2002-12-04 04:00:00 PDT Boston -- For more than 40 years, Catholic Church officials here overlooked abuse ranging from the molestation of girls studying to become nuns to drug use by priests with parish youth to homosexual rape, according to thousands of pages of confidential archdiocese documents made public Tuesday.

The records show that as recently as last year, bishops and archbishops in Boston consistently ignored parishioners' complaints while protecting priests and striving to minimize financial damage.

Many examples of clerical sexual abuse have become public since the nationwide clerical abuse scandal erupted in Boston last January. But the memoranda, letters and court filings released Tuesday casts light on offenses and church practices not previously reported.

"This material is qualitatively different than anything we have seen until now," said David Clohessy, national chair of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Donna Morrissey, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese, acknowledged the damaging contents of the memos.

"We can't change the past," she said. "We can recognize the inadequacy of our policies and change them and recognize the suffering and the pain the victim-survivors have gone through and are continuing to go through."

The disclosures come amid speculation that the Boston Archdiocese may declare bankruptcy because so many abuse cases are pending against it. The revelations were mandated by court order as part of a series of civil suits brought by sexual abuse victims and their families.

2,000 PAGES MADE PUBLIC

Lawyers for the archdiocese at first resisted the edict from Judge Constance Sweeney, but in an 11th-hour reversal, they complied by presenting plaintiffs' lawyers with 11,000 pages of partially redacted documents. About 2, 000 pages were made public on Tuesday by plaintiffs' lawyer Robert Sherman.

Those records focused on several priests whose cases until now had not come to light.

The church's file on the Rev. Richard A. Buntel, for example, contains allegations that his marijuana and cocaine use was so prevalent when he was at St. Joseph's Church in Malden, Mass., beginning in the late 1970s, that he had become known as "pothead." Others knew him as the "blow king of Malden."

In 1994, a Buntel victim sought a $500,000 settlement from the church. The boy's lawyer charged that two of the priest's drug dealers asked Buntel to make a pornographic film of himself sexually assaulting the teenager. The church and the victim ultimately settled the case for $55,000.

Buntel eventually admitted having sex with at least one teenager and with adult men, but when he was first confronted with allegations of misconduct in the summer of 1983, the priest denied that any problem was interfering with his priestly duties.

NEW CASE SURFACES

Another newly revealed case is that of Father Robert Meffan. Following complaints about him, the late Cardinal Humberto Medeiros recommended as early as 1977 that the priest seek help from "some professional person."

Instead, Meffan moved into a trailer and set up shop as a counselor. By 1985 he was back in service as a parish priest. The following year, a handwritten document from Bishop Robert Banks recorded allegations that Meffan was engaged in sexual acts with girls as young as 15 who were preparing to become nuns.

A 1993 confidential report filed in the archdiocese recounted how Meffan would "attract adolescent girls, get them to enter religious orders and then visit them in various novitiates. He would link spiritual stages with sexual acts, 'what one has to do in order to progress,' and would perform the acts," the report stated.

The teenage girls often met with Meffan in his rectory office, which other priests "jokingly" called his "tank," a subsequent report continued. An archdiocese memo from 1993 showed that Meffan taught the girls to be "brides of Christ." When questioned by church officials, Meffan denied any knowledge of such practices, the memo indicated.

Meffan told the Boston Globe that the allegations in the files were true and that he still believed his sexual relationships with the teenage girls were "beautiful" and "spiritual," and were intended to bring them closer to God.

For Father Robert Burns, the trail of abuse began in Youngstown, Ohio, where he was a priest from 1975 to 1981. Church officials there determined that he had sexually abused young boys, and in 1981 sent him to a counseling program for pedophiles in Massachusetts. Soon, Burns was applying for a temporary position in the Boston Archdiocese.

BISHOP'S WARNING

James W. Malone, then bishop of the Youngstown Archdiocese, alerted Boston officials to Burns' history. He urged them not to assign him to work where he might have contact with boys.

In reply, the Rev. Gilbert S. Phinn, director of personnel for the Boston Archdiocese, promised that Burns' placement would be handled with "sensitivity and concern." Yet Burns was eventually placed in two parishes, first in Jamaica Plain, Mass., then in Charlestown, Mass., where he regularly came into contact with minors. Boston authorities did not warn the local churches of his record, though they had written "problem: little children" in a 1982 internal memo about Burns.

It took nine years for a flurry of accusations to surface that Burns had sexually molested a series of boys. In one case, attorney Laurence E. Hardoon said his 14-year-old client was "anally raped" by the priest in the rectory of a Boston church. As the allegations grew, Burns was removed from his post. Church leaders urged him to once again undergo counseling for pedophilia.

In 1991, Law officially terminated Burns' assignment in Boston. Burns pleaded guilty in 1996 to sexually molesting two boys under the age of 13 in New Hampshire. He was sentenced to two consecutive four-to-eight-year terms.