But O'Grady, at least, appears to have found humor in it. Asked during a videotaped deposition in March conducted in Ireland by a lawyer for one of his alleged victims if he was aware that his former canonical prosecutor was also accused of molesting children, O'Grady grinned and said, "I had heard that, yes."
Ingels did give an assessment of O'Grady's misconduct and how it was handled by his superiors in a 1998 court deposition. In retrospect, it seems to reflect, at least indirectly, on Ingels' own circumstances. "I still cannot separate myself from the fact that in 1976 the church did not, and really none of us understood this type of pedophilia as a pathological situation, that this man [O'Grady] was sick," Ingels testified. "As a priest who's heard confessions, I know some of the horrible things people can do, and they seek forgiveness for it."
Photographs courtesy of AP Wide World Photos
Pope Benedict XVI appointed Archbishop Emeritus
William J. Levada to the Roman Catholic Church's
second most powerful position.
James Sanders
The Menlo Park house where accused molester
Father Gregory Ingels lives with former San Francisco
Archbishop John R. Quinn.
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It is a triumphant time for Levada, 69, as he prepares to assume the highest-ranking church role ever entrusted to an American. Plans are well along for a farewell liturgy on Aug. 7 at a cathedral Mass to be celebrated by the archbishop. A $150-a-plate farewell dinner send-off is in the works for Aug. 13 at the Marriott Hotel downtown. According to Catholic San Francisco, the archdiocese's official newspaper, political power broker Clint Reilly, the dinner chairman, sees Levada's Vatican appointment as bringing "great honor [to] San Francisco, the Bay Area, California, and the United States."
With its mostly local-boy-makes-good take on the archbishop's advancement, the secular press has been only slightly less effusive. "Levada goes to Rome with a keen understanding of Vatican politics, but also with decades of experience dealing with such explosive American issues as gay rights, the role of women in the church, and the ongoing fallout from the sexual abuse crisis in the church," the San Francisco Chronicle observed.
Others are less sanguine.
"His experience is in denial, cover-up, and secrecy," says Terrie Light, Northern California regional director of SNAP, the sex-abuse victims' advocate group. She and others fault Levada for dragging his feet in response to pleas for help and working to keep complaints about priestly sex abuse secret, even while preaching openness on the issue.
James Jenkins tells SF Weekly he began to lose confidence in Levada in the summer of 2003 -- and the reason involved Ingels. As chairman of the so-called Independent Review Board that Levada appointed in late 2001, ostensibly to investigate claims of priestly sex abuse in the San Francisco Archdiocese, Jenkins learned that Ingels was among at least nine priests whose clerical privileges had been restricted in keeping with the new sex-abuse policy adopted by American bishops.
The review board's mandate was to investigate any and all priests accused of child sex abuse -- some 40 names had wound up on its agenda -- and Jenkins saw Ingels as no exception. But the board didn't get far with Ingels. Jenkins recalls Ingels as being "derisive, condescending, and uncooperative" after being invited to appear before the panel to explain his version of events, something Jenkins says the priest/ lawyer never did.
At about the time Ingels was arraigned on criminal charges, Jenkins and other members of the review panel learned that he was living with former San Francisco Archbishop John R. Quinn at Quinn's residence on the campus of St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park. Quinn moved to the century-old mansion on the seminary grounds after his unexpected retirement as archbishop in 1995. Ingels has been living with him in the elegant mission-style home, built as a summer residence for the late Archbishop Patrick William Riordan, since then, say persons who know the men. Neither Ingels nor Quinn responded to requests for comment for this article.
Jenkins says that he and others of the six-member panel were especially disturbed by reports that a "support group" for priests accused of sex abuse had held meetings at the residence. (The founder of one such group, Detroit-based Opus Bono Sacerdotii, confirmed recently that Ingels is an "adviser" to it. "Father Ingels may be the best canon lawyer in the United States, and we're grateful to have him," said Joe Maher. "He's an excellent priest, a very holy man, and he's a great help to us.")
Jenkins says he and other panel members "didn't believe that a former archbishop had any business keeping house with someone who had acknowledged on a wiretap that he had sodomized a 15-year-old boy," and he and his colleagues saw the living arrangement as a source of scandal should it become publicly known. He says panel members conveyed those sentiments to Levada face to face, recommending that the archbishop order Ingels be moved elsewhere. "We looked at the archbishop and told him in no uncertain terms that there needed to be daylight between Ingels and Quinn," Jenkins says.
Levada responded that he would consult with Quinn, Jenkins says. A week or so later, Jenkins says, Levada reported back that he had spoken with Quinn, and the former archbishop "had seen no reason" for Ingels to move out.
Jenkins says his experience left him with "the clear impression that, for whatever reason, Ingels was being protected." Frustrated that Levada had blocked the public release of the review panel's findings on sex-abuse allegations involving dozens of priests, including Ingels, Jenkins resigned last October, faulting Levada for "deception, manipulation, and control" of the panel. He says he made one last effort to broach the subject of Ingels with Levada during a phone conversation last fall in which, Jenkins says, he sought to explain why he'd decided to announce his resignation.
But, Jenkins says, Levada did not respond. "There was dead silence on the phone, and I remember asking if he was still there," Jenkins recalls. "He just said, 'Yes, I'm taking notes.'"
