Sex abuse victims meet with Gallup's review board

Joseph Baca, right, SNAP director for Northern Arizona and Western New Mexico, and Steve M. Rabi, director of the New Mexico Survivor's Network of those Abused by Priests, discuss the meeting they had on Saturday, July 30 with the Gallup Diocesan Review Board for Juvenile Sexual Abuse. [Photo by John A. Bowersmith/Independent]

Editor's Note: In today's Independent, the newspaper talks to two representatives of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests about their recent meeting with the Gallup Diocesan Review Board for Juvenile Sexual Abuse. In Tuesday's Independent, the newspaper will print an updated list of confirmed sexually abusive priests who have been associated with the Diocese of Gallup.

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Two representatives of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests met on Saturday for the first time with members of the Gallup Diocesan Review Board for Juvenile Sexual Abuse.

Steve M. Rabi, director of New Mexico SNAP, and Joseph Baca, director of Northern Arizona and Western New Mexico SNAP, met with the review board at the chancery office of the Gallup Diocese.

Rabi, of Albuquerque, N.M., is not a sexual abuse victim from the Diocese of Gallup. According to Rabi, he was abused in his home state of New Jersey, but he has been a New Mexico resident for many years. He retired from the Bernalillo Sheriff's Department, he said, after a career in law enforcement.

Baca, of Phoenix, Ariz., says he was sexually abused in the early 1970s in the Diocese of Gallup by the late Father Clement A. Hageman, who was then assigned to a parish in Winslow, Ariz. Baca has received a settlement from the Gallup Diocese, but he and diocese officials have declined to share with The Independent the amount or details of that settlement.

According to Rabi and Baca, review board members in attendance at Saturday's meeting included Board Chairwoman Margie Trujillo of Farmington, N.M. and members Floyd Kezele and Dr. Steve Heath of Gallup, and Father Jerry Herff of Kayenta, Ariz.

Sister Mary Thurlough, the victims assistance coordinator for the diocese, was not in attendance.

The Independent did not attempt to solicit comments from review board members for this article because they have a policy of not speaking with the media. The board will respond to written questions, but its past response time has been as quickly as four days to as slowly as three and one-half months.

The Independent did have telephone interviews with Rabi and Baca on Thursday and also met with them after their meeting with the review board.

Website weakness
According to the SNAP representatives, the review board met with them for nearly four hours, during which Rabi and Baca each shared their own stories of their abuse, Rabi made a presentation on the SNAP organization, and both groups discussed several issues.

"They were accommodating, and I think that was a positive thing," said Rabi.

This was Rabi's first meeting with representatives from the Diocese of Gallup. He had not been allowed to meet with Bishop Donald E. Pelotte or Chancellor Timoteo Lujan during their meeting in May of this year with Baca and three other sexual abuse victims. In a Nov. 6, 2004 article about Father Thomas Maikowski, The Independent published an excerpt from a press release issued by Rabi. That article, and Rabi's comments in particular, set off a firestorm of letters to the editor from both supporters and critics of Pelotte, chancery officials, SNAP, and the newspaper.

With his invitation to Saturday's meeting, Rabi brought his concern about how the Diocese of Gallup reaches out to possible victims via the Internet. Rabi said the diocese's website has no obvious link to information for victims of sexual abuse nor information about how they can file complaints.

"You have to hunt high and low to find the darn thing...," he said. "It's hard to navigate."

The Gallup Diocese's homepage and website are changed on a fairly frequent basis. As of Saturday, visitors to the website would have to click on the "site map" link to find another link entitled "The Protection of Children and Youth." Nothing about the diocesan sexual abuse policy is listed on the homepage.

For comparison purposes, The Independent visited the websites of six other nearby western dioceses and archdioceses. The Archdiocese of Denver, the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, the Diocese of Phoenix and the Diocese of Tucson all had that information linked in prominent positions on their homepages. The Tucson Diocese even had that information linked to www.usacops.com so victims could have contact information for every police and sheriff department in Arizona.

