Seattle archbishop uses ads to defend handling of abuse cases

SEATTLE – Archbishop Alexander J. Brunett is using newspaper advertisements to explain and defend the archdiocese’s handling of sex abuse complaints against priests.

Brunett’s 1,500-word message appeared in a full-page ad that began running Thursday in The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer and is set to run later in six other dailies, an archdiocese spokesman said.

“As archbishop of Seattle, I offer a deep and profound apology to anyone who has been hurt at the hands of a priest, lay leader or volunteer in the Catholic Church,” he wrote. “More importantly, I assure you that we will continue to make every effort to cooperate with legal authorities in the prosecution of anyone who has committed a crime against a child.”

Archdiocesan spokesman Bill Gallant said Wednesday the ad, which detailed steps taken by Brunett and his predecessor, the late Archbishop Thomas J. Murphy, will appear Friday in The News Tribune of Tacoma and the Eastside Journal of Bellevue.

“The archbishop wanted to get out an unfiltered message,” Gallant said. “It was the best way we could go.”

He said he didn’t know the cost of the ads, which is being covered by the Catholic Fund rather than by the archdiocese. The fund is supported by individual donations.

The ad also is scheduled to run in The Bellingham Herald, The Columbian of Vancouver, Wash., and two other papers which were not immediately identified.

Two priests in the archdiocese, which covers Washington state west of the crest of the Cascade Range and has more than half a million Catholics, are on leave pending investigations into complaints by men who say they were abused as adolescent boys in the 1970s.

Brunett became archbishop in Seattle in 1997.

“The emerging awareness of accusations of clergy abuse dating back two or three decades demonstrates that the Archdiocese of Seattle is not immune to the difficulties that have been portrayed across the nation and world,” Brunett wrote.