The case of the predator priest: Abuse and scandal in the Catholic Church (2019)

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- The following is a CNN special report. [dramatic music] ♪ ♪ - I was a happy child. I was an artist. - I loved to go to school because I want to be with my friends, but unfortunately, something came along. - Then I just sort of erupted, and I just blurted out, "I was abused." - If they commit a crime, you look away. - If a priest is allowed to go 20 to 30 years, there are several hundred victims per priest. - Give us the time to think about it. - Father, do you have time, when there are vulnerable children? Do you have time? - We have cases every day of the week where they're simply moved and put into ministry without telling anyone. - Do you know who this man is? - Luk. - Luk Delft? - We spent the whole morning looking for Father Delft. It's been a bit of a wild-goose chase, but now we're hearing that he's back in his office, and we're heading there now. - Hello, Father Delft? - Yes. - Hi. - No, no, no. No, no, no. [bell tolling] - Rome in all its grandeur: St. Peter's Basilica lights up the sky. All around is postcard perfect. But behind the high walls, turmoil roils the church. [chatter] - They know better. - Yeah. - But they're not doing better. - The Pope has called a summit to discuss clerical child abuse, bishops from around the world grappling with the scale of the tragedy. - An unprecedented admission. Abuse survivors gather to be heard, demanding justice and change. The Catholic Church issues new guidelines, but survivors say they don't go far enough. There are some worrying gray areas. You may think you know this story: priests abusing children, but there is something you may not know. There are powerful institutions within the Church who are free to self-police. In many cases, not even the Pope can sanction them. The religious orders, the Jesuits, Benedictines, Franciscans, powerful, wealthy and secretive. But according to experts, victims, witnesses we spoke with, there is one order that stands out as among the most defiant, most unrepentant: the Salesians of Don Bosco, the second largest order in the world and whose very mission is to help vulnerable children. In a yearlong CNN investigation through Europe, Africa, and across the United States, we found a pattern of behavior which saw many of the Salesian brotherhood protecting each other, moving alleged abusers from place to place, country to country, in some cases, allegedly threatening whistleblowers and victims. Across continents, across decades, an order meant to protect children but too many times hurts them instead. ♪ ♪ - It wasn't just the one priest. It was several of them. They covered for each other. - There's a bigger problem, because how many times has he abused in the last 40 years? - Two men separated by over a decade of time, but each's abuse and betrayal bleeds into the other's. - Lawyers say that when their client was a student at Richmond Salesian High School from 1969 to 1973... - Local television coverage of a shocking case. - And in their lawsuit filed yesterday, they say other clergy at the school knew about it. - In the late '60s, early 1970s, the Salesian High School in Richmond, California, was a hunting ground for a ring of pedophile priests... - I'm sorry... - A self-protecting cluster. An anonymous victim, John Doe 17, filed a lawsuit that was brought in 2003. John Doe 17 is Joey Piscitelli. - I was kind of a happy child. I was an artist. I went to a Catholic grammar school. I got straight As for eight years. - When did that start to change? - We were going to play pool, and the priest, who's the vice principal, he sat down at the bench, and he said, "You shoot," and I said, "Okay," and I shot the ball, and I turned around and told him, "It's your turn." And I looked at him, and he was sitting there masturbating, and I remember I turned all red. I started sweating. The hair on my neck was standing up, and I just stood there frozen. I didn't know what to do, and he said, "Keep playing, now. I want to watch you." And then I turned around, and the head of the boys' club, Brother Sal, was watching this, and he just stood there watching. He did nothing. - Joey Piscitelli drew to cope with the abuse, his pictures becoming more vivid and violent, mirroring the nightmare he was living, a nightmare that only got worse. - This went on for about a year and a half, and then one day, he cornered me on the stairs and started molesting me and told me, to get upstairs to the all-purpose room on the third floor of the school, and he dragged me into the room and attacked me, and I was raped, and I passed out and blacked out while it happened, and I just totally lost sense of what happened after he started attacking me. When I got home... Well, I don't even know how I got home. But when I got home, I had blood in my underwear, so I went in the backyard of my house, and I wrapped the bloody underwear around a rock and threw it over the fence into the field to get rid of the evidence or whatever. It was so disgusting, and I knew I had been raped. - According to Piscitelli, he was threatened when he reported it to a staff member. - The principal of the school, Father Bernard Dabbene, who's now a convicted molester, told me that he was going to kick me out of the school and fire my mother from the cafeteria because I have