2024-8-15
Warning: Victims should hire a lawyer (and if possible find outside pastoral support) before ever interacting with a church entity.
When I first tried to come forward, a woman employee ensured me she was my representative to the Franciscans. She knew details about me I had shared in spiritual direction. It seemed plausible that perhaps she knew these things because she was supposed to be a spiritual counselor to me during my process of reporting a friar.
Apparently not. The details she knew about me notwithstanding, she was not the representative.
On to the PSSO. For twenty months of my involvement with the PSSO beginning in September 2022, I asked who was “in charge”, who was the “judge”. I got different answers. First I was told the custos, Fr. Derrick Yap, OFM was in charge. He was not able to talk to me, I was told, because he was the judge between me, a person he had never met, and the friar I was reporting, a man he lived with in community. If Fr. Derrick Yap talked to me this would somehow make him biased. This is what I was told.
Then I was told that Br. David Leary, OFM, the Provincial Delegate was in charge. Therefore, presumably, Fr. Derrick Yap was blameless for any decisions the PSSO made. Still, this explanation didn’t hold water. Br. David Leary also said that things were out of his hands.
The entire process lacked transparency. It seemed very likely that there was no “judge” because it was a foregone conclusion that victims will be told they don’t have enough evidence. I still think this is very likely the case. See an email I wrote below:
Email to Stephen Crittenden, Director of the PSSO, March 22, 2023:
I need to know who was the “judge” of the investigation.
Eight months later, I still hadn’t gotten an anwer.
Email to the PSSO, the Professional Standards Office and Safeguarding for the Franciscans of the Holy Spirit Province in December 25, 2023:
Hi David Leary, Stephen Crittenden, and Julianna Demetrius,
“……I still don’t know who was “in charge”. Do you see what I mean? I have asked so many times. I engaged with you in good faith and with trust. And that was violated. The second round of abuse happened with your office and Julianna [the “independent” investigator].
I did not get a response.
Finally on May 16, 2024 I was told the Provincial Minister, Fr Phillip Miscamble, OFM, was the decision maker.
Okay so last week (the second week of August 2024) I received a letter from an attorney in Sydney purporting to be acting on behalf of Br. David Leary who himself was representing Fr. Derrick Yap and Fr. Phillip Miscamble. (Luckily I now have a lawyer helping me interpret these things.) So I asked for any kind of document demonstrating that this was the case, that this attorney really had authority to act on behalf of Br. David Leary and that Br. David Leary really was acting on behalf of the two other public figures: the Provincial Minister of the Franciscans of the Province of the Holy Spirit and the Custos of the Custody of St. Anthony.
And there is no response. Why it is so hard for them to just be honest, transparent, and straightforward? Is it that they are trying to trick and scare me with this lawyer but they want to maintain plausible deniability so they can claim they didn’t know about the lawyer after all?
I have no way of getting a hold of Fr. Derrick Yap or Fr. Phillip Miscamble. Their employees do not respond to me, so I have no idea what is getting through or not. Br. David has told me conflicting things. There is a saying, “trust but verify”. I have no way of verifying.
(See this blog post and this blog post.) (See here. If you would like access, contact me for the password.)
on September 25, 2023, I wrote to David:
”I realize you are not “in charge” but are my contact and are relaying decisions made largely by others. I realize you are constrained by policies. The fact that I disagree with those policies doesn’t mean you can personally choose to change them. I know that. I do not hold you responsible for the sum of all the actions and inactions of all of the Franciscans in their entirety. ”
There was no clarification on his part that he was in fact in charge. It is still not completely clear that he was. The final word would be from the Provincial. The governance structure of the Catholic Church is absolute monarchy. The PSSO is window dressing to make the church seem in line with modern society.