A version of this story appeared in the Higher Ground newsletter from The Washington Times. Click here to receive Higher Ground delivered directly to your inbox each Sunday.
The Archdiocese of Washington is the target of a class-action lawsuit accusing Roman Catholic officials of allowing clergy to sexually abuse children for decades.
The lawsuit was filed Monday in Prince George’s County Circuit Court, a day after Maryland’s Child Victims Act of 2023 took effect by lifting the statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases. The Archdiocese of Baltimore filed for bankruptcy on Friday, before the law was to take effect.
The lawsuit was brought by three survivors of alleged abuse from Maryland counties who were between 9 and 12 years old when they say the abuse occurred. Using the pseudonyms John Doe, Richard Roe and Mark Smith, the survivors say various clergy assaulted them.
Doe, born in 1985, says the Rev. Michael Mellone and Deacon Lawrence Bell abused him at St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church and its school in Gaithersburg. The assaults were separate and took place on property controlled by the archdiocese, the suit states.
The lawsuit says that an unnamed priest in the mid-1960s assaulted Roe, manipulating the child to strip to his underwear and climb into bed where the priest fondled him.
Smith says the Rev. Robert J. Petrella raped him in the 1960s. Petrella was convicted of child abuse in 1997 and defrocked in 2003.
The lawsuit accuses the archdiocese of having “concealed and facilitated that [sexual] abuse, choosing to act with care and solicitude toward the perpetrators rather than to protect and heal” abuse victims.
The suit seeks to certify the case as a class-action, which would allow other victims to join the suit, and to have the court award damages “in excess of $75,000,” with the final amount to be determined at trial.
Two law firms filed the lawsuit.
“We hope this litigation will not only help ensure peace of mind for our many clients who have suffered at the hands of their abusers but will also dramatically improve the quality of their lives moving forward,” Andrew Janet, partner and co-chair of the sexual abuse division at Janet, Janet & Suggs LLC, one of law firms that filed the civil action.
The action is designed to give “long-suffering” abuse victims “a voice when they were previously silenced,” said Jonathan Schochor, founding partner and chairman of Schochor, Staton, Goldberg and Cardea PA, the other firm in the case.
The archdiocese’s website lists 34 clergy who were “credibly accused” of sexual abuse and removed from ministry, including former archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick. A Massachusetts case against him on charges of abusing a minor was dismissed earlier this year on grounds that he is mentally incompetent to stand trial.
BishopAccountability.org, an independent group that documents abuse in the Catholic church, published an online list of 45 accused clergy.
The Archdiocese of Washington is headquartered in Hyattsville and has jurisdiction over the District and the Maryland counties of Prince George’s, Montgomery, Charles, Calvert and St. Mary’s.
“We became aware yesterday of a lawsuit filed on behalf of three plaintiffs. We do not comment on pending litigation,” a spokesperson said in an email.
In a Sept. 29 open letter to parishioners, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, archbishop of Washington, said he couldn’t speculate on the number of lawsuits that could be filed. “What I can and must do is express again how profoundly sorry I am for past acts of abuse that occurred within our cherished Church,” he said.
“Based on our information and experience, we believe that despite the 2002 promise of openness and transparency by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, that much information about these crimes remains hidden,” the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said in a statement. “We hope that this civil action will help to shine a light into those dark places in this Archdiocese.”
“We also hope that victims who have been suffering alone and in silence will find courage from the stories set forth in the complaint to speak out themselves. There are people who will believe them and support them,” SNAP said.
The lawsuit’s allegations against Father Mellone brought immediate repercussions Tuesday. In letters posted on the websites of St. Martin of Tours and Annunciation parishes, the latter where the accused priest was installed as pastor in 2018, the Very Rev. Anthony Lickteig, the archdiocese’s Episcopal Vicar for Clergy and Secretary for Ministerial Leadership, said the filing was “the first we have learned” of allegations against the priest.
Father Lickteig told parishioners at Annunciation, in Northwest D.C., the allegations have been reported to law enforcement, and Father Mellone has been ordered to leave the parish pending a review of the charges. The letter said the accused priest is also barred “from exercising priestly ministry.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.