In recent weeks on this blog, we have taken several closer looks at the Burlington, Vermont Catholic Diocese, including
- Vermont’s most recent ex-bishop, Christopher Coyne
- Vermont’s ‘still under the radar’ predator priests are missing from the abused list
- Vermont’s most widely traveled predator priests
We’ve also looked at four of Vermont’s worst predator priests:
But at least four other Vermont predator priest cases merit mentioning. These four include:
- Fr. James J. McShane: had access to countless children, in part through his positions as a Boy Scout chaplain, the Diocesan Youth Director, and the chaplain at Camp Holy Cross, where counselors found 80 slides of naked boys in his cabin. When the camp director and two other men told then-Bishop John Marshall, he basically told them they were wrong to have been in the priest’s cabin. Not until 2002 was Fr. McShane finally put on leave. He was accused of abusing several children, including at least one at the camp. And not until 2019 was he put on the diocesan ‘credibly accused’ abusers list. Fr. McShane also worked in many Vermont towns (including St. Albans, Fairfield, Pittsford, Bellows Falls, Rutland, Vergennes, Burlington, and South Burlington) and with the Vermont Army National Guard.
- Fr. Brian E. Mead: Mead was first named publicly as an accused child molester in 2018 by a news outlet. But more than two decades earlier, in 1996, a man told then Bishop Kenneth Angell that Fr. Mead sexually abused him for six years. Despite this report, however, Angell kept Fr. Mead in ministry. Later, diocesan officials paid the man a settlement but insisted on a confidentiality requirement. Fr. Mead reportedly could have been charged with multiple counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child. However, church officials kept a lid on his crimes until the statute of limitations expired. Fr. Mead was put on leave in 2002 and resigned in 2003. His ‘faculties’ (his formal permission to work in the diocese) were revoked in 2004, and in 2019, the diocese finally added his name to its list of ‘credibly accused’ abusers.
- Fr. George A. Paulin: Paulin was suspended in 2002 and sued. But he had been reported to the Burlington Diocese for alleged abuse 15 years earlier. In 2003, a settlement was reached with one of his victims and Fr. Paulin resigned as pastor. Yet a few years later, he was found playing the organ for two other churches. In 2006, the diocese admitted that it found 27 years’ worth of files on Fr. Paulin, which church officials had previously said didn’t exist. In 2019, his name was finally included on the Springfield, Massachusetts diocese’s ‘credibly accused’ abusers list. (Originally, Fr. Paulin is from Greenfield, MA.) He worked in Burlington, Newport, Canaan, Ludlow, Proctorsville, and North Troy.
- Fr. Louis E. Gelineau: Gelineau spent 27 years in Vermont before being promoted to be the bishop of Providence, Rhode Island.
In a lawsuit, Fr. Gelineau was accused of having tried to fondle and then drown a boy at a Burlington orphanage. He, of course, denied it. At the time, Gelineau was a seminarian and worked at the orphanage during the summers. In sum, the Burlington Diocese is not that large in terms of physical size, Catholic population, and number of priests. But its problem with predator priests is, by any measure, quite outsized.
The attorneys at Horowitz Law have a long history of representing survivors of child sex abuse. If you or someone you know was abused by a priest in the Diocese of Burlington, please contact Horowitz Law today for a free consultation. We can help you understand your legal options and fight for the justice you deserve. The Burlington Diocese has filed for federal bankruptcy protection, and strict deadlines will soon be set by the bankruptcy court. Please contact our law firm at 888-283-9922 or e-mail sexual abuse lawyer Adam Horowitz at [email protected] for a free consultation to discuss your options today.