a big mouth. - Threats and intimidation by the Salesians, a pattern you will see throughout this investigation. The Salesians fought Piscitelli's lawsuit at every turn, like in these court documents, when they argued that Father Whelan masturbating in front of a schoolboy is acceptable if deemed funny. In 2006, Piscitelli won his case and was awarded $600,000, but more than that, he won public recognition of the appalling wrongs he'd suffered at Salesian hands. Father Dabbene, the principal who threatened Piscitelli, also had a history of abuse. Over a decade before Joey Piscitelli started Salesian High School in Richmond, it was a Salesian seminary. It was where a teenage George Stein first met Bernard Dabbene. I know it's not easy to retell or to relive this, but could you tell us a little bit about what happened in your sophomore year at the seminary? - Sure. You want me to talk about abuse or violation. - Only if you want to. - Sure. - Only if you're comfortable doing it. - No, sure. I can do it. He basically hugged me and kissed me, and that was inappropriate, and I wasn't expecting it at all, and I told him that this happened, and I wanted it to stop. And for me, it did. It stopped. He remained there for the rest of the academic year, and then he was reassigned. - But he was reassigned to another school? - Yes, yes. - Much later, Stein discovered the true horror hidden at the seminary. - At our 40th anniversary of our graduation from high school, a third to a half shared that they had had occasion to be molested or to be approached. - That's an extraordinary percentage of people in that room. - Yes, yes. It is. - The church says so much of this horror is in the past, but it's not. Only last year, the LA Archdiocese had to remove a Salesian priest from working within its school system after becoming aware of sexual abuse allegations dating back 40 years, allegations that the Salesians had failed to act on. Patrick Wall was, himself, a religious order priest and to date has helped to investigate hundreds of clerical abuse cases. - The Salesians are silencio. They have refused to put out anything unless it's with a court order or unless the civil authorities force them to do something. In my experience, it's been that the Salesians have the highest percentage of perpetrators of any religious order across the world because of their focus. - That focus being the betterment of the lives of children, which includes creating and teaching at schools, youth camps, clubs, and missionary work. The Salesians of Don Bosco are now a worldwide organization working in more than 130 countries, helping millions of children. But as our investigation across three continents found, not always protecting them. Coming up, Benjamin Kitobo fled his home in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but his demons followed him. [dramatic music] ♪ ♪ - Benjamin Kitobo with the taped confession of his abuser. Capturing it was the start, he says, of taking his life back. - The man on the tape, Father Omer Verbeke, a Belgian priest stationed in Kitobo's then home of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa. But it wasn't just one time. Kitobo says it went on for years at the seminary where he was a teenager, studying to be a priest in the 1980s. He says, "I don't understand. I repent to God. What more should I do to ask forgiveness?" How did that make you feel? How does it make you feel? - From his home in St. Louis, Kitobo filed a claim against Verbeke in Ghent, Belgium, where Bishop of Ghent, Lucas Van Looy, a Salesian superstar, took over the handling of the case. Kitobo was awarded compensation and says Van Looy promised him Verbeke would no longer be around young people. As Bishop of Ghent, Van Looy had oversight of Verbeke, and he failed to keep him in Belgium, failed to keep him away from children. - In 2014, you had discovered that he had set up an orphanage in Rwanda, and so, of course, was around children. Did the Bishop of Ghent respond to you? - Van Looy refused CNN's request for an on-camera interview and insisted he repeatedly imposed a travel ban on Verbeke but admitted to us Verbeke had ignored the ban. Verbeke is not a Salesian priest, but as we left St. Louis, it was clear to us that, seeing as Salesians such as Van Looy are in positions to affect the handling of abuse allegations, even in the case of non-Salesians like Verbeke... - Before leaving the aircraft, take a quick look around your seat and make sure you have everything you brought on board. ♪ ♪ - Through our investigation, it's becoming clear that even as the Pope recommends universal principles of conduct, the orders, the Salesians, continue business as usual. We're in Ghent in Belgium because so many of the allegations lead us back here. - Bishop Van Looy was not just involved in the case of Father Verbeke. There were many other cases, like Father Luk Delft. - [speaking Dutch] - Father Luk Delft, a dormitory supervisor convicted in 2012, regarding previous abuse at a Salesian boarding school in Ghent. Yet again there was an opportunity to stop an abuser, and yet again the Salesians failed. Spurred by concerns Delft could still be interacting with children, two of the boarding school victims agreed to speak with us. - I was 12, so everybody was 12, 13 years old, and suddenly at night, someone was trying to pull off my blankets. - The day after, I