Eight Westfield, Cranford Priests Are On 'Credibly Accused' List

WESTFIELD AND CRANFORD, NJ — The journalism site ProPublica, a Patch partner, recently released the most comprehensive list so far of Catholic clergy "credibly accused" of sexual abuse. The list includes eight accused abusers who at some point worked in Westfield or Cranford.

The searchable database — which includes nearly 200 priests accused from the dioceses of Newark, Metuchen, Trenton, Camden, and Paterson — comes on the heels of newer news reports identifying hundreds of "predator" priests across the state.

Here are the priests on the list with Westfield and Cranford ties:

Gerald Ruane

Status: Deceased
Birth Year: 1934
Ordination year: 1960
Reported assignment history:

• Holy Trinity, Westfield
• Sacred Heart Institute, West Caldwell
• Chaplain - Caldwell College, Caldwell
• Our Lady of Lourdes, West Orange

John Capparelli

Status: Permanently removed from ministry/laicized; deceased
Birth Year: 1948
Ordination year: 1980
Reported assignment history:

• Our Lady of Fatima, North Bergen
• Oratory Prep, Summit
• Holy Trinity, Westfield
• St. Theresa, Kenilworth
• Temporary Chaplain - Valley Hospital, Ridgewood

John Flanagan

Status: Deceased
Birth Year: 1913
Ordination year: 1941
Reported assignment history:

• St. Bernard, Plainfield
• Chaplain - St. Francis Hospital, Jersey City
• Holy Rosary, Edgewater
• Holy Trinity, Westfield
• Our Lady of All Souls, East Orange

James A. Carey

Status: Deceased
Birth Year: 1906
Ordination year: 1936
Reported assignment history:

• Christ the King, Jersey City
• US Army
• Seton Hall University, South Orange
• Chaplain, St. Elizabeth Hospital, Elizabeth
• Chaplain, St. Mary Hospital
• Immaculate Conception, Montclair
• Oratory Prep, Summit
• Holy Trinity, Westfield
• St. Michael Church, Jersey City

Richard Mieliwocki

Status: Permanently removed from ministry/Laicized
Birth Year: 1946
Ordination year: 1972
Reported assignment history:

• Chaplain - Roselle Catholic
• St. Joseph The Carpenter, Roselle
• Most Holy Name, Garfield
• Our Lady of Sorrows, South Orange
• Holy Trinity, Westfield
• Nativity, Midland Park

William McCann

Status: Deceased
Birth Year: 1899
Ordination year: 1925
Reported assignment history:

• St. Aloysius, Jersey City
• Holy Trinity, Westfield
• Ss.Peter and Paul, Hoboken
• Army Chaplain
• Our Lady Help of Christians, East Orange
• St. Francis, Ridgefield Park
• St. Philomena, Livingston

Alan Guglielmo

Status: Permanently removed from ministry
Birth Year: 1942
Ordination year: 1968
Reported assignment history:

• Immaculate Conception, Secaucus
• St. Anthony of Padua, Newark
• Chaplain - Columbus Hospital, Newark
• Chaplain - St. Michael Medical Center, Newark
• St. Valentine, Bloomfield
• Chaplain - Mountainside Hospital, Montclair
• Chaplain - Clara Maas Hospital, Belleville
• Sacred Heart, Lyndhurst
• Chaplain, St. Mary Hospital, Hoboken
• St. Mary, Jersey City
• Spiritual DIrector, CYO Hudson, Jersey City
• Chaplain - Hudson Catholic Regional HS, Jersey City
• St. Aedan's the St. Peter's University Church, Jersey City
• St. Michael, Union
• Roselle Catholic, Roselle
• Mother Seton Regional High School, Clark
• St. Helen, Westfield
• Assumption, Roselle Park

James T. Benedetto

Status: Permanently removed from ministry
Birth Year: 1944
Ordination year: 1970
Reported assignment history:

• St. Antoninus, Newark
• St. Catherine of Siena, Cedar Grove
• St. Michael, Cranford
• Our Lady of Lourdes, Mountainside
• Assumption, Emerson

Along with the list, ProPublica outlined the challenges of identifying offenders long after such widespread abuse became known. The database is a collection of 178 lists released by U.S. dioceses and religious orders as of Jan. 20. There are still more than 40 dioceses and religious orders that have not released information, including five out of seven Florida dioceses.

New Jersey enacted a law last month that extends the statute of limitations in civil actions on sexual abuse claims, creating a two-year window to file cases for which the statute of limitations had previously expired. A number of law firms have announced they were filing lawsuits.

Attorneys from Rebenack, Aronow & Mascolo, LLP and Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala PLLC (PCVA) said they planned to file 38 lawsuits on behalf of dozens of abuse survivors.

The ProPublica project was prompted by a massive grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania that was described by Associated Press as the "biggest and most exhaustive ever" into priest sex abuse by an individual state. The investigation revealed many priests admitted to their actions and were allowed to continue in the ministry for years despite having confessed to molesting children.