AP Reports Jesuits Provided Housing to Alleged Sexual Abuser Priests on Gonzaga University Campus for Decades

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For several decades, the Jesuit order used Gonzaga University’s campus to provide housing for priests who had been dismissed from actively serving in the priesthood. According to a report recently published by the Center for Investigative Reporting and republished by the Associated Press, the reason for the removal of these priests was often traced back to allegations of sexual abuse.

The report states that the Jesuit order’s Oregon Province sent at least 20 Jesuit priests who had been accused of sexual misconduct to the university, in most cases during the same time they were active in the order’s missions in isolated Alaska villages populated by indigenous people as well as Indian reservations located in the northwestern U.S.

These priests were housed in a building located on the campus which is referred to as the “Cardinal Bea House,” situated on the Gonzaga campus but belonging to the Jesuit order itself instead of the university.

It is noted in the report that one of the most infamous abusers who came to live on campus had a strong supporter – one who is currently vice president of Gonzaga, Father Frank Case, who was then the head of the Jesuits’ Oregon Province. In 1989, Case penned a glowing letter of recommendation for the abuser priest’s appointment to a hospital chaplaincy position, mentioning that the priest happened to be in “very good standing” with the order, regardless of the fact that the priest had already been discharged from his position in Alaska due to accusations of sexual abuse.

Located in Spokane, Washington, Gonzaga was founded by the Jesuit order in 1887. Quite the liberal school, Gonzaga recently blocked a suggested speaking opportunity for the conservative and pro-life Jewish commentator Ben Shapiro, asserting its consideration for the safety of “vulnerable members of our community who may be targeted for discrimination, ridicule, or harassment by others” as a result of Shapiro’s visit.

The Jesuit order, whose full name is the “Society of Jesus,” was well-known for its defense of Catholic orthodoxy, and its priests were held to high standards as missionaries and educators. In the last 60 years, though, the order has adopted a far-left political and social outlook opposed to Catholic teaching. It is now well-known for priests who blatantly attack Catholic sexual morality and advocate a redefinition of the Catholic faith along ideological lines. Its membership is in sharp decline; in Europe and the USA it has only half the membership it did decades ago in 1988.

Alleged abusers supposedly had access to students, regardless of supposed efforts to hinder it 

While the order says it took steps to stop the priests from committing further acts of abuse while staying on the Gonzaga campus, it has declined to disclose any details of those steps to the public, the authors of the report state. In addition, they offer evidence that the priests had access to students on campus.

The 20 priests who were housed made up only a fraction of the total number of priests accused of sexual abuse in the Oregon Province, which reportedly totaled 92, a number far greater than in any other province of the Jesuit order.

The Jesuits maintain that they cleared out all abusive priests from the Cardinal Bea House by 2016, relocating them to the Sacred Heart Jesuit Center in Los Gatos, California. Even that action, though, has ended in a lawsuit after a particular Jesuit who had been an abuse victim and was living at the Sacred Heart Center was not allowed to transfer to another establishment once he became aware that the abusers would be living there. In response, he took his own life. 

Decades of coverups and massive payouts

The report brings to light an ongoing pattern of coverups and tossing aside warnings regarding Jesuit priests working with indigenous people, who were particularly susceptible to abuse.

One of these priests was Father James Poole. Typically seen as a “cool priest” Poole founded a Catholic radio station in Nome, Alaska, that played a mix of rock ’n’ roll music and his sermons in the 1970s. People magazine called the priest “Western Alaska’s Hippest DJ … Comin’ at Ya with Rock’n’Roll ’n’ Religion,” in an article published in 1978.

Despite his hipster image and reputation in the Jesuit order for unsuitable behavior with girls and women and an “obsession” with sex, he maintained his position for decades while he sexually abused a total of 20 women and girls, some as young as six years old, the article states.

Poole was removed from the radio station after multiple women notified his superior of the abuse. The Jesuits, however, permitted Poole to continue serving as a priest. They Jesuits moved him into a hospital chaplaincy post. Poole received a recommendation for a hospital chaplaincy position by Fr. Frank Case, who was then the head of the Oregon Province of the Jesuits, and is now a vice president of Gonzaga.

“[Poole] is a Jesuit priest in very good standing, and it is my strong expectation that he will serve in such a ministry in a manner that is both generous and effective,” Fr. Case penned in the 1988 letter. Poole held the chaplaincy position until 2003.

Case went on to allege in a 2008 deposition that he hadn’t viewed Poole’s personnel file prior to writing the letter since “he had no indication of misconduct” by Poole. He later claimed to reporters that he didn’t have access to Poole’s personnel file.

After Alaskan victims filed lawsuits against Poole, the priest supposedly admitted to the sexual abuse in a deposition to the court, but said that he thought he was “bringing love into the life of other persons.”

The Jesuit order was eventually forced to pay millions of dollars to Poole’s numerous victims. By 2009, the overall payout for all alleged cases of sexual misconduct by Jesuit priests in the Oregon Province was said to be $166 million, an overwhelming number which led to a bankruptcy filing that year by the province.

Poole spent several of the final years of his life in retirement at Gonzaga following the payouts before passing away earlier in 2018. 

Gonzaga’s president says he had no knowledge of the abusers’ presence on campus

Gonzaga’s president, Thayne M. McCulloh, released a statement to the press in the aftermath of the investigative report, stating that he did not know of the presence of sexual abusers on campus, but said that that he had been informed in 2011 that some such priests had been there beforehand and had been relocated.

McCulloh conveyed anguish over the sexual abuse and lamented the presence of the accused priests on the campus, but did not mention the article’s reference to Gonzaga Vice President Frank Case, and his role in facilitating the transfer of Fr. James Poole to his chaplaincy assignment following Poole’s removal from Alaska.

“Listening to this broadcast and reading these accounts is deeply disturbing and elicits for me feelings of sadness, disgust and betrayal that I know must be shared by all of you as well,” stated McCulloh.

“I feel so much sadness and anger for the women, men and children who were victimized by Poole and others, and all those who have been sexually assaulted by ordained priests who abused their power and privilege,” McCulloh wrote, noting that he and others that shared ties to the university were “deeply wounded by the revelations of the sexual abuse of children, men, and women” by Jesuits.

Photo courtesy: Josh Applegate/Unsplash