He Should “Not Be Alone With Children” Says Bishop Deshotel

On August 27, 2019, the SSPD published these two letters of eyewitness accounts of Safe Environment Violations (PDF).

Such a large number of parishioners of the Diocese of Lafayette shared our concerns with these allegations, that Bishop Douglas Deshotel issued the statement below on August 27, 2019, and it was posted on the website of Notre Dame High School in Crowley, LA, but was not otherwise widely disseminated.

Because Bishop Deshotel states in this notice that “Father Polson is a priest in good standing with the Diocese of Lafayette,” which gives the impression that the transgressions contained in the witness letters are either not true or not serious, the SSPD feels duty-bound to publish the full response that Bishop Deshotel initially gave us when we met with His Excellency on Saturday, November 17, 2018.

Audio Recording of the Bishop’s Response:

 

Transcript of the Meeting:

 

SSPD: On the case that seems to be developing against Michael Polson. Fr. Michael Polson in Crowley.

Bishop: Yes.

SSPD: So you’re aware?

Bishop: Yes.

SSPD: We have a couple of letters that were actually written to your Vicar General…

Bishop: Yes.

SSPD: Monsignor Mallet. And you’re aware of these letters?

Bishop: Yes, and they were turned over to the police.

SSPD: The letters were turned over to the police?

Bishop: Yes.

SSPD: Now in the letters, there seemed to be contained some evidence of at least some violations of the ideals of Safe Environment.

Bishop: Yes.

SSPD: And has any action been taken…

Bishop: Yes.

SSPD: … against Polson?

Bishop: Yes.

SSPD: He still seems to be around minors often.

Bishop: Yes, he’s a pastor. He’s at a school. Yes.

SSPD: You could see why any father would be… That would make a parent of young children nervous.

Bishop:  He… Well, first of all, he never abused anyone. And that’s in the letter, and no one has accused him of abuse. Boundary things, and, as the letters mention, protocols in Safe Environment that we try to enforce were pointed out to him and corrections made.

SSPD: Could you share the nature of those corrections or not?

Bishop: No.

SSPD: Given the nature of his violations of Safe Environment protocols, do you…

Bishop: Well I didn’t say violations of them, I mean not following….

SSPD: The ideal?

Bishop: Yeah. You know, professional boundaries and that type of thing. Making sure that he observes them. And again, because he’s not committed a crime, there are private corrections that a bishop makes to his priests as a father to his sons that are confidential.

SSPD: Sure.

Bishop: And I want to point something else out. The whole purpose of church law and penal law is one of moving a person to repentance and redemption and restoration of the ideals of his vocation. That’s the purpose of church law and penal law in the church. Not just for priests but for a lay person also. That’s why there are penalties of interdict and excommunication and so forth, to point out the danger that the person is in and to invite them to repentance and restoring their dignity as a Christian, as a Catholic, or as a priest. We try and restore the vocation.

SSPD: So it’s ultimately for the soul, the salvation of the soul of the person…

Bishop: That’s what I mean, redemption.

SSPD: Yeah. It seems like those laws should be pinpointed to the most innocent among us as well, and their souls are damaged by the behavior of these priests, more than, I think, the priests soul is damaged by his own behavior.

Bishop: And my job as shepherd of the diocese is to protect the flock.

SSPD: Right. And that’s all we want to help with.

Bishop: I want the help.

 

…

 

SSPD: Yeah, and I think that something else that backs that up is the witnesses in the Polson case wrote the letters…

Bishop: The witnesses in the Polson case?

SSPD: … who wrote the two letters? 

Bishop: Yes.

SSPD: You’ve seen the two letters…

Bishop: Yes.

SSPD: … that they gave to Father Mallet? They said that they were stonewalled by him. They weren’t concerned with the civil authorities knowing things because civil law wasn’t broken. They were concerned with the protection of minors because obvious Safe Environment protocol was broken. It was very obvious. You know, with the priest having a minor in the car alone with him, having a 15 or 16 year old boy lay his head in his lap, pinning young boys on the ground and having his pelvic area on their rear while wrestling with them for a long time. That kind of behavior is unacceptable and that man shouldn’t be around minors. And the witnesses said they spoke with Monsignor Mallet several times and gave him the letters, and he won’t contact them and they wouldn’t allow them to meet with the bishop. Mallet would not allow them to meet with the bishop.

Bishop: Which bishop?

SSPD: Bishop Jarrell, before you.

[Garbled audio]

Bishop: ….. That those things in the letter you were mentioning were brought to the attention of Father Poslon and the corrections made. He was instructed to follow safe environment protocol that he didn’t follow. And he has since abade by that. And so the correction worked.

SSPD: Right, but you could see why I don’t trust him and why these witnesses who are still around him don’t trust him.

Bishop: Why don’t you trust him?

SSPD: Because he put his pelvic on the rear of a boy for a long time and because he had a 15 year old boy’s head in his lap, and because I think we would be foolish to assume that a man who commits that behavior regularly, according to the witnesses, is not [sic] someone to be trusted with young people just because he was told not to do it again. And that’s the image with the lay faithful and the diocese that it’s not…

Bishop: [Garbled…I get it??]

SSPD: Yeah, I believe that.

Bishop: And he has not transgressed in that way since the correction was made.

SSPD: But how would you know if he has? How could we know when [garbled]… I wouldn’t trust him with my children.

