Seton Hall is addressing claims that its president did not properly report sex abuse claims — by going after the alleged whistle-blower. (Photo by New Jersey Monitor)
When the Catholic Church first faced scandals involving priests accused of sexually abusing children, the men who run the church shamefully spent more time protecting priests than the children in their flock.
I’m thinking of this today as Seton Hall University faces its own sex abuse scandal, one the university has responded to not by trying to make things right — but by targeting the person it thinks is responsible for shining a light on the problem.
Politico New Jersey has done the heavy lifting here, and a lot of what it has reported is not really in dispute because it is backed up in documents.
A legal review commissioned by Seton Hall concluded in 2019 that Monsignor Joseph R. Reilly, the rector and dean at the school’s Immaculate Conception Seminary, investigated a student complaint of “in-house” sexual assault in 2012 but did not report it, according to Politico. The accused seminarian was dismissed, but the university was not alerted about why, and he continued as a Seton Hall student, Politico reported.
A university task force formed to take disciplinary action over the matter sent Reilly a letter in November 2019 saying he should step down as the seminary’s rector — but he remained in charge of it until he resigned in June 2022 to take a sabbatical. By April 2024, Seton Hall announced Reilly would be its new president.
It is worth noting here that the school’s motto, hazard zet forward, translates to “despite hazards, move forward.”
Seton Hall had a chance here to rectify a wrong, drop Reilly as its president, and appoint instead someone who wasn’t tainted by the ugly allegations that have dogged the Catholic Church for decades.
Alas, the school has instead aimed its arrow at others. It told its staff that Politico had “falsely” portrayed Reilly, yet has not asked for a correction nor specified what about the reporting is false. And now it is using the courts to discover who told Politico about the previously secret documents at the core of the accusations against Reilly.
This week the school sued Reilly’s predecessor, Joseph Nyre, and claimed he accessed numerous confidential documents about the Reilly matter after Nyre resigned suddenly in July 2023. It wants a “complete forensic review” of all Nyre’s electronic devices and, in a chilling request that strikes at the very heart of free press protections, wants a judge to force Nyre to preserve any alleged communications he had with Politico New Jersey.
“Defendant’s unlawful actions caused University to suffer financial losses, reputational harm, and other injuries and threaten to cause additional harm to the University,” the school’s lawsuit against Nyre reads.
Nay. It was Seton Hall who caused itself harm by taking someone its own task force had previously said was unfit to run a seminary and elevating that man to lead the entire university.
Asked to comment, Seton Hall spokesman Michael Hyland said, “This week’s filing makes clear that confidential documents were utilized with sections selectively released, causing damage to the University and its leadership and painting a false narrative about Monsignor Reilly.”
I asked one of Nyre’s attorneys, Armen McOmber, about the new lawsuit, and in a statement he said Nyre warned Seton Hall officials about “Reilly’s disqualifying history” during their search for a new president, warnings McOmber said were ignored.
“Seton Hall’s lawsuit, filled with falsehoods and misstatements, is nothing more than a blatant act of retaliation against Dr. Nyre for his pending litigation exposing institutional corruption, cover-ups, and abuse. This is a smokescreen — a feeble attempt to shift blame onto a whistleblower instead of addressing the real issue: the University’s own misconduct and its leadership’s reckless, illegal actions,” McOmber said.
Mark Crawford is the New Jersey director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. He said what Seton Hall should have done was punish Reilly for not reporting what he knew about sexual assault in the seminary, though he’s not surprised that it is instead going after an alleged whistleblower.
“This is an institution that for centuries has thrived on secrecy, and that doesn’t change very easily,” he said.
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