Catholic Church clears Brooklyn Bishop of
wrongdoing, but attorney calls probe ‘biased’
BY BEN BRACHFELD
An internal probe by the
Catholic Church has cleared
Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas
DiMarzio of wrongdoing in
a pair of decades-old sexual
abuse allegations, but lawyers
for his accusers say the investigation
was a sham, and that
they will continue to pursue
legal action in court.
DiMarzio, 77, was accused
in 2019 of sexual abuse dating
back to his time as a priest in
Jersey City, New Jersey in the
1970s. Mark Matzek, of New
Jersey, said that DiMarzio had
sexually abused him when he
was between 11 and 12 years
old over a year-long period in
1974 and 1975, while he was
an altar boy and a student at
St. Nicholas Church in Jersey
City. A second accuser, Samier
Tadros, came forward in 2020
claiming that DiMarzio had
sexually abused him when he
was just six years old at Jersey
City’s Holy Rosary Church.
DiMarzio, who has been
Bishop of Brooklyn since 2003,
denied all wrongdoing, and
said the results of the Church
probe, which found the allegations
against him “not to have
the semblance of truth,” vindicated
him.
“I repeat what I have said
from the beginning. There is
no truth to these allegations,”
DiMarzio said in a statement.
“Throughout my more than
50-year ministry as a priest, I
have never abused anyone. As
promised, I fully cooperated
with this inquiry, because I
know I did nothing wrong.”
A spokesperson for the
Brooklyn Diocese did not immediately
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for additional comment.
The internal Church probe
was conducted under a new
system for investigating sexual
abuse by priests, implemented
by Pope Francis just
months before the accusations
against DiMarzio in an apostolic
letter known as “Vos Estis
Lux Mundi.”
As part of Vos Estis, a tip
line was set up to report abuse,
and all reports were immediately
brought to the “Metropolitan”
diocese where the alleged
abuse occurred. That
diocese then reports the allegation
to the Vatican, which
can authorize an internal investigation
by the local Archdiocese.
Once the Diocese’s
investigation concludes, the
results are sent back to the
Vatican’s “Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith” to
render a fi nal decision.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan,
Archbishop of New York, oversaw
the investigation. Dolan
hired former federal prosecutor
John O’Donnell and former
FBI Director Louis Freeh
to conduct the investigative
work. DiMarzio’s attorney,
Joseph Hayden Jr, said the
fact that former federal law
enforcement offi cials were
conducting the investigation
should dispel any concerns
about the probe’s impartiality
and thoroughness.
“Both are former law enforcement
offi cials with
proven experience and impeccable
integrity and the result
of their investigation should
leave no doubt,” Hayden said.
Mitchell Garabedian, the
attorney representing Matzek
and Tadros in civil suits in New
Jersey, said that the results
of the investigation had no legitimacy,
however, because
the probe and its investigators
were “controlled by and paid
for by the Catholic Church.”.
Garabedian, who has represented
hundreds of sexual
abuse victims in suits against
high profi le abusers or institutions
such as the Boy Scouts,
and Penn State football coach
Jerry Sandusky, said that Vos
Estis was little more than the
Church investigating itself,
fi nding no wrongdoing, and
then going into PR overdrive
to protect itself.
“I think the Catholic Church
is practicing spin control and a
public relations stunt that will
just backfi re on them,” Garabedian
told Brooklyn Paper in
an interview. “The determination
by the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith will
have absolutely no weight in
the civil suits. The Congregation
for the Doctrine of the
Faith is a biased entity of the
Catholic Church.”
The New Jersey civil suits
were fi led under that state’s
Child Victims Act, which allowed
adult victims of child
abuse a two-year window to fi le
lawsuits even if the previous
statute of limitations had long
since expired. New Jersey’s
statute is similar to New York’s,
which passed in 2019 and expired
last month with nearly
10,000 cases fi led, including
hundreds against the Diocese.
The Catholic Church,
which over the past twenty
years has weathered innumerable
accusations of child sexual
abuse by priests, was one
of the strongest opponents of
the Child Victims Act before
its passage owing to the inevitable
ocean of suits it would
face if the measure became
law. Two years later, four of
New York State’s eight Catholic
dioceses — Buffalo, Rochester,
Syracuse, and Rockville
Centre — have fi led for bankruptcy.
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