Diocese of Burlington ACCUSED PRIESTS

The Diocese of Burlington comprises the entire State of Vermont and serves more than 100,000 Catholics. Following the Boston Globe’s explosive 2002 report of widespread clergy abuse and the cover-up by the Catholic Church, many dioceses throughout the country began investigating allegations of clergy abuse. As a result, numerous states, including Vermont, passed laws extending the deadlines for people to file civil lawsuits for child sexual abuse.

In 2019, the Diocese of Burlington hired a committee of seven Vermont laypeople to investigate and compile a list of priests in the Diocese who have been credibly accused of child sexual abuse. All of the allegations of abuse, except for one, happened before 2000. The Diocese released the list in August 2019, naming priests who were assigned to Vermont parishes and abused children in those parishes.

One of the listed priests was Father Edward Foster. One of his accusers, now 66-year-old John Mahoney, claims that Foster repeatedly sexually abused him starting when Mahoney was in eighth grade. The molestation reportedly started when Foster took Mahoney on a trip to Montreal for a so-called “wellness study.”

During the study, which involved exercise, Foster would tell Mahoney to take off his clothes and then proceed to give the young boy a “rub-down.” Although Foster is now dead, Mahoney stated that releasing Foster’s name as an abusive priest has given Mahoney some closure.

In another story of child sexual abuse in the Diocese of Burlington, former parishioner Mike Gay claims that, at age 11, he walked into a room at the Church to find Father Edward Paquette standing in front of him, fully exposed with his pants down to his ankles. This was his first day serving as an altar boy at Christ the King Church in Burlington. According to Gay, Paquette was testing him to see if he would tell anyone.

Gay claims that for years, after each mass in which he served as an altar boy, Paquette would molest him. Gay’s trauma later led him to abuse alcohol and even contemplate suicide. Gay filed a lawsuit against the Diocese in 2004 and later settled with the Church for around $900,000.

In one of the most horrific stories of Catholic Church abuse in Vermont, former members of St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington claim that, for decades, nuns at the orphanage tortured, sexually abused, and even murdered children in their care. The Catholic Church settled numerous civil lawsuits, but no victims ever brought criminal charges.
The stories about the orphanage came to light during a 2018 investigation into clergy abuse. Former orphanage members allege that nuns forced them to stay outside all night during thunderstorms, hit the children with rulers until their hands bled, and slammed children’s heads against walls, blackboards, and desks. An article in Buzzfeed even recounts stories of nuns murdering children in the orphanage.

To date, the Diocese has settled around 50 cases, paying out approximately $31 million to Vermont victims. In conjunction with forming an investigating committee digging into priest sexual abuse, Vermont Catholic Bishop Christopher Coyne also released victims from non-disclosure agreements they had signed when settling prior cases.

Reports of decades-old abuse by priests in the Diocese continue. As recently as July 2021, a parishioner came forward to allege that a former priest, Father Roger W. Carlin, who died in 1980, molested him in 1966 and 1967 when he was only nine years old. The man, now in his 60s, alleges that Carlin sexually molested him at St. John Vianney Church in South Burlington. Carlin had not been named in the list of credibly accused priests.

If you or someone you love experienced sex abuse at the Diocese of Burlington, contact the passionate and knowledgeable lawyers at Herman Law today for a free consultation.