The Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco is in the midst of federal bankruptcy negotiations with over five hundred alleged sexual abuse victims. A primary motivation of Archbishop Cordileone for choosing bankruptcy over civil trials is to hide the perverse behavior of priests and to protect assets. If the personal stories of the profoundly wounded men and women suing the archdiocese were to come to light, the hypocrisy of the archbishop and his supporters would shake the Catholic world to its foundations.
In 2023, I received an extraordinary email from a lifelong Catholic resident of the Archdiocese named Patty Lawler who attended Star of the Sea Parish‘s schools, grades K – 12, in the 1950’s and ‘60’s. Patty had written a letter to retired bishop of Oakland John Cummins and wanted to know if I thought him cognizant enough, then in his mid 90’s, to understand her letter. She ultimately decided not to send the letter. Both Bishop Cummins and Patty died this past December. She chose to write to Cummins because her beloved grandmother had long ago been an admirer of his, and she wanted to share with him her painful memories of “the child raping priests of Star of the Sea.” She asked my opinion because she had read my Letter to the Clergy of Oakland (5/31/22) detailing Bishop Cummins’ record of putting the reputation of the Church ahead of the protection of children throughout his time as Oakland’s bishop (1977-2003).
I am choosing to share some of her memories to let people know why Archbishop Cordileone of SF refuses even to make public the names of credibly accused priests of the archdiocese. He is keeping the dirty secrets of the San Francisco chapter of the worldwide clergy abuse catastrophe, and is spending millions of dollars of Church donations to do so. Although the revelations in Patty’s letter to Cummins are shocking, they are not unique. Star of the Sea Parish and schools in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s are a microcosm of the entire Catholic Church both then and now.
The three priests Patty names in her letter to Cummins are “Edmund Cloutier, Charles Durkin, and Raymond Zohlen (known as the Confessional Perv) during our one childhood.”
Cloutier and Durkin’s names can be found on BishopAccountability.org. Here follows Patty in her own words:
Walter Fleming, pastor, was a favorite of our class, always generous, but relinquished handing out report cards to Durkin when my grade was third and Durkin had already gone to a specialty shop and had the thick discipline paddle constructed with the words BOARD OF CORRECTION blazing on its wood, while he delightedly put little boys over his lap, and then with his 6 foot 8 inch frame (by his constant brag) continue to spank them hard while they tried not to cry. Every six weeks, same little boys. This went on until we graduated eighth grade in 1961. Nuns smiled nervously. Nobody made a peep. We thought he was just mean, but knew he was powerful, taking favorite boys to Disneyland, degrading others. We were too little to understand what he was and what he was doing. It took many of us 20 more years, at least.
When I was in my early twentys and Vietnam was looming over my former classmates, a dear boy (who had been abused by older boys abused by Durkin) who was leaving for the war the next day, came to my house and tried to tell me what had been going on in the rectory at Star and I didn’t understand what he was talking about. We have since reunited in conversation over the years. Durkin was finally named for what he was.
It takes an even more vicious level of evil to commit the crimes of Edmund Cloutier, although Austin Keegan is in competition. County Kerry had a big presence at Star. This family had seven kids with a Dad from Kerry (who owned a little pub in the parish), and the elegant Mom suddenly died while the Dad had his two youngest boys on a visit to Kerry. It was a huge shock to Stars community and to my mother, a friend of the Mom’s, and a shock to me for my best friend was the second youngest to the Dad left behind. . .the littlelest was not yet in kindergarten. This was a family where the boys knelt at their Irish father’s knees for a blessing before meals, the Dad coming home from the pub at five each day to cook for the motherless family. Edmund Cloutier was on duty then, and performed the funeral Mass for the grief- stricken family, then asking Dad if he could console the little boys, who had been with their Dad in Kerry, and take them away with him. Cloutier had his twisted way with all the sons of the mother he had just buried. They never told their father or each other until after their father’s death knowing that this wonderful dad would have found Cloutier and . . .
Cloutier also, seven years later, took boys from my eighth grade class to a whore house in Nevada and some to Tijuana where they watched women having sex with donkeys. Edmund Cloutier, pedophile transsubstantiator, had a long career pretending to bring souls to Holy while destroying lives in the most heinous fashion.
Raymond Zohlen, about whom the current archbishop of San Francisco sang praises, was a dirty talker in confession. . .to little girls. . asking if we had sex with animals, saying filthy things to our young ears that at 76 I am still unable to repeat them to you, and I am not shy about being honest with you.
No one spoke of sex. . .no one except Durkin and Zohlen who loved talking about all the mortal sins (the only mortal sins) surrounding sexual expression of any kind. The culture of silence was ideal for the pedophile transsubstantiators and their enablers, while the poor nuns when not comnplicit, were clueless.
That was the situation at Star, with these perverted men, whose version of God’s wrath was only satisfied by the crucifixion death of His only Son. This angry vengeful God was given to us along with their communion pattens of consecrated hosts, offered from the same hands which had sexually hurt children.
I have had the good fortune to have loved and remained close to a couple of good priests in my life. It is because of them and my Nana Julia that I have written to you today.
The archbishops in San Francisco proved themselves to be loyal soldiers in the tyranny of evil at the heart of darkness. Transsubstantiating child rapists were in every single parish in San Francisco at one time or another under the not so soulful eyes of Mitty, McGucken, Quinn, Levada. Levada, who had the gall to place child rapist priest Greg Ingels in charge of sex abuse policies for the American church after the Dallas Conference. Levada admitted under oath that he knew Ingels was a child rapist in 1996 but promoted him anyway to Chancellor and chief canon lawyer in 2002 and appointed him to establish sex abuse policies for the entire United States dealing with child rapist priests, yet another fox in the hen house. Ingels was subsequently indicted for child rape, but released because of unjust statutes of limitations and went on to live with Quinn at good old St. Patrick’s Seminary whose academic dean [Carl A. Schipper] had just been exposed for child pornography with a 13 year old. Levada got promoted to Rome to be in charge of sex abuse policies. . .and the beat goes on.
And then, of course, there’s Cordileone who, when he’s not instructing Nancy Pelosi on his superior knowledge of fetal life, performs exorcisms on statues of dubious saints, instead of performing them on every altar and inside every rectory of ever church in San Francisco. He could start with his pet, Star of the Sea, since he has a thing for exorcisms.
My prayer for you is that you will have the courage to make good noise for decency, Bishop John Cummins, that you will tell the truth before you go to Holy. Out of simple human decency, without which there is no such thing as sacrament.