Report Accuses LI's New Bishop Of Protecting Child Molester

A report released this week by a grand jury in Pennsylvania detailing decades of sexual abuse in churches around the state claims that Bishop John Barres, who now oversees the Diocese of Rockville Centre, helped protect an accused child molester who was a priest at a parish in Barres's former diocese. The bishop, however, says that the report misinterpreted his actions, and that he was not defending the priest.

The report, which was released on Tuesday, was the result of a grand jury investigation into decades of allegations against priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses. Priests "were raping little boys and girls and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing: They hid it all," the report stated.

More than 300 priests were identified in the dioceses of Pittsburgh, Greensburg, Erie, Harrisburg, Scranton and Allentown, where Barres served as bishop before he was appointed to head the Rockville Centre diocese last year.

Barres is named in connection to Father Michael Lawrence, a priest who was twice accused of molesting boys, once in 1982 and again in 2009, when Barres was in charge of the diocese. In the most recent case, Lawrence was accused of groping a 13-year-old boy while helping him get into a costume for a church production. While Lawrence admitted to molesting a boy in 1982, he disputed the 2009 claim, saying that he believed the boy to be 16 or older, and that he did not grope him. If he touched him, Lawrence claimed, it was an accident while helping the boy put on his costume.

Lawrence had retired in 2002, when news of widespread abuse in the Catholic Church first began to become known. However, he remained in active ministry in the diocese, and was granted a pension and healthcare benefits. The report says that, while Lawrence was still active in the diocese, no warnings were given to parishioners that he was a confessed child molester.

In 2014, in response to a report about Lawrence, Barres wrote a letter to the Vatican, stating that he had "prayed over the matter" did not believe Barres should be defrocked, and that he should keep his retirement status. Furthermore, the report says that there was no indication Barres notified the Vatican about the early claim against Lawrence, nor his confession.

Lawrence died in 2015.

You can read the massive report here. Barres' letter is located on page 62.

In a statement, Barres disputed the findings of the report, saying that he did notify the Vatican about Lawrence's previous behavior. The letter cited in the report was just one part of a continued correspondence between Barres and the Vatican, the Diocese of Rockville Centre said, which cites his previous divulging of the claims against Lawrence.

Barres says that he did recommend that Lawrence keep his position, not to protect him, but to protect others. The statement says that Lawrence was living in a "secure and carefully monitored" home for sex offenders. Barres says that if Lawrence were defrocked, he would be removed from the facility, and could pose a danger to others.

"Bishop Barres stands by this decision," the Diocese of Rockville Centre said in its statement. "Although he did not know Lawrence personally, his advisers who knew Lawrence unanimously thought Lawrence might present a danger to children if he was not kept at the secure facility and all therefore concluded that keeping him at the secure facility was the highest priority."

Barres took over for Bishop William Murphy in January, 2017. He had served as the bishop in the Diocese of Allentown since 2009 before taking the position. With about 1.5 million Catholics, the Diocese of Rockville Centre is one of the largest in the country. Murphy, Barres' predecessor, was also accused of covering up the crimes of child-molesting priests when he served in Massachusetts, before coming to Long Island.

Photo courtesy Diocese of Rockville Centre