For years, Worcester Bishop Robert McManus has balked at disclosing the names of all the priests in his diocese who had been credibly accused of abusing children, standing alone in opposition among the state’s four Catholic leaders.
Now, McManus is under pressure to publicly release the names of every accused priest following a withering state report this week on sexual abuse by hundreds of Catholic clergy in Massachusetts.
In her blockbuster report released Wednesday, Attorney General Andrea Campbell found 90 clergy who had been accused of abuse in the Worcester diocese and 216 survivors, although she cautioned that investigators had not assessed the accusations for credibility.
Campbell, as well as survivors and watchdog groups, said disclosing their names is an important driver for healing and institutional accountability.
“It’s been business as usual: Protect the church at all costs,” said Dave Lewcon, 72, who said he was sexually abused as a teenager by a priest at St. Mary’s Church in Uxbridge, which is in the Worcester diocese.
But the 75-year-old McManus has yet to waver from his decision to keep the names private.
He has, however, noted that the diocese in recent years reported every allegation to law enforcement and that church officials publish information on the diocesan website about every priest who has been placed on leave due to a credible report of abuse or who has been removed from clerical duties.
A spokesperson for McManus, Ray Delisle, added that “we will study the AG’s report to identify any additional improvements that can be made to respond to victims of past abuse and to continue to strengthen efforts to keep children safe.”
In her report, which investigated sexual abuse in the Fall River and Springfield dioceses, Campbell took particular aim at the continued refusal by the Worcester Diocese to disclose the identities of its accused priests.
“We asked each sexual abuse survivor what changes they would like to see the dioceses implement in the future,” the report stated. “All survivors from the Worcester Diocese named a credibly accused list as their No. 1 request from the diocese.”
Although the US Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002 adopted a charter that called “for openness and transparency, Worcester has refused an open and transparent practice, which is in place in every other diocese in Massachusetts,” the report said.
In his defense, McManus has said the Vatican opposes publishing lists unless the clergy who are named have been found guilty of a canonical crime. However, most American bishops do share them in an effort to rebuild trust and repair the enormous damage from the clergy sex-abuse scandal.
In a diocesan report from 2023, McManus wrote that releasing the names “can be a cause for deep division among many members of our church.”
Many Catholics, he said then, are concerned about “publicly branding as guilty those who never have been charged by law enforcement or had a chance to defend themselves in a court of law,” due to death or the passage of many decades.
But for watchdog groups such as BishopAccountability.org, a Waltham-based advocacy group, releasing the names of all credibly accused priests — active, retired, or deceased — is a long-overdue effort to increase transparency and hold offending priests and their superiors responsible.
“McManus has been very clear he does not intend to do it,” said Terence McKiernan, codirector of Bishop.Accountability.org. “They have fought tooth and nail, and it’s a very locked-down and inhospitable diocese to survivors.”
McManus, who is required by the Vatican to submit a letter of resignation at age 75, has developed a reputation as an old-school conservative since becoming bishop in 2004.
In 2022, he directed a Jesuit middle school in Worcester to remove Pride and Black Lives Matter flags, which had been displayed there for more than a year. And in 2012, he voiced his displeasure when Vicki Kennedy, the pro-choice widow of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, was chosen as commencement speaker at Anna Maria College in Paxton. The college then withdrew the invitation.
“Worcester has been in this kind of vacuum where there’s been no pressure in the past to be accountable, to be transparent. McManus is almost singular in how much he has suppressed,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, another codirector of BishopAccountability.org.
Among the examples cited in Campbell’s report is that of Worcester priest Brendan O’Donoghue, who had been transferred 12 times between 1950 to 1965 by two bishops with knowledge of the allegations against him, the report said.
“Following several more transfers and additional sexual abuse of children, O’Donoghue spent time at the House of Affirmation but continued in ministry until his retirement in 1993,” according to the report, citing his stay at rehabilitation home for clergy in Whitinsville.
In another example, a priest in the diocese reported allegations of abuse by another priest to his superiors. In response, a senior diocesan official said he would resolve the issue by taking the accused priest on a fishing trip and talking to him.
The report said victims described interviews with diocesan officials that were conducted over the telephone, and without the opportunity to meet with the diocese’s Victim Assistance Coordinator or members of the Review Committee in person.
Delisle, the Worcester spokesperson, said the diocese welcomes the attorney general’s report, noting that the “vast majority of cases occurred 40 to 60 years ago.”
Delisle said that the diocese has passed a compliance audit each year since adopting the 2002 Charter for the Protection of Children and Minors, which had been approved by the US bishops in Dallas.
Still, some critics remain unconvinced that the diocese is doing enough.
The names should be released, said Lewcon, the abuse survivor, for transparency’s sake and “to validate other victims. I feel the intimidation we’ve experienced has prevented others from coming forward.”
Brian MacQuarrie can be reached at brian.macquarrie@globe.com.