know I remember I told one of my best friends that I had a really weird dream involving getting touched in places which were weird. - And at the beginning, we were laughing about it because one of the kids told us, "Yeah, I had, like, a dream, and I came in my dream," but afterwards we heard the horrible effects of it. - And the next night, I woke up again, and then I realized I was really awake, and then I felt, yeah, someone touching my legs and my genitals and also giving me oral...yeah. I don't know how to say it. - It was Father Luk Delft, a dormitory supervisor at the school and a rising Salesian star. CNN has learned Delft was moved by the Salesian order after being confronted over the allegations. He was sent to work with a number of different schools in Belgium. Then the Salesians sent him abroad to one of the most vulnerable countries in the world. Do you know who this man is? [dramatic music] ♪ ♪ - Father Luk Delft was, we're told, marked for greatness: charming, intelligent, expected to rocket up the ranks of his Catholic religious order, the Salesians of Don Bosco. He was also a serial pedophile. In 2001, Delft worked as a bedroom monitor at a Salesian boarding school in Ghent, Belgium, when he sexually assaulted two boys, aged 12 and 13 at the time. After a few nights of this ordeal, one of the students struck up the courage to speak to someone they trusted. - One of the victims... - Wim Hanssens was the deputy director of the boarding school. - There was no moment, in my mind, when a child comes to tell you this, that it happened. - You believed him immediately? - Yep. The day afterwards, another boy came to me and told me the same story. At that moment, I wrote down on a paper what these kids told me. I called Luk Delft. I show him on the paper what these children told me. And first he said, "I just caressed them." But when I let him read that he touched the genitals of those kids, he confessed, and I asked him to sign this paper, which he did. - A signed confession. Hanssens asked Delft to leave the school and made sure the Salesian order were aware. Hanssens says the Salesians promised him and the parents of the boys that Delft would never be around children again. CNN has learned that this promise has been repeatedly broken, as Salesian leaders in Belgium moved the confessed pedophile priest from one school to another and allowed him to travel abroad. Ghent, Sint-Pieters-Woluwe, Haiti, India, and supervising children on a school trip to the Congo. - [speaking Dutch] - In 2012, Luk Delft was convicted for the abuse of children in the Don Bosco dormitory, to which he had confessed in 2001. It was only when a former staff member finally did what Salesian leaders had not: reported Delft to the authorities. - During the trial, it was also revealed that he had twice been caught with child pornography on his laptop. Delft received a suspended sentence, his restrictions clear: no interactions with children for the next ten years. Were he to break these rules, he would face a new trial and possible imprisonment. Hanssens says he paid a high price for speaking out against the Salesians. - They can break you, and they broke me. So yes, I had to leave because I'm, like, a kind of danger, according to them. Although I think... they should be grateful. Otherwise, I don't know what would have happened to those victims. - He says he was blacklisted from Salesian schools in the area after reporting the inappropriate behavior of a number of priests. The Salesians deny his accusation. Time and time again, we have seen a pattern of behavior by the Salesians to systematically move known pedophiles and to intimidate those who want to protect children. - It's always a system: move that person to another place, and we'll see. - But once convicted, would the Salesians really risk giving Delft access to children again? ♪ ♪ We set out in search of Delft. Much of what we know about his movements are from his own social media posts. Our research is zeroing in on a remote town in the Central African Republic, Kaga-Bandoro, so that's where we're headed. The only safe way for us to get to the town is on a United Nations humanitarian flight. ♪ ♪ It's taken us about two days, three different planes to get up here to the north of the Central African Republic. If you were trying to disappear, this would definitely be suitably remote. UNICEF has called it one of the worst places in the world to be a child, falling to the bottom of the UN Human Development Index. A shaky peace deal is barely holding. United Nations forces on constant watch. The day we arrived, the threat level is almost at its highest. When Father Delft arrived here, part of his work involved caring for families and children forced from their homes by violence, incredibly vulnerable families and children. [bells ringing] The young training to be altar servers. The Catholic Church has a strong presence in this community and throughout the country. [hymnal music] Four years ago, the Pope came and blessed the Christians of the Central African Republic, hundreds of people celebrating. In the crowd, we spot Luk Delft. - And in this promotional video for Caritas, the Catholic Church's relief agency, he's even featured as a key director for the agency. Delft was sent here by the Belgian Salesians, well aware of the court restrictions on him. The Catholic compound in Kaga-Bandoro: right