alessandro.
The university named members to its presidential search committee in September 2023 — led by D’Alessandro, with the help of Cerny, Lucciola and Waldis. By March, the committee narrowed it down to three candidates who were not named.
After the early departure of Nyre, in 2023, the university tapped Reilly in July to become its 22nd leader. It restored the school’s longtime tradition of having a Catholic priest in charge.
