Buffalo Bishop Resigns After Scandal Over Secret List of Abusive Priests
Bishop Richard J. Malone “had become the lightning rod for all that was wrong,” a lay leader said.
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First, a whistle-blower revealed that Bishop Richard J. Malone of Buffalo had kept files about abusive priests that he hid from the public. Then leaked recordings showed that he was reluctant to remove a parish priest whom he called a “sick puppy.”
On Wednesday, after months of pressure from priests and lay leaders, the Vatican said in a statement that it had accepted the resignation of Bishop Malone, effective immediately.
While the statement from Rome did not specify a reason behind the resignation, a second statement, from the Vatican’s office in Washington D.C., made clear that Bishop Malone had asked to retire early after being told the results of a Vatican investigation into his handling of the clergy sex abuse crisis.
Bishop Malone, in a letter to the diocese, said he had made the decision to step down “freely and voluntarily” after being made aware of the conclusions the investigation.
“I have concluded, after much prayer and discernment, that the people of Buffalo will be better served by a new bishop who perhaps is better able to bring about the reconciliation, healing and renewal that is so needed,” he wrote.
While he acknowledged making mistakes “in not addressing more swiftly personnel issues” involving behavior between adults, he also said that the turmoil in the diocese reflected the “culmination of systemic failings in the worldwide handling of sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy” and was not his fault alone.
He said he intended to remain in the diocese in retirement, and would be available to help out in whatever ways the new bishop would like.
Bishop Malone, 73, had steadfastly maintained that he was doing well in the diocese, and said in September that he did not think he should resign. Among many Catholics in Buffalo, where Bishop Malone was approaching persona non grata status as the scandals continued, there was a palpable sense of relief this week that the Vatican investigation appeared to have forced him to reconsider.
[Read more about the secret files and pressure — from inside and outside the church — on Bishop Malone.]
The diocese has seen a steady exodus from the pews and a decline in donations, local Catholics said. A poll conducted by The Buffalo News in September showed that 86 percent of local Catholics wanted Bishop Malone gone.
“For better or worse, he had become the lightning rod for all that was wrong, and we really weren’t going to make any progress toward healing and reconciliation as long as he remained,” said John J. Hurley, the president of Canisius College, who was part of a lay group, the Movement to Restore Trust, that had called for Bishop Malone’s removal. “People are hopeful that we are turning the page and looking forward to a new day.”
But the Buffalo Diocese’s troubles are far from over. It is facing more than 200 child sex abuse lawsuits under the Child Victims Act, and is under investigation by both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York attorney general for its handling of abusive priests over decades.
The bishop of Albany, Edward B. Scharfenberger, will be the temporary administrator of the diocese, the Vatican said.
In the past few years, Bishop Scharfenberger has gained a reputation for taking a more empathetic approach in his handling of the abuse crisis, and he has called for deeper involvement by the laity to help the church move forward.
“I will be doing a lot of listening and learning,” he said in a statement announcing his appointment, which he will hold alongside his current role.
Bishop Malone’s resignation was first reported on Monday by Whispers in the Loggia, a blog run by Rocco Palmo, a church analyst. He called Bishop Malone’s resignation “reluctant at best.”
Bishop Malone “had effectively become a national, even international, face of this round of the abuse scandals: a symbol of bishops who ‘still don’t get it,’” Mr. Palmo said in an email.
The Pope, Mr. Palmo added, likely would have removed the bishop had he not stepped down because if he had remained until the standard retirement age of 75 in 2021, the church’s attempts “to chart a way forward from the crisis would have rung hollow, both for many Catholics and on the wider stage.”
Perhaps no bishop in America had been buffeted by scandal in the last two years more than Bishop Malone.
The Buffalo Diocese, one of the Northeast’s largest, with 600,000 Catholics, had been relatively insulated from the abuse scandals until 2018. Then abuse survivors began speaking publicly, and the local news media began to investigate, finding that at least some of the accused priests were still in the pulpit.
Responding to pressure, in March 2018 Bishop Malone released a list of 42 priests accused of abuse over decades. But Siobhan O’Connor, who worked in the bishop’s office, had seen 117 names on a draft list in the diocese’s secret files. She began photocopying and then leaking the documents to WKBW, the local ABC affiliate.
The leaks revealed Bishop Malone, who had led the diocese since 2012, as clinical and protective in his dealings with church lawyers about abuse, seeking to limit disclosure of church secrets to minimize their damage.
“We did not remove him from ministry despite full knowledge of the case, and so including him on list might require explanation,” lawyers wrote to Bishop Malone about one priest, accused of having sex with a teenager, who was not included. Bishop Malone decided to leave that priest off.
“People were so frustrated and angry at Bishop Malone that they were losing their faith over it,” said Ms. O’Connor, who left her job and is now an advocate for abuse victims. His resignation, she said “is a sign for people that change can happen.”
In August, secret audio recordings caught Bishop Malone fretting that a scandal involving sexual harassment of a seminarian by a pastor “could be the end of me as bishop.” In a news conference after the recordings aired on television, Bishop Malone said he would not resign. But prominent lay people, including the Movement to Restore Trust, withdrew their support. And some priests began circulating a letter of no confidence.
In October, the Vatican sent Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn to Buffalo to conduct an investigation. Bishop DiMarzio interviewed about 80 people and submitted a report before flying to Rome, with all the other New York bishops, for a previously scheduled meeting in mid-November with Pope Francis.
While in Rome, Bishop DiMarzio was accused of abusing an 11-year-old boy in the 1970s in New Jersey, by a lawyer who said the victim would file a lawsuit. Bishop DiMarzio has categorically denied the accusation.
Rumors of Bishop Malone’s resignation swirled during the Vatican visit, but they were not confirmed. Some in Buffalo wondered whether Bishop Malone, who is 73, would seek to stay on until he turned 75.
When more solid reports of his resignation emerged Monday night, citing sources, some parishioners began calling their priests to see if it could be true.
“People are elated, finally, that something is going to happen,” said the Rev. Paul Dillon Seil, the pastor of St. Bernadette Church in Orchard Park, N.Y., who started fielding the calls.
“This didn’t start with Malone, and won’t end with his departure,” he added of the abuse crisis in the diocese. “But it’s a great step, hopefully, toward healing, and bringing some Catholics back to the faith family.”
Elian Peltier contributed reporting.
Sharon Otterman has been a reporter at The Times since 2008, primarily covering education and religion for Metro. She won a Polk Award for Justice Reporting in 2013 for her role in exposing a pattern of wrongful convictions in Brooklyn. @sharonNYT
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