Cardinal’s name surfaces in ’05 settlement, raising issues
Wuerl has said he was unaware of the legal agreement.
WASHINGTON — Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who has said repeatedly that he didn’t know about years of sexual misconduct complaints involving his predecessor in the District of Columbia, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, was named in a 2005 settlement agreement that included allegations against McCarrick, according to the accuser in the case and documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Robert Ciolek, who left the priesthood and later became an attorney, spoke for the first time publicly this summer about the $80,000 settlement he reached in June 2005 with three New Jersey dioceses over his allegations against McCarrick and a teacher at his Catholic high school. McCarrick led the church in Newark and Metuchen before coming to the District in 2001; Ciolek’s high school was in New Jersey as well.
In an interview with The Post this month, Ciolek said for the first time publicly that the settlement included allegations against a third person, a Pittsburgh priest Ciolek says made unwanted sexual contact with him in seminary, where the priest was a professor. The first page of the settlement agreement lists the Diocese of Pittsburgh and Wuerl, who supervised the priest as bishop of Pittsburgh at the time, among the numerous parties to the settlement. The agreement was signed by Ciolek and the three New Jersey dioceses.
Ciolek shared a copy of the settlement with The Post.
The presence of Wuerl’s name on Ciolek’s settlement agreement raises questions about the cardinal’s assertion that he did not know about any allegations against McCarrick before they became a topic of public discussion this summer.
Wuerl’s D.C. spokesman, Ed McFadden, said this week that Wuerl had been unaware of the legal agreement.
“As he has stated consistently ... Cardinal Wuerl had no knowledge of the settlements until the existence of the settlements was made public” this summer, McFadden said.
Pope Francis in June suspended McCarrick, a hugely popular cleric known as a prolific fundraiser for the church, after he was accused of groping an altar boy. Since his suspension, another alleged young victim has surfaced, as have years of rumors about McCarrick’s alleged inappropriate treatment of seminarians and young priests.
McCarrick has made no comment about the various allegations against him since the first allegation. At the time, he said he had no memory of the incident and maintained his innocence, but accepted the pope’s decision.
An increasingly vocal segment of Catholics in D.C. have expressed skepticism about Wuerl’s claim that he didn’t know about either the rumors about McCarrick’s alleged behavior or the settlements, and they have demanded more transparency. A bombshell letter in August from former Vatican ambassador Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, alleging Wuerl knew about sexual misconduct accusations against McCarrick has intensified the skepticism. The letter, which offered no proof, came shortly after a detailed grand jury report by Pennsylvania prosecutors described rampant cover-up in the Catholic church of clergy sex abuse — including mishandling of cases by Wuerl, when he was bishop for the Diocese of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006.
Wuerl issued a statement right after the letter from Vigano, denying the allegations in the letter - including that Vigano himself had communicated about McCarrick’s misconduct to Wuerl. The statement suggested the Vatican investigate Vigano, along with McCarrick.
Ciolek said he waited to publicly discuss the Pittsburgh connection in his settlement until after he sought legal permission from the Diocese of Pittsburgh to speak about it. He spoke to various media earlier this summer about the other two alleged abusers — McCarrick and his high school teacher — after his name spread and the New Jersey dioceses released him from the document’s confidentiality clause.
Asked what Pittsburgh knew about the Ciolek settlement, the diocese initially put out a statement saying it was unaware that it was mentioned on the document.
“The Diocese of Pittsburgh was surprised to learn in early July 2018 that it was named as a release in the settlement agreement with Mr. Ciolek. The Diocese of Pittsburgh was not a party to this agreement and was not a signatory,” the diocese said in a statement. “This summer, when Mr. Ciolek asked the Diocese of Pittsburgh to be released from a confidentiality provision, the diocese responded that since we hadn’t signed the agreement we had no authority to release him.”
The Post also asked whether anyone on the Pittsburgh staff was told about Ciolek’s allegations against his alleged abusers, which included McCarrick. Ann Rodgers, a spokeswoman for the Pittsburgh diocese, answered that the staff did not know, then or now “about the settlement until early July 2018.”