[A long and complicated story, dear reader. And painful. But true. And important.]
In volume III of her historical study Rite of Sodomy, Randy Engel describes how she began an extended personal correspondence with an inmate of a Texas prison. Mr. William Burnett is serving a sixty-year sentence for murder. Their first exchange of letters occurred in February, 2002.
In 1995, Burnett had written to the then-bishop of the Diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts.Burnett had described the sexual abuse he had suffered at the hands of a number of priests and bishops, during the 1950’s. The list of those who had abused him included: Springfield Bishop Christopher Weldon. Also, Worcester Bishop, and later Cardinal of the Roman Curia, John Wright.
Unfortunately for Burnett, the man who received his 1995 letter–Bishop Thomas Dupré–was himself a serial sexual abuser of minors. In 2010, lawyers attempted to depose Dupré for a civil lawsuit against him, which claimed damages for sexual abuse. At the deposition, Dupré stated his name and date of birth, then pleaded the fifth.
When Burnett filed his lawsuit, David Clohessy, of the Survivors Network of the those Abused by Priests, commented on the credibility of a convicted murderer, when it comes to a claim of sexual abuse as a minor:
If you told your spouse you were in a horrific accident on the highway and then walked in the house without as much as a scratch, then thatwould raise credibility concerns. The same can be said for victims of clergy abuse.
The diocese said they had no records whatsoever that could corroborate Burnett’s charges.
Later, in 2018, Mr. E.J. Fleming published his thorough investigation into the death of one of his childhood friends, Death of an Altar Boy. The boy’s case remains unsolved to this day. In his book, Fleming documents how Dupré destroyed all the sex-abuse records in 1977, shortly after Weldon’s death. Dupré served as chancellor of the diocese at the time. So, of course they could find no records, in 2005.