behind is a school. This is where the Caritas office was and still is. This is where Luk Delft was based. Caritas here under Delft was in charge of looking after internally displaced people, providing food, education, and medicine. We have been told that it was during this period that Delft was, once again, abusing children. A local producer has found the family of an alleged victim who may be willing to speak with us. It's proving really difficult to get people to speak to us on camera. People are really afraid. We're going to jump out here and try one last time. - As we drive away, we pass the burnt-down courthouse, a reminder that there are no real avenues for justice here. Next, a race against time to track down this known pedophile. We've spent the whole morning looking for Father Delft. It's been a bit of a wild-goose chase, but now we're hearing that he's back in his office, and we're heading there now. Hello. Father Delft? - Yes. - Hi. - No, no, no. No, no, no. [dramatic music] ♪ ♪ - ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ - The hallelujah rings out. A choirboy leads the congregants in song as the Pope oversees a mass at the Vatican celebrating the work of Caritas, the Catholic Church's relief charity. We found Father Luk Delft, convicted pedophile, among the congregation. Head bowed, he accepts the blessed sacrament. - [singing in Latin] - As director of Caritas in the Central African Republic, Delft traveled freely, attending this service only a month before we would try to visit him. We've heard that Delft has continued to abuse children, but so far, no one is willing to speak on camera. [dramatic music] It's here in Kaga-Bandoro that Delft first worked for Caritas, the Catholic charity. Their mission: to protect the most vulnerable. It's also here that we're hearing whispers of possible new victims. Finally, a breakthrough: at the local displaced camp on the outskirts of town, Alban and his father agree to speak to us. Do you know who this man is? - Luk. - Pere Luk? - He became your friend. What happened? - It's clear Alban is too upset to talk much more, so we asked his father if he can explain what happened. What did Father Delft do? - That was clearly really tough for both Alban and his father, but we had to show them this picture. We had to know that the man that Alban says abused him is Father Luk Delft. What happened in there clearly came at such great cost for both of them, but it was something that they told us again and again they needed to do because justice is not easy to get up here. We leave Kaga-Bandoro. It's time to track down Delft. This is Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic. We've traveled here from the north, where we met Alban. Caritas Centrafrique's headquarters is here. Sunday, and we get an early morning wake-up call. ♪ ♪ Our contacts are telling us he regularly celebrates mass in the area. We try the churches. He's nowhere to be found. We try him at his residence, but he hasn't spent the night. Nothing. We've spent the whole morning looking for Father Delft. It's been a bit of a wild-goose chase, but now we're hearing that he's back at his office, and we're heading there now. Hello. Father Delft? - Yes. - Hi. - No, no, no. No, no, no. No. - We spoke to the prosecutor in Belgium, so we'd like to simply ask you some questions about breaking the terms of your sentence. We also spoke to some children up in Kaga-Bandoro who had some really disturbing stories to share with us, and, of course, we'd like to hear what you have to say about it, Father Delft. - Nothing. - What do you mean nothing? - Nothing. - You're a priest. You're a man of God. These children are accusing you of abusing them, and you have nothing to say for yourself? - No. - Do you know Alban? Do you remember Alban? He said he was 13 when you abused him. Do you remember him? - Who? - Alban. Alban, in Kaga-Bandoro, at the compound, the Catholic compound. He and his father spoke to us. He was crying. He said that you told him you loved him, and then you hurt him. You have nothing to say? - No, no. - It doesn't disturb you to hear that children said this about you? - No. - Do you want to say anything? - No. - Okay. Well, we will, of course, be speaking to the managers of Caritas about our findings. Thank you for whatever this was. ♪ ♪ He had absolutely... he had nothing to say for himself. He was utterly blank. He didn't care. He did not care. He didn't remember. You could see it in his eyes that he didn't remember that little boy's name. The things that that little boy told us, the bravery that that little boy showed in speaking to us, and that man in there didn't remember him. [bells tolling] ♪ ♪ We travel back to Belgium to share the evidence we've gathered with the Salesian order. Maybe we can get answers here. Father Carlo Loots has been handling allegations of child abuse for the Flemish region of the Salesian order for almost a decade. The order's work with young children, he tells us, complicates the question of where to relocate abusers. - That's one of the greatest challenges, where... what to do with abusers. We have to move them into another place... But we don't have so much authorities. - So specifically in the case of Father Delft, as you remember it, how was it handled? - He abused two members of the boarding school in Ghent. He was, at that moment, immediately removed from the boarding