Black victims who accused Catholic priests of sexual abuse ‘were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars LESS than white victims by church Diocese’

Black victims who accused Catholic priests of sexual abuse ‘were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars LESS than white victims by church Diocese’

  • La Jarvis Love, 35, accused two Catholic priests of sexually abuse when he was 9
  • He was reportedly paid $15,000 in settlement after he came forward in 2017  
  • La Jarvis said he signed the paperwork for the settlement in January of this year 
  • What he didn’t know at the time was that other accusers, who were white, were reportedly paid upwards of $250K, $500K and $1.3M in similar settlements
  • In another case, La Jarvis’ cousin, Joshua Love, was reportedly paid $15,000 
  • Joshua and La Jarvis were attending St Francis of Assisi School at the time of the alleged abuse by Franciscans, Brother Paul West and Brother Donald Lucas
  • They said they were beat, raped, and ordered to do other sexual things that started when they were nine and 10 years old
  • In 1999, Brother Lucas was found dead at St Francis Church, an apparent suicide
  • The Jackson diocese has found claims against West and Lucas ‘credible’ and has notified the local district attorney, according to the investigation  

Black victims who accused Catholic priests of sexual abuse were reportedly paid significantly less than their white counterparts in settlements from the Diocese across the United States.

In one case, 35-year-old La Jarvis D. Love met with Rev James G. Gannon, the leader of a Wisconsin-based group of Franciscan Friars, at an IHOP in Southhaven, Mississippi, in January, according to an Associated Press investigation.

La Jarvis said Gannon arrived at the crowded pancake house with copies of a legal settlement that offered him and his family $15,000 to keep quiet about the alleged abuse by another Franciscan.

At the time, La Jarvis had no idea that other accusers who were white were paid significantly more in similar settlements, according to the AP. In some cases, white accusers were paid upwards of $250,000, $500,000 and in another instance around $1.3million.

As La Jarvis skimmed the four-page agreement, his thoughts flickered back more than two decades to the physical and sexual abuse he says he suffered at the hands of a Franciscan Friar at a Catholic grade school in Greenwood.

La Jarvis, who had arrived to the IHOP with his wife and three children, told Gannon he wasn’t sure $15,000 was enough.

‘He said if I wanted more, I would have to get a lawyer and have my lawyer call his lawyer,’ La Jarvis recently told the AP. ‘Well, we don’t have lawyers. We felt like we had to take what we could.’

La Jarvis considered his mounting bills, his young family and, with his wife’s consent, signed the agreement, dating it January 11, 2019.

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In one case, 35-year-old La Jarvis D. Love (pictured) met with Rev James G. Gannon, the leader of a Wisconsin-based group of Franciscan Friars, at an IHOP in Mississippi, where Gannon offered him only $15,000 to keep quiet about the alleged abuse, according to an investigation

In one case, 35-year-old La Jarvis D. Love (pictured) met with Rev James G. Gannon, the leader of a Wisconsin-based group of Franciscan Friars, at an IHOP in Mississippi, where Gannon offered him only $15,000 to keep quiet about the alleged abuse, according to an investigation

La Jarvis and two of his cousins, including Joshua Love (pictured) also reported that they were abused at Greenwood's St Francis of Assisi School. Joshua also said he was offered $15,000 and asked to sign a confidential agreement

La Jarvis and two of his cousins, including Joshua Love (pictured) also reported that they were abused at Greenwood’s St Francis of Assisi School. Joshua also said he was offered $15,000 and asked to sign a confidential agreement

Then Gannon announced it was time to eat. ‘He was all smiles then,’ La Jarvis said.

While signing the agreement, La Jarvis didn’t understand that what he signed was unusual in several respects.

It included a confidentiality requirement, even though American Catholic leaders have barred the use of non-disclosure agreements in sex abuse settlements.

In addition, the amount of money Gannon and the Franciscans offered is far less than what many other sex abuse victims have received through legal settlements with the Catholic Church.

For example, in 2006, the Diocese of Jackson, Mississippi, settled a handful of lawsuits with 19 victims, 17 of whom were white, for $5million and an average payout of more than $250,000 for each survivor.

More recent settlements have ranged even higher, including an average payment of nearly $500,000 each for abuse survivors in the St Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese.

La Jarvis and two of his cousins, who have also reported that they were abused at Greenwood’s St Francis of Assisi School, differ from most victims with sex abuse claims against the church because they are black, desperately poor and, until recently, never had a lawyer to argue their case.

The abuse they say they endured at the hands of two Franciscans, Brother Paul West and Brother Donald Lucas, included beatings, rape, and other sexual violations beginning when they were nine and 10 years old.

