How Ned Cassem pulled Mass General intothe sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church
One of the oddest characters to emerge
from revelations about the mishandling of sex abuse
Cassem's name has come up before in controversial cases, but newly released documents indicate, not only that he played a significant part in creating the sex abuse scandal, but also that he dragged Mass General into his dubious work for the Church.
Cassem's interests are unusually
varied. Several years ago, on the basis of his belief that
smoking is at least partly voluntary, he worked as a consultant to
tobacco company lawyers who were disputing the addictive nature of
cigarettes. He has also been heavily involved with pro-gun groups,
including the
American Small Arms Academy, which provides training in
activities such as "shooting from a moving vehicle," and the
Lethal Force
Institute, a place where ordinary citizens can learn about
"street gun-fighting tactics," "combat shooting," and "justifying
your actions in court." * In the midst of these pursuits, Cassem found time throughout the 1990's to turn Mass General into a sort of unofficial treatment center for troubled priests. While media attention has focused on specialized institutions such as Southdown, a center in Ontario, and the Institute for Living in Hartford, public documents show that Mass General dealt with a relatively large number of accused clerics over the past ten years, including convicted pedophile John Geoghan, who was sent there for observation in 1993. The Priest Treaters Group at Mass General Cassem's work with the Archdiocese began in the late 1980's, but he did not formally involve his colleagues at Mass General until sometime after 1992, when Cardinal Law announced that he had instituted a more stringent policy on abusive priests. At the apparent request of the Rev. John McCormack, who handled sex abuse cases under Cardinal Law, Cassem assembled a group of psychiatrists and psychologists at the hospital who came to be known as the "priest treaters." The priest treaters were, at least in theory, supposed to work closely with the Archdiocese to determine appropriate responses to allegations made against Boston-area priests.
Cassem, who chaired all of these meetings, claims to have lost whatever minutes he kept, so exactly what went on within the priest treaters group remains mysterious. However, in the relatively meticulous records that the Archdiocese kept of the annual costs of legal settlements and psychiatric treatment, Cassem's activities are noted each year. Moreover, one document obtained from Cassem by Roderick MacLeish, the attorney for Gregory Ford and other alleged victims of the Rev. Paul Shanley, surveyed the activities of the priest treaters at Mass General from 1993 to 1994. This "little questionnaire," as Cassem, who created the form, described it, shows that the priest treaters dealt with at least 20 clerics during this single year, including 9 priests who had sex abuse allegations lodged against them in the past and 6 who faced current accusations. "Outcomes" of the Priest Treaters' Activities While the survey sheds some light on Cassem and Mass General's involvement in addressing the problems presented by predatory priests, it contains a confusing mix of psychiatric findings and legal determinations. For example, one section reads: "Outcome: Guilty, 4; innocent, 9; equivocal 4; cognitive deficits, 3." Under questioning during a deposition taken by MacLeish last May, Cassem could only guess that the priests who had been designated guilty or innocent had gone through some sort of legal process. He could not, however, recall any specifics, nor could he explain why the priest treaters had listed legal outcomes alongside what were obviously their own psychiatric opinions. It also remains unclear whether any of the priest treaters reported or were required to report any of the 6 priests who were categorized in 1993 - 1994 as currently accused. We do know that Cassem never reported any abusive priests to any state agency, although he stressed that he was familiar with the laws on mandatory reporting of child abuse that were in effect at the time. Under those rules, priests were specifically excluded from the list of mandated reporters, but this exception would not have applied to Cassem since he was, by his own admission, acting in his capacity as a psychiatrist, rather than fulfilling his duties as a priest. While acknowledging that he had never filed any mandatory reports, Cassem conceded that it was possible that some of the victims of the priests he had evaluated were still under the age of eighteen at the time of the evaluation, in which case he would have been legally required to notify authorities. Cassem also failed to take any other action that might have enabled countless victims to come forward and get help. Witness these excerpts from an exchange between Cassem and MacLeish:
Cassem's Methods During this extended set of questions, Cassem disagreed with studies cited by MacLeish that indicate that most abusers go on to molest many other victims if they are not stopped right away. However, Cassem is not especially qualified to comment on these studies since he, like all of the other priest treaters, never developed any particular expertise in issues related to sexual abuse. In fact, when Cassem, who was being called to account for his evaluations of a significant number of allegedly abusive priests, was asked if he had any training in treating people who had been accused of sexual misconduct, he replied, "I try not to touch it with a ten-foot pole." Cassem's disdain for special training was not balanced by any discernable respect for the ethical standards that generally govern psychiatric evaluation. According to Cassem, the formulation of sound psychiatric opinions about cases of child molestation does not require access to relevant medical records, nor does it require interviews with either the accused or the alleged victims. Cassem confirmed his approach in an exchange with Wilson D. Rogers, Jr., former counsel for the Archdiocese.
