Father McCabe sexual abuse victims re-file lawsuits to account for international movement of known pedophile priest

In 1983, a Dublin, Ireland, Archbishop wrote to Santa Rosa Bishop: “Rid me of this troublesome priest.”

Transferred to St. Bernards Parish in Eureka, California, McCabe’s sexual rampage continued

(Sonoma County, CA)  In an effort to hold Catholic Church officials accountable for their blatant international movement of priests known
to be sexual predators, four former Humboldt County, California altar boys filed new lawsuits today naming the Archdiocese of Dublin, Ireland, and the Servants of the Paraclete, as defendants.

The four, who were sexually abused as children by the Rev. Patrick J. McCabe at St. Bernards Parish in Eureka, California, in the mid 1980’s, had previously filed claims against the predator priest, and the Santa Rosa Diocese, but withdrew the lawsuit when they became aware that a Catholic official in Dublin knew of previous sexual misconduct by McCabe but deliberately sent him to the United States in order to “Rid me of this troublesome priest.”

The new lawsuit, filed in Sonoma County, alleges that the Diocese of Santa Rosa, McCabe, the Servants of Paraclete, a Catholic religious
community that operates treatment centers for priest who sexually abuse children and the Archdiocese of Dublin were purposeful and unashamed in their placement of a known pedophile at St. Bernards where parishioners were given no information about McCabe’s history of sexual misconduct and would be given complete and unsupervised access to children.

Joseph George, a Sacramento, California attorney, who along with St. Paul, Minnesota-based clergy abuse attorneys Jeff Anderson and Associates represent the Plaintiffs, said adding the Dublin Archdiocese and the Servants of the Paraclete as defendants “will heighten the importance of the case in the effort to expose the international conspiracy of U. S. Bishops and church officials in Europe and Rome to move, rather than remove, priests who were sexually abusing children.”

In the case of Father McCabe, in 1977, after years of complaints about his sexual behavior around children in Ireland, the Archdiocese of Dublin conducted an investigation into the allegations and found them to be credible.  The Archdiocese, in 1982, sent McCabe, to the Servants of the Paraclete treatment center in New Mexico where he remained for six months.  When he returned to Ireland in December of 1982 he was reported to have abused a 16-year-old boy.  He was then returned to the treatment center and eventually diagnosed as a pedophile.  Later, in 1983, upon his release from the treatment center, the Archbishop of Dublin sent the “troublesome priest” to the unsuspecting parish of St. Bernard in Santa Rosa, California.

Jeff Anderson, who is widely recognized as a pioneer in clergy sexual abuse litigation in the United States, said he has recently established
an office with London-based solicitor Ann Olivarius in the United Kingdom, “not only focus on individual cases of clergy abuse, but to help facilitate the handling of cases with international connections.  I’ve been working to hold the church accountable for this terrible tragedy for almost three decades.  But while we have made significant progress, in the end, ‘all roads lead to Rome’ and in this case we know the road goes through Dublin.”

Earlier this month Father McCabe was extradited to his native Ireland for face charges of nine counts of indecent assault against six victims in Ireland.

Note:  Copy of the new lawsuit is available at www.AndersonAdvocates.com