A former Pastor of Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church has sued the Bishop of the Diocese of Palm Beach, claiming he punished him for exposing a homosexual Priest rather than covering it up as the Bishop wanted.
The lawsuit, filed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, accuses Bishop Gerald Barbarito of defaming the Reverend John Gallagher.
The 49-year-old Priest pointed to a statement posted last year on the diocesan website that said he was “blatantly lying” and “in need of professional assistance” for claiming the Bishop urged him not to tell police a visiting Priest had shown pornographic pictures to a 14-year-old youth at the suburban West Palm Beach church.
“Today is a sad day,” said Father Gallagher, who was wearing a clerical collar at a morning press conference. “Thirty years of my life has been destroyed by the Roman Church.”
Gallagher says that when he learned of transgressions by a visiting Priest, Father Jose Varkey Palimattom, Diocesan leaders told him the best course of action was to put Palimattom on a plane back to his home in India. Gallagher said he learned Palimattom had a history of inappropriate conduct with children in India.
After Gallagher worked with Palm Beach County sheriff’s detectives to prosecute Palimattom, he was locked out of his parish.
While he was lauded by Chief Deputy Sheriff Michael Gauger for working with detectives, he was treated like a pariah by the Bishop.
Father Gallagher said he reached out to Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, who was sent to Palm Beach County in 2002 to become its Bishop, after two of his predecessors were removed as a result of sexual misconduct.
Bishop O’Malley went on to lead the troubled Catholic Church in Boston after it was rocked by Priest pedophile scandals and was later elevated to become a Cardinal. However, in this case, in response to repeated pleas by Father Gallagher for assistance, the Cardinal offered no help.
Dianne Laubert, a Diocesan spokeswoman, said officials had not seen the lawsuit. But, she said, their view of Gallagher’s allegations haven’t changed since they surfaced.
In a statement that Bishop Barbarito asked be read during Mass throughout the diocese, he denied the allegations.
“Our Diocese in no way, as Father Gallagher erroneously asserts, tried to ‘cover up’ the inappropriate behavior of a visiting Priest,” Bishop Barbarito wrote. “In fact, in accord with our very rigorous policies pertaining to the protection of children, we not only immediately reported the incident to the police and State Attorney, but cooperated as fully as we could in the investigation. Father Gallagher’s harmful assertions are an embarrassment to my brother priests as well as me,” the Bishop wrote.
The visiting Priest in question pleaded guilty in April 2015 to a charge of showing obscene material to a minor and was sentenced to six months in jail.
In the lawsuit, Gallagher said the experience reignited the post-traumatic stress disorder he suffers as a result of horrors he suffered in his war torn homeland. As pressure increased from Diocesan leaders to ignore Palimattom’s misdeeds, he was hospitalized with a heart attack. Upon his release, he discovered he was locked out of his home and his parish.
One can only hope and pray that the truth regarding this story will come to light. Still, incidences such as this do so much violence to the Gospel and the Church.
Let us pray to the Holy Spirit for Father Gallagher, for Bishop Barbarito and for the Diocese of West Palm Beach, that there be healing within this community of the Church, that the truth of the matter be made known, and that People of God not lose their faith in the Church. God bless the Diocese of West Palm Beach in this trying and difficult moment.
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