Cassem's Defense Cassem's casual disregard for medical records is evident in the inadequacy of his own files. Along with the minutes of the priest treaters meetings, he was unable to locate notes, diagnostic reports, correspondence and other significant documents relating to his evaluations of Rev. Paul Shanley, Rev. Joseph Coleman, Rev. James Foley, Rev. Paul Tivnan, Rev. Jay Mullin, Rev. Joseph Picardi, and Rev. Robert Gale, all of whom were returned to service after they were treated for sexual disorders, and all of whom were later accused by additional victims. In the absence of sufficient documentation, it is difficult to determine how many priests were returned to service either on the basis or in spite of Cassem's evaluations, nor do we know for certain if any of the priests who were seen directly by the priest treaters at Mass General ended up back in parishes where they molested again. We do know that Geoghan faced criminal charges for molesting a ten-year-old boy during 1995 and 1996, over two years after he had spent time at Mass General. That case was dropped after the victim found the prospect of a trial too harrowing to contemplate. However, prosecutors stressed that the victim seemed entirely credible and also expressed admiration for his contribution to their efforts to hold Geoghan responsible for his crimes. In any event, Cassem now claims that his evaluations of all these men were skewed because Archdiocese officials withheld pertinent facts that were documented in the priests' files. But rather than acknowledge his own responsibility to obtain these files, Cassem branded McCormack "a liar" and fumed that he had been "deceived." Cassem's Philosophy When asked to explain why he never sought any documentation of any priest's history before he issued evaluations, the doctor became philosophic. "Now, I'm a skeptic," he told Wilson Rogers, "I've been trained actually not to believe anything that people say. And in a sense, skepticism is like virginity to me. So you don't want to part with it ever, because if you do, it will be there to your constant shame." For all his efforts to safeguard his skepticism, Cassem admitted that he lost it in his dealings with the Church. But even as he was conceding that he had made "a big mistake," he repeatedly defended his actions by insisting that any wrong conclusions he had reached about abusive priests were due, not to his failure to review records or his decision not to meet with relevant parties, but to his tendency to trust his fellow priests. What Next? Central questions remain unanswered in this story, some of which could be cleared up when the psychiatric records of many of the priests accused in the Archdiocese of Boston are made public, which is due to occur anytime now that Judge Constance Sweeny has ruled that the files must be released. Then, we may not get the full picture, but we might see whether Cassem's colleagues at Mass General suffered a similar loss of skepticism in their interactions with the Archdiocese of Boston, also failed to disclose horrendous crimes against children, helped the Church to shield abusers from detection and prosecution, and therefore must share the doctor's "constant shame."
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
cases
by the Catholic Church is Dr. Ned Cassem, a Jesuit priest and
psychiatrist who advised the Boston Archdiocese on the disposition
of accused clergy for over twenty years. Cassem, a member of
the faculty at Harvard Medical School, was chief of the Psychiatry
Department at Massachusetts General Hospital from 1988 until 2000
and remains on staff there today. 