school. The decision was clear: no direct pedagogical contact with young people. So he became a coordinator, administrator of a center of vocational and educational training in Sint-Pieters-Woluwe. - Sint-Pieters-Woluwe, which is a school, though. So this center is housed within a school. - Yeah, but separately. - But there were children on the campus. - There were children on the campus, yeah. - Eventually, Delft got into trouble again. He was found with child pornography on a laptop that he had had access to. - Yes. Yeah. - Were you aware that in 2008, Luk Delft went on a school trip with children to Lubumbashi in the Congo? - When you...yeah. Now when you say it to me, yeah. - And yet still the Salesians sent him to the Central African Republic, where CNN found his latest accusers. What will you do now with Father Delft? - We have an advisory commission about cases about sexual abuse, and for us, these are new facts, and I will bring together that commission, and there, we will discuss how to handle concretely, but at least give us the time to think about it. When people... - Father, do you have time when there are vulnerable children? Do you have time? - But at least... we met first Friday. Now it's Tuesday, and now you proved me that there are new cases, so--also you took some time, so we will not take time in the sense of months, of weeks. In a very short time, I will bring people together who can help us what has to be done concretely and what will be the most appropriate way to handle. - You've been handling child abuse cases now for eight, nine years. - Yeah. - How is that? How does that feel? - It's a shame. - But shame doesn't help the survivors we spoke with. We traveled to the Vatican for answers. [dramatic music] ♪ ♪ - CNN has uncovered a blind spot within the church that allows religious orders to self-police. One order, the Salesians, have used this blind spot to protect their own, putting the brotherhood before children, putting lives at risk. We came to the Vatican to share the evidence that we were able to unearth over a yearlong investigation, evidence of abusers being moved, evidence of refusal to defrock abusers, evidence of lives being destroyed. But many of the key institutions refuse to even speak to us, and that doesn't give much hope for the church's commitment to transparency and change. How is it that even presented with evidence, allegations of a convicted pedophile's continuing abuse, Father Luk Delft was not immediately recalled from the Central African Republic? Caritas Internationalis' new head of safeguarding says the Salesians did not contact them about the current allegations against Caritas' former director, Luk Delft. So you were only made aware when we contacted you? - Yes, and from what information you've shared with us, there are new allegations there which need to be investigated, hopefully by the police or at least internally by the church to take action against Father Luk and any other person who is responsible for Father Luk's behavior. - And in order for that to happen... - We need to have systems at work. We need to have people that follow the systems, and when the systems are not followed, there needs to be consequences. - Yet again, the Salesians appear to have withheld information from others in the Church. We are still looking to understand how this is possible, but the Vatican says things are changing, and they are encouraged by the new papal guidelines issued just this year. Father Hans Zollner is on the Pope's Commission for the Protection of Minors. He was one of the few people who agreed to talk with us. - This is a very important step forward in the development of a culture of accountability. - Does this apply, though, to the holy orders? Because the holy orders will not directly fall under that bishop. - Now, the congregations and the religious orders follow a different type of structure and legal procedures. Many people think the Catholic Church is a monolithic block with one CEO, who is the Pope, and he presses a button, and every bishop and every priest and every Catholic, actually, salute and they follow what he does, and that is not the case. In some cases, in way too many cases, the religious superiors did not follow through canon law. - But the fact is, they did not follow through canon law, and there was no oversight mechanism that made any note of that. So there are no sanctions. There have been no sanctions for that. - If there are no sanctions within the community, which is, in that case, an order or a congregation, then there is almost no possibility to do that. - An order that is almost untouchable, even by the Pope. Religious orders like the Salesians are left to act with almost no external accountability. - When you put the institution first and not the people for whom you serve, then that is the biggest problem. - In the centuries of its existence, this is the heart of the battle within the Church. Could these new papal guidelines make a difference? The way they're written makes it unclear how they will even be applied to religious orders. Survivors tell us it's impossible to have faith in a church that isn't holding everyone equally to account. Meanwhile, they're the ones left to struggle with the hurt. ♪ ♪

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Length: 42min 41sec (2561 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 29 2023