Bishop: Well I’m not going to put Father Polson on trial here, because he has not broken any laws right now, he also has been following the correction that has been given to him. If I hear a violation of that, then it’ll be taken to the next step after that depending on the violation. And I promise to you that any priest who is guilty of anything or violates anything and is not acting in a priestly way is corrected by me. The priest has a right also to a good name and a good reputation so that has to be kept in check also. And he has to be given the opportunity of changing, unless he’s broken the law. Then he has to be reported to the authorities.

 

…

 

SSPD: When we see something like Polson happen… I know, surely you believe that it’s very disordered behavior to be alone in a room with a young man with his head on your lap.

Bishop: And that was corrected.

SSPD: Well, sure. But don’t you believe that that is indicative of a disordered disposition?

Bishop: Not necessarily. It is a sign of … immaturity, of not realizing the importance of professional boundaries, of not being sensitive to the climate of the times, where that is a very sensitive issue. And that would need to be corrected, and was.

SSPD: So in your mind, the things that have been reported about Poslon are not necessarily indicative of a larger problem?

Bishop: No. What larger problem? That he is a predator?

SSPD: That he seems to display grooming behavior.

Bishop: Oh, well that needs to be corrected if that’s the case, and it will be.

SSPD: I think it’s important, that — I mean, I have 5 children — If I walked in a room with my son’s head on the lap of another man, or if I walked in a room and that man had his pelvic on my son’s rear, I would not ask him to stop doing that and merely say, “You broke protocol here.” As a father who loves my children, I would say, “If you come around my son again, I’m not calling the police, I’m going to handle this myself.”

Bishop: Um-hm. 

SSPD: That’s what I would tell him. And I would make sure he was never around my kids again. Ever. And any of my friends’ kids. 

Bishop: Um-hm.

SSPD: And so, as a loving father, it seems like every father has the obligation to make certain that a man, again, who puts his pelvic on the rear of another child and has another young man lay his head in his lap while they’re alone, should not be around children at all, even after correction.

Bishop: Not be alone with children, that’s for sure.

SSPD: And how can we be sure that he’s not ever alone with children?

Bishop: If someone brings a complaint to me that he is, if the assistant pastor who’s living with him is, he will tell me. If the principal who is on the scene tells me, I’ll know. [Garbled]

SSPD: I think that’s another issue of mistrust, that it’s a matter of not being preventative. It’s a matter of just dealing with it after the fact. You know, not that… I mean, I think you dealt with it, but I think for a father and mothers that have children around these people, it’s a matter of being preventative and making certain it doesn’t happen. And we have a pattern of behavior with a particular priest and it would stand to reason that more be done that he not be around children at all.

 

Questions

Failing to take preventative measures is at the heart of this issue.

 

1) Firstly, we must establish that while Bishop Deshotel minimizes the allegations as “a sign of immaturity, of not realizing the importance of professional boundaries, of not being sensitive to the climate of the times,” he also said that the letters were given to the police.

Why would mere boundary issues, which according to the bishop don’t even rise to the level of “violations” of protocol, be worth reporting to the police? Or does the fact that these letters were reported to the police indicate that their content should be considered serious in nature, or at least potentially indicative of a larger problem?

In acknowledging the credibility of the allegations, is Bishop Deshotel sending mixed signals to parents by defending Polson’s “good standing” with the diocese without also expressing his own assessment that Polson should never be allowed to be alone with their kids because of his past behavior?

If a public school system had been presented with this sort of information, would it likewise have treated it as merely a boundary issue, leaving the violator in exactly the same set of circumstances in which he originally transgressed?

 

2) Bishop Deshotel seems to believe that these violations are not “grooming behavior.” If a man being caught alone in a room with a young boy’s head in his lap, frequently sitting on and laying on top of boys, and touching boys’ butts does not qualify as grooming behavior, then what does? Can we trust a bishop who thinks these behaviors don’t qualify as signs of grooming?

 

3) In the case of Fr. Michael Guidry molesting a sixteen year old boy, we know that he had repeatedly interacted with his victim alone and in violation of the protocols of Safe Environment.  This was witnessed by the Safe Environment Coordinator of the parish who never reported it and according to Bishop Deshotel has since been fired. Nevertheless, in light of this current case in Crowley, are we to assume that even if this Coordinator had reported this violation, the report would have been treated as a mere failing to observe “professional boundaries” and Fr. Guidry would have remained in his post and free to molest the boy anyway?

Could this abuse have been avoided if the response to his “boundary violations” included removing him from the occasion of his sin before he had the chance to sexually assault his victim? In truth, wouldn’t this have been the truly pastoral thing for Fr. Guidry, since it would have saved him from committing such a horrible sin?

If violations of the gravity reported in the witness letters against Fr. Polson (substantially greater than that of Fr. Guidry) can be “corrected” without doing anything to remove the violator from the opportunity to continue that activity, is the system of Safe Environment even remotely effective?

 

4) Would our current Bishop have responded in a similar way in the 1980s when informed of Fr. Gilbert Gauthe licking the faces of young boys? This was no criminal act, only a violation of “professional boundaries.” Do we need to wait until a man who displays a certain pattern of behavior commits a heinous act of sexual abuse before we remove him from the occasion of sin? Is Bishop Deshotel really dealing with things any differently than Bishop Frey did?

 

The SSPD agrees that the good name and reputation of the innocent ought to be respected; therefore, we ask Bishop Deshotel to give explicit answers to these honest questions.

 

Pro ovibus contra lupos,

The Society of St. Peter Damian