Vatican clears former Kansas City priest of sex abuse claims, infuriating victims
The Vatican has exonerated former Kansas City priest and retired Wyoming Bishop Joseph Hart of seven accusations that he sexually abused minors and said five others could not be proven “with moral certitude,” the Diocese of Cheyenne announced Monday.
But the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith also issued a canonical rebuke to Hart “for his flagrant lack of prudence as a priest and bishop for being alone with minors in his private residence and on various trips, which could have been potential occasions endangering the ‘obligation to observe continence’ and that would ‘give rise to scandal among the faithful,’” the diocese said in a news release.
Hart also was rebuked “for his disregard of the urgent requests that he refrain from public engagements that would cause scandal among the faithful due to the numerous accusations against him and the civil and canonical investigations and processes being conducted in his regard,” the diocese’s statement said.
In releasing the long-awaited results of the Vatican trial, current Wyoming Bishop Steven Biegler — who had deemed the allegations credible and pushed for a criminal investigation of Hart — had a message for the accusers who have come forward.
“Today, I want the survivors to know that I support and believe you,” Biegler said in the diocese’s statement posted on its website. “I understand that this announcement will not bring closure to the survivors, their family members, Bishop Hart and all those affected.
“I will continue to work and pray for their healing and for all involved in these painful and distressing matters. In the Diocese of Cheyenne, we remain steadfast in our commitment to protect the most vulnerable and to accompany those who have been harmed on a journey of healing.”
The diocese said the accusations against Hart involved 11 males and one female. “Moral certitude” is held to be equivalent to “beyond a reasonable doubt,” the standard of proof required for a criminal conviction, it said.
“These findings do not equate to innocence; rather, a high burden of proof has not been met,” the diocese said.
Hart, 89, has been the subject of abuse allegations spanning more than three decades and was the target of a criminal investigation in Wyoming that ended last year with no charges being filed. If found guilty in the Vatican trial, he could have been laicized, or removed from the priesthood.
Hart’s attorney, Tom Jubin, called the Vatican’s findings “welcome and expected.”
“The Church’s finding follows two separate but similarly lengthy and diligent investigations conducted by local law enforcement that reached the same conclusion: The allegations made against Bishop Hart are unwarranted,” Jubin said in an email to The Star.
“Bishop Hart absolutely believes that all victims of clerical abuse should come forward to seek justice, but justice can only occur when there is due process,” Jubin said. “Due process is what Bishop Hart has sought since these allegations were made nearly two decades ago, and that process did not substantiate claims of wrongdoing.”
Jubin accused Biegler of “grandstanding.”
“Bishop Hart has had to live under the cloud of these allegations for many years, especially so since Bishop Biegler was installed as Bishop of Cheyenne and began this divisive, irresponsible and unfathomable campaign against his predecessor,” Jubin said. “Despite this, Bishop Hart asks me to convey that he continues to pray for all involved in this case so that they may find peace and healing. He now asks, and I ask, too, that he may now be afforded peace in the twilight of this life as he prepares to meet his God in the next.”
The Vatican’s decree incensed victims and appeared to undermine the actions of Biegler and Bishop James V. Johnston of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese, who both have deemed allegations against Hart to be credible.
“If there ever was any inkling that I would set foot back inside the Catholic Church again, it just went away,” said Darrel Hunter, whose brother was among the minors Hart allegedly abused in Kansas City. “They’re going to just keep shooting themselves in the foot until they don’t have any toes. Shame on them.
“The church had an opportunity to show where their heart was in this thing, that they cared about it and wanted to make it right. And they just missed.”
Hunter said he was contacted Sunday by the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese and told about the Vatican’s decision.
“If they think that they don’t have proof and yet it’s coming from so many different directions and different cities and the stories all conform, if that’s what they think, that’s crazy,” he said. “I think the church is being disingenuous about it. Not Johnston and Biegler, because they tried. But they’re part of this big monster.”
A former Wyoming man who was the chief accuser in the criminal investigation of Hart said Biegler called Sunday night to tell him about the decision.
“After I got over the stunned shock of it, I said, ‘What would have made more sense to me is for them to say to Hart that ‘We have examined this and we can’t say anything definitively, so now you are no longer under a cloud. You’ve been exonerated; you’re free to go. ‘ But to issue a rebuke? What are they rebuking him for? For creating the impression that something was going on? That’s ridiculous.”
Johnston issued a statement on the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese’s website Monday, saying the case was of special interest “because several of the accusations against Bishop Hart originated from our diocese, dating to the time when he served here as a priest prior to becoming a bishop in Cheyenne in 1976.”
“This has been a long and often difficult process, especially for the survivors and their families who bravely shared their stories,” Johnston said. “I am grateful for the courage and perseverance of those who brought this matter to a point of decision; the survivors, their families and Bishop Biegler.
“While a decision has been rendered, we must not lose hope. The Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph remains committed to protecting the most vulnerable and to the ongoing work of accompanying survivors on the path to healing. I invite all the faithful to join me in prayer, particularly for all those who have been directly wounded by clerical sexual abuse, themselves and their families, and for the Church.”
