Four Priests With Woodbridge Ties On 'Credibly Accused' List

WOODBRIDGE, NJ — The journalism site ProPublica, a Patch partner, recently released the most comprehensive list to date of Catholic clergy "credibly accused" of sexual abuse. The list includes four priests — all of whom have been credibly accused of abuse — that have ties to Catholic churches in Woodbridge.

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

Here are the priests on the ProPublic list with Woodbridge/Iselin ties:

Michael Cashman Multiple accusations of sexual assault made against him. Removed from the ministry by the Catholic church.

Birth Year: 1950
Ordination year: 1975
Reported assignment history:

• Immaculate Conception, Spotswood
• Our Lady of Peace, North Brunswick
• Sacred Heart, New Brunswick
• St. James, Woodbridge

Francis D. Bruno Bruno was accused of sexually assaulting a former alter boy at the Stella Maris Retreat on Long Beach Island. He has been removed from the ministry.

Birth Year: 1948
Ordination year: 1974
Reported assignment history:

• Our Lady of Good Counsel, W. Trenton
• St. Mary, New Monmouth
• St. James, Woodbridge
• St. Martha, Point. Pleasant
• St. Joachim, Trenton

Thomas A. Rittenhouse

Status: Deceased
Birth Year: 1949
Ordination year: 1976
Reported assignment history:

• St. Denis, Manasquan
• St. James, Woodbridge
• St. Anthony, Hamilton
• Holy Cross, Rumson
• St. Anthony of Padua, Hightstown
• St. Clement, Matawan
• St. Agnes, Atlantic Highlands
• St. Peter, Riverside

Thomas Ganley In 2019, he admitted to sexually abusing a 17-year-old girl at Saint Cecelia Church in Iselin. He was sentenced to four years in state prison for the crime. Ganley is unique because he is the first religious figure in New Jersey to be charged by the Clergy Abuse Task Force. This is a hotline that abuse victims can call into and report abuse, even if it happened decades earlier. The hotline was created last year by state Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal. You may have seen ads for it on the back of buses and elsewhere.

Ganley, now 63, had since moved to Phillipsburg in western New Jersey and he was arrested at his home in January of 2019. At the time of his arrest, he was still working as a priest, assigned to Saint Philip & Saint James Church in Phillipsburg. New Jersey's statute of limitations has been amended for certain sex crimes, and it applied in this case, which allowed Ganley to be prosecuted.

In the '90s, Ganley instructed the teenage girl in the youth ministry at Saint Cecelia's.

His victim, now an adult woman, called the hotline's number just two days after it launched, to allege that Ganley had sexually assaulted her as a teen. That hotline number is 855-363-6548, and it is staffed by trained professionals and operated on a 24/7 basis. More than 480 calls have been received through the hotline to date, according to the attorney general's office.

Ganley pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual assault in April. The priest admitted that he engaged in sexual acts with the victim when she was 16 or 17 years old.

Assignment history:

• St. Ann, Raritan
• St. Cecilia, Monmouth Junction
• St. Matthew, Edison
• Immaculate Conception, Spotswood
• St. Cecelia, Iselin
• Our Lady of Fatima, Piscataway
• Sacred Heart, South Plainfield
• St. Ann, Raritan
• St. Philip and St. James, Phillipsburg

New Jersey enacted a law in 2019 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.

Related: Full List Released Of NJ Catholic Clergy Accused Of Sex Assault