LEADERSHIP DISREGARD: At least 10 priests served despite abuse

For most of its 46-year history, the Diocese of Oakland was led by two men. One did not want even his closest advisers to know that his priests had molested children. The other, his subordinates say, was happier not knowing.

Bishops Floyd Begin, who served until his death in 1977, and John Cummins, who took over for Begin and served until 2003, had vastly different leadership styles, but the result was identical: Priests accused of child molestation were allowed to serve in parishes after they were reported to diocese officials. Some of them continued to abuse again and again.

In a series of depositions obtained by MediaNews reporters, former diocese leaders described a system that allowed at least 10 accused priests to remain in ministry for years -- sometimes decades -- after sexual misconduct was reported.

Molestation complaints were kept secret from other clergy and the community. Accused priests were sent away for treatment and then returned to the diocese to serve in other parishes.

Diocese officials did not contact police about the allegations until such reporting became required by law in 1997.

"It wasn't our practice" to report accused priests to law enforcement, the Rev. George Crespin, a former chancellor who was in charge of clergy personnel from 1979 to 1987, testified in a 2005 deposition. "That wasn't what we did."

Even on the handful of occasions when parents and neighbors reported abuse to police in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the cases were resolved without the priests serving a day in prison.

"The people in our office had very good associations with district attorneys' offices by and large," Cummins testified in a 2005 deposition. "It was kind of a mutual collaboration, which I think was a very healthy relationship."

"Healthy for whom?" plaintiffs' attorney Jeffrey Anderson asked in the deposition.

"For the association of the diocese and the district attorneys or the police, and then I think for the managing of the situation," Cummins replied.

Most of the time, however, complaints were made only to diocese officials -- and went nowhere.

"In Little League, if there is a molestation, the coaches are out of there," said attorney Rick Simons, who represented numerous victims of priest sexual abuse in Northern California. "But a coach isn't God's representative on earth like a priest. People take that seriously. With the church, when (abuse) was reported, (the victims) were just ignored."

'Too free with boys'

On May 22, 1975, two parents came to Bishop Begin with shocking news.

Their sons had been molested by the Rev. Robert Ponciroli, a parish priest at St. Cornelius in Richmond, they said. One boy was in seventh grade, the other in fifth grade.

The seventh-grader "reported to his parents that (Ponciroli) pulled out his shirt, stuck his hand inside his pants," Begin wrote in a confidential, self-addressed memo after the meeting. His brother "reports to his parents that (Ponciroli) 'took my pants down, touched my privates.'"

It was not the first warning about Ponciroli. The previous month, a group of boys had delivered a petition to the pastor of St. Cornelius, the Rev. Gabriel Meyer, protesting Ponciroli's habit of "tickling them and rubbing them." The Rev. Brian Joyce, the chancellor then, also had received calls indicating that Ponciroli was "too free with boys, especially altar boys," according to Begin's memo.

In response, the bishop sent Ponciroli to a San Francisco psychiatrist and transferred him, first to St. Jarlath parish in Oakland, and then to Our Lady of Grace in Castro Valley. The pattern would continue for most of the next quarter-century, as Ponciroli was moved to five more parishes, allegedly abusing several more children along the way.

Among those children were Bob and Tom Thatcher, devout Catholic brothers who served as altar boys at St. Ignatius in Antioch, where Ponciroli was pastor in the early 1980s.

"I didn't know what it meant, but it was something ... really wrong," Bob Thatcher said about the abuse in testimony during a 2005 civil trial. "It was like a shock wave in me, and I just kept hoping it would be over."

A jury awarded the Thatchers more than $1.9 million.

The parishioners at St. Ignatius and other parishes were never told about Ponciroli's past. The abuse at St. Cornelius was never reported to law enforcement. Begin never even told Joyce or other diocese leaders.

"He was an old-school bishop," Joyce said of Begin in a deposition.

"He was in charge and did not see sharing with others (as) a mandate."

'Overriding sickness'

Born in Cleveland in 1902, Begin was ordained in 1927, rising to the position of auxiliary bishop in his hometown 20 years later. In January 1962, he was appointed bishop of the newly formed Diocese of Oakland.

When it came to personnel issues, Begin "mostly reserved a lot of decisions to himself," testified Crespin, who served on the personnel board under Begin.

"He was the one who dealt more directly with the priests in his time. We made recommendations as a board, but then he pretty much did what he wanted later."