In its statement, the Diocese of Cheyenne said it hired an investigator in January 2018, a Catholic lawyer who had done work for many dioceses involving more than 200 allegations of sexual abuse. The investigator, the diocese said, concluded that the allegations against Hart were credible.
Over time, the diocese said, the reports of six accusations were examined by its Judicial Vicar and Diocesan Review Board, “and they were convinced that we had sufficient evidence to conclude with moral certainty that the six accusations against Bishop Hart are credible.”
Those findings, the diocese said, were presented to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, which appointed a bishop with a degree in canon law and two priests with canon law degrees to undertake the extrajudicial penal process.
Hart was accused of numerous delicts, or violations of the law, against the sixth commandment with minors under the age of 15 and of solicitation in confession, the diocese said.
The decree also stated that two additional accusations could not be considered delicts because the alleged victims were not under 16, the diocese’s statement said. The two males were 16 and 17.
The statement added: “It should be noted that the decree made no mention of assessing one credible allegation of a male under 16 years of age, which the Diocese of Cheyenne reported to the CDF. This individual’s name was not listed in the allegations adjudicated in the penal process.”
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reminded Hart that restrictions placed upon him by Pope Francis in October 2018 remained in force, the diocese said. Those restrictions prohibited Hart from having “any contact with minors, youth, seminarians and vulnerable adults” and from “presiding or participating anywhere in any public celebration of the Liturgy.”
Hart was a priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph from 1956 to 1976, then served as auxiliary bishop of Cheyenne from 1976 to 1978 and bishop from 1978 until retiring in 2001.
Allegations against Hart first surfaced in 1989 and 1992 in Kansas City. Church officials originally deemed those allegations not credible, but in 2018, Bishop Johnston of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese found them to be substantiated.
In 2002, the former Wyoming man accused Hart of sexually abusing him as a boy. Wyoming authorities concluded there was no evidence to support the allegations. But in July 2018, Biegler — then the new Bishop of Cheyenne — announced that the diocese had reopened its investigation into Hart.
Biegler said the previous investigation was flawed, adding that a second man had come forward alleging sexual abuse by Hart and that both men’s allegations had now been deemed “credible and substantiated.”
Wyoming authorities, spurred by the Cheyenne diocese, opened a new criminal investigation into the allegations against Hart in 2018. If charged, he would have become the highest-ranking Roman Catholic cleric in the country to face criminal prosecution for sexual abuse of a minor.
Though the alleged abuse occurred decades ago, Wyoming — unlike most states — has no statute of limitations for criminal prosecutions, so charges can be filed years later.
By September 2019, the Diocese of Cheyenne said it had received a total of six credible allegations against Hart.
The Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese has said Hart was named by 10 individuals in lawsuits regarding child sexual abuse claims dating from the 1970s. Those claims were part of two settlements of $10 million each that the diocese entered into in 2008 and 2014 in cases involving dozens of victims and numerous priests.
In September 2019, the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese said it had received four additional allegations against Hart in the past year. Two of those involved Missouri men who said the alleged abuse occurred years ago on trips with Hart to Wyoming. Those were two of the new cases substantiated by the Cheyenne diocese.
That brought to at least 18 the number of sexual abuse allegations against Hart that were reported to the two dioceses.
In 2019, the Cheyenne Police Department recommended that Hart be charged. Though Cheyenne is in Laramie County, the case was handled by Natrona County District Attorney Dan Itzen in Casper because of a conflict of interest within the Laramie County District Attorney’s office.
But Itzen declined to file charges, citing a lack of evidence. In an odd twist of events, however, he decided to re-examine the case after police said he had “misinterpreted” part of their probable cause statement supporting their recommendation that charges be filed. But soon after that, Itzen again refused to file charges.
Rebecca Randles, a Kansas City attorney who has represented many of Hart’s alleged victims, said the Vatican decree shows that much work remains to be done.
“The decades of promised reform within the Catholic Church ring hollow with this announcement,” she said in an email. “How many children over how many decades, separated geographically and temporally, does it take for the Church to find ‘moral certitude’ that a Bishop is a predator? Evidently more than twelve separated by thousands of miles and at least four decades.”
Biegler still has “the pulpit and the power” to push for criminal prosecution of Hart, Randles said.
“Neither he nor any others who know of such abuses can put this aside as ‘Justice.’ It is not,” she said. “There must be no sanctuary or refuge in the Church or society for those who cheat children of their innocence, rob them of their youth, kill their understanding of love and faith.”
Hunter said he gave up hope long ago that Hart would ever be punished.
“I personally don’t care if he goes to jail,” he said. “But the truth needs to be told. He had a close relationship with our family. His picture hung in our living room, and he came and went from our home like it was his home.
“If this abuse didn’t happen, sometime over the past 30 years we would have gotten a call from Joseph Hart saying, ‘Hey guys, it didn’t happen. Let’s talk about this.’ And that call never came.”
This story was originally published January 25, 2021 at 6:24 PM.
