EAST AURORA (WBEN - Brendan Keany) - Robert Hoatson and James Faluszczak are two prominent advocates of child sex abuse victims, and they called a press conference Thursday afternoon in front of Christ the King Seminary in East Aurora, giving their take on an early-April incident that occurred at a Hamburg rectory.
On the evening of April 11, a social gathering of seminarians and priests took place at Saints Peter & Paul Parish Rectory in Hamburg. During this gathering, unsuitable, inappropriate and insensitive conversations occurred that were disturbing and offensive to several seminarians in attendance. The complaints did not include or infer any instance of physical sexual abuse of a minor or adult.
According to the Diocese of Buffalo, the seminarians appropriately reported their complaints, and the Seminary then investigated the allegations and passed the findings to Bishop Richard Malone.
As a result of the initial investigation, Bishop Malone placed each of the following priests on a temporary leave of absence from their parish assignments while disciplinary actions are taken:
• Rev. Arthur E. Mattulke, Pastor, Saints Peter & Paul, Hamburg• Rev. Patrick T. O’Keefe, Parochial Vicar, Saints Peter & Paul, Hamburg• Rev. Robert J. Orlowski, Pastor, Our Mother of Good Counsel, Blasdell
However, Hoatson and Faluszczak are not convinced that the whistleblowers from this incident have been being treated correctly by the diocese.
"During our conference call last Monday, the whistleblowers were infuriated that seminarians were being treated the way they were being treated here in the Buffalo Diocese, and it's typical of the way the church treats whistleblowers," said Hoatson, who is the president of the New Jersey-based nonprofit, Road to Recovery. "In 2003, I was fired for speaking at the New York State Senate, and three days later the bishop fired me when I called for the resignation of any bishop who has covered up sex abuse."
There were claims that Interim Rector Father John Staak and Academic Dean Michael Sherry, who previously served as a police officer, aggressively went after some of the seminarians and interrogated them to find the supposed mole who leaked the testimony (WARNING: Graphic Content) of one of the seminarians to Channel 7.
"We're here today because these young men need the support, not only of whistleblowers who are in the church, but also the general public and Catholics in the Diocese of Buffalo," said Hoatson. "It is outrageous that anybody would interrogate these young men who experienced such trauma."
In an unexpected meeting prior to the press conference, Staak spoke to Hoatson, Faluszczak and the media. Staak denied there was ever an investigation into the leaked testimony.
"We want them to have the opportunity to share their narrative; that's why we went through the process the way we did," said Staak. "How things got distorted - I have no idea. But there was no leak investigation."
Staak also had a response for Hoatson, who asked why a former police officer would be doing the questioning if it wasn't an interrogation.
"We don't have a lot of staff...and we have three people who receive these reports...and one of them was the priest who had served as a deacon for Saints Peter & Paul, so he recused himself for that reason," said Staak. "The dean is the other one, and there was another one who happens to be the registrar, and she was not involved in that, so the dean took it."
"As the rector insisted that there was not an interrogation, I can say that, for the slightest infraction, any way that you would stick your neck out in any kind of doctrinal way or thoughtful way to do something of a different pastoral nature or suggest a different approach, even mildly, let alone any kind of egregious behavior, the par for the course was to be hauled in multiple times and to be questioned by multiple people," said Faluszczak, who graduated from Christ the King Seminary in 1995. "This [incident] strikes us as a form of harassment of whistleblowers."