The website for New Mexico's Diocese of Las Cruces was slightly more difficult than Gallup's to navigate, and the website for Colorado's Diocese of Pueblo was the worst. The Independent had to do a Google search to find the name and phone number of Pueblo's victims assistance coordinator.

Rabi said the review board members were receptive to his criticism and indicated they would recommend that website change to chancery officials.

Discussion topics
Rabi and Baca said the group also discussed the procedure for handling allegations of abuse involving priests from religious orders, such as the Franciscans. Unlike diocesan priests who answer to their bishop, religious order priests answer to their provincial even though they may work in a diocese under a bishop. The first priests to serve in what is now the Diocese of Gallup were Franciscans, and the diocese still has many Franciscan priests and brothers serving here, notably on Indian reservations and in Gallup's St. Francis of Assisi Parish.

According to Rabi, he has recently received a number of allegations against Franciscans who once served in the Diocese of Gallup. The review board members, he said, told him that diocese officials and Father Larry C. Dunham, the Minister Provincial for the Franciscan Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Albuquerque, should be cross-sharing all information about allegations, the review board should be notified, and Gallup's victims assistance coordinator should be making outreach efforts to the victims.

One subject that did not get discussed was a list of priests who have credible allegations of abuse against them. In the May 2005 meeting with Pelotte, Baca presented the bishop with the names of 18 priests that Baca suggested were possible abusers. Pelotte promised to look into the background of each man and publish the names of those with credible allegations in Gallup's diocesan newspaper. Ten of the men were then listed in the June 2005 issue of the newspaper. But two men who have been previously identified publicly as abusers were omitted.

Rabi and Baca said time limitations prevented discussion of the list. They also did not discuss what measures the Diocese of Gallup has taken to reach out to possible Native American victims in the diocese's many Indian communities something Pelotte agreed to do in the May 2005 meeting.

Rabi and Baca said their priority for this meeting was to let the review board learn more about them and the mission of SNAP. Rabi said the meeting also gave him a better understanding of the review board.

"You have to understand," he said, "the review board is actually an advisory board. They really don't have any teeth." Rabi added that unlike other diocesan review boards, members of the Gallup board are strictly volunteer and receive no money for their time or travel expenses. The final authority behind the Gallup Diocese's sexual abuse policy and response to victims lies with the bishop, he added.

Next victim outreach
Both Rabi and Baca expressed satisfaction with the meeting and the review board's response to them. "It's a step in the right direction," said Baca.

"We have a lot to prove to each other," admitted Rabi, who said the Diocese of Gallup has to prove it's sincere in its efforts to reach out to victims, and SNAP has to prove that it's not out to destroy the Catholic Church.

"A lot of people think we're anti-Catholic and anti-Church," said Baca in the Thursday interview, "so we want to get that point across." In previous interviews, Baca has talked about his return to the Catholic Church and the fact that his wife serves as a Eucharistic minister in their parish.

"If they'll just have truth, compassion, and want the same thing we want justice then the church can heal," Rabi added.

According to Rabi and Baca, the next major diocesan outreach to sexual abuse victims will be a special Mass of Reconciliation for victims at St. Joseph's Church in Winslow, Ariz. on Sunday, Sept. 18. Pelotte will celebrate the Mass, and members of the review board are scheduled to be on hand if any victim would like to talk with them. Winslow was apparently chosen because of the number of sexually abusive priests assigned to its two churches.

Editor's Note: Rabi can be reached at (505) 280-3369 or steve-rabi@snap-newmexico.org, and Baca can be reached at (602) 692-1958 or sixtoejoseph@msn.com. The national SNAP website is www.snapnetwork.org. Sister Mary Thurlough, the victims assistance coordinator, can be contacted at (505) 722-4407. The Gallup Diocesan Review Board for Juvenile Sexual Abuse can be contacted by mail only: P.O. Box 3932, Gallup, N.M. 87305.

— Reporter Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola can be contacted at (505) 863-6811 ext. 218 or ehardinburrola@yahoo.com.