The Franciscans tried to settle with one of La Jarvis’ cousins, Joshua K. Love, by offering to pay him up to $10,000 to cover the cost of a used car, maintenance and insurance.

Joshua, who has limited reading and writing skills, rejected the offer but later signed a confidential agreement for $15,000 – something he now regrets.

‘They felt they could treat us that way because we’re poor and we’re black,’ Joshua said of the settlements he and La Jarvis received.

Catholic officials have been promising to end the cover-up of clergy abuse for nearly two decades.

In 2002, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops approved the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, pledging to respond to abuse allegations in an ‘open and transparent’ manner.

And earlier this year, Pope Francis issued a new church law requiring Catholic officials worldwide to report sexual abuse – and the cover-up of abuse – to their superiors.

But the confidential deals the Franciscans reached with La Jarvis and Joshua show that, in some cases, the American church continues efforts to limit financial fallout and keep sexual abuse under wraps – as it did in the years before 2002 when settlements with victims were routinely arranged in secret for small sums of money.

Gannon, during interviews with the AP, said he believes that both La Jarvis and Joshua were abused and acknowledged that the settlements are less than generous.

‘We’ve hurt them tremendously and no amount of money would ever account for what happened to them,’ he said.

Asked if the La Jarvis’ race or poverty had anything to do with the size of the settlements they were offered, Gannon said: ‘Absolutely not.’

La Jarvis (pictured) became emotional as he told his story in June

La Jarvis (pictured) became emotional as he told his story in June

Gannon also said the Franciscans have no intention of enforcing the confidentiality clauses, noting that La Jarvis and his cousins have discussed the settlements among themselves.

‘There is no confidentiality,’ he said. As for why the non-disclosure agreements were included, in violation of the American bishops’ 2002 charter, he said: ‘The lawyers put it in there. I can’t give you a good answer on that.’

West declined to answer questions for this story, and Lucas died in 1999. The Jackson diocese, for its part, has found the allegations against West and Lucas ‘credible’ and has notified the local district attorney.

La Jarvis, Joshua and Joshua’s brother Raphael grew up in a neighborhood known as Baptist Town. Often, more than 10 people in their extended family were crowded into their three-bedroom home.

Among them was their grandmother, family matriarch Lou Alice Bolden. Known as ‘Miss Lou,’ Bolden was born a Baptist but converted to Catholicism in 1964, after a Franciscan missionary baptized her infant son at a local hospital.

The Franciscan order was established in the early 13th century by St Francis of Assisi to evangelize and work among the poor.

Franciscan Friars based in Wisconsin have been traveling to Mississippi in their trademark brown robes and sandals to fulfill that mission among the Delta’s black citizens since the early 1950s.

Like other religious order priests and brothers, the Franciscan Friars report to their order’s leaders in the US and at the Vatican. While they don’t answer directly to local diocesan bishops, they are subject to bishops’ authority and direction in parish work.

Just three per cent of American Catholics are black but the percentage in Mississippi is higher, in part because of missionary work by the Franciscans.

The church lists 26 parishes in the Jackson Diocese, out of 101, where blacks have a significant presence.

All of Miss Lou’s five children were baptized by Franciscans and attended St Francis of Assisi School and Church, on the order’s compound out on Highway 82. It was the same with her nine grandchildren.

‘I wanted a positive life for them,’ said Miss Lou, now 78.

But a positive life eluded her family, as joblessness and the Delta’s crack cocaine epidemic stalked it throughout the 1990s. Back then, it was often up to Miss Lou, then an orderly at Greenwood Leflore Hospital, to cover tuition and pay for school uniforms for her grandchildren.

Times were especially hard when La Jarvis and Joshua were fourth and fifth graders. At the time, Joshua’s mother was addicted to drugs, living on the streets of Greenwood, and his father had drifted away from home.

The family’s hardships presented a perfect opportunity for a sexual predator.

When Brother Paul West or Brother Donald Lucas offered to pay La Jarvis or Joshua pocket money to work weekends at the Franciscans’ Greenwood compound -doing yard work or cleaning up the church and school – it seemed like an act of generosity.

The boys would alternate weekends, so they were never working together. Often, West ended the day with a meal at McDonald’s or Pizza Hut.

And he sometimes drove one of boys home with a stack of pizzas for the entire family. Raphael, five years younger than his brother, Joshua, would cry because he wasn’t yet asked to work at the compound.

West ‘made it seem like it was really good but it was really bad,’ said Joshua. West, then his fourth-grade teacher and later the school principal, encouraged Joshua by telling him he was a good student with a bright future. But this classic grooming soon led to sexual assaults, Joshua said.

As a matter of routine, Joshua said, West would take him to the empty school cafeteria, where he would order him to drop his pants and bend over a railing while he ‘whupped’ him……more here

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