BISHOP: PRIESTS’ VICTIMS SHARE BLAME

CRITICS RIP CUNNINGHAM’S TESTIMONY; DIOCESE DISPUTES THEIR INTERPRETATION

By John O’Brien
jobrien@syracuse.com

The victims of child-molesting priests are partly to blame for their own abuse, the Catholic bishop of Syracuse said in a sworn deposition that provides rare insight into his thinking about one of the most troubling chapters in the church’s history Bishop Robert Cunningham testified in a 2011 deposition in response to a federal lawsuit filed by a man who said a priest in the Syracuse diocese sexually abused him as a child.

The man’s lawyer asked Cunningham whether, in the eyes of the church, a child molested by a priest has committed a sin.

“The boy is culpable,” Cunningham said Oct. 14, 2011, according to a transcript of the deposition.
Later in the deposition, Cunningham backed off the statement somewhat, saying he’d have to know the child’s role.

“Well, I mean, without knowing the circumstances completely, did the boy encourage, go along with (it) in any way?” Cunningham said.

A diocese official said this week that Cunningham believes no child is responsible for being sexually abused and that it’s unfair to use the deposition to characterize his position otherwise.

But to a former Catholic priest who has written extensively on sexuality in the church, the bishop’s testimony was startling. “That is so absurd,” said Richard Sipe of La Jolla, Calif. “It’s like saying a child who’s beaten is responsible for the beating. It’s prehistoric. I can’t believe a bishop in (2011) said this.”

In the deposition, the lawyer asked Cunningham if he could imagine any circumstance in which a 14- or 15-yearold boy could be held responsible in the eyes of the church when a priest asks him to engage in sex.

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