Father Martins Threatens Legal Action

Lawyer Sends Letter To 'The Pillar' Alleging Possible Defamation

Father Carlos Martins’s lawyers have written a formal letter to The Pillar, accusing it of potential defamation in its original article about the incident in the Joliet church. From Bree Dail’s Twitter:

I mentioned to you all earlier today that I would tell you what happened (per Father Martins) as soon as I was able. What I meant was that as soon as the priest gave me permission to do so; he told me he wanted to wait till the end of the second police investigation. He must have gotten legal advice not to wait.

I’m not going to link to the original Pillar story, because if this really is defamation, I don’t want to repeat it. I’m no lawyer, but I think it might be hard for Father Martins to prevail in court, as the Pillar technically reported something truthfully — “technically” in the sense that there really was an allegation of “inappropriate conduct involving children.” I could be wrong, though, on the legal count, and in any case, the lawyer’s letter is correct to point out that the article’s wording would easily lead a reader to conclude that the misconduct had been sexual. After all, who reads about a Catholic priest under police investigation for “inappropriate conduct involving children,” conduct that caused the diocese to shut down the priest’s event and notify its safe environment office, without assuming that it had been sexual in nature?

That was my assumption, reflected in my initial tweet about the situation. As soon as I saw Pillar editor J.D. Flynn’s comment under my tweet that there is no reason to assume it was sexual, I was horrified that I contributed to a false impression that stood to damage my friend Father Carlos, and subsequently deleted the tweet, then rewrote it. After I talked to Father Carlos, I went on social media, and this morning here on the Substack, to set the record straight.

For the record, the headline of my Substack earlier today, “Smearing Father Carlos Martins,” did not refer to The Pillar; I was thinking about the angry father who made the absurd accusation, and of the diocese for what I consider to be its hysterical overreaction. Here is what the church initially said:

Here’s what I don’t understand, about both The Pillar’s reporting and the diocesan statement: Why couldn’t either have simply noted that the incident was not sexual in nature? Or at least have said, “There is no reason to believe that the incident involved sexual contact”?

As regular readers know, I am an admirer and fan of The Pillar, and always trust its reporting, which has been brave in the past on sexual abuse matters involving the Church. In this case, to repeat, I don’t know that the story was technically defamatory, but both The Pillar and the Diocese of Joliet could have and should have added a single line to that effect, and spared the priest and his friends and supporters (of whom I am one) a lot of grief.

For that matter, I don’t see any justification for the bishop and his team to have reacted so strongly to this crazy accusation — but if that’s a call their lawyers told them to make, they ought to have at the very least made it clear in their statement what the allegation by the father was based on — including the fact that the incident in question had taken place in a crowded cathedral, in front of a bunch of witnesses —and not left it to journalists and the public to infer from the wording what had gone on. Twenty-two years after Boston, the public has learned that cases described in such language as used by the diocese in its official statement, and The Pillar in its initial reporting, almost always involve allegations of sexual misconduct. I know I did, which is why I characterized it as I did in my initial tweet, though I certainly did not accept the alleged accusation as fact, based in part on knowing this priest and his character.

It’s a horrible situation. It didn’t have to be this way.

Please feel free to pass this around, for the sake of clearing Father Carlos’s name with anybody who assumed the worst. Whatever the legal outcome of this, the Enemy has certainly won a round here. He not only struck a reputational blow against an exorcist, but also one against a valuable and important Catholic news outlet — one whose editors, as far as I know them, would never intend to harm a priest’s reputation. I would say the Enemy has struck a reputational blow also against the Diocese of Joliet, but really, after all that it has done in the past regarding the sexual abuse of children, what reputation does it have left? My opinion is that it threw Father Martins under the bus so it could burnish a reputation as having zero tolerance for any alleged misconduct against children. I cannot for the life of me understand why, knowing that no sexual misconduct had been alleged against Father Martins, the church — either the diocese or the cathedral, I’m not sure which — could have released such a statement.

This ugly incident was entirely preventable. You can’t keep an angry father from making a wild allegation, I guess — though shame on him for his overreaction — but you can handle it in such a way as to minimize the harm to the reputation of an innocent priest.

UPDATE: If neither the diocese nor the priest responded to requests for comment by The Pillar before publication, then that puts the publication in a better light, morally and maybe legally (again, don't trust legal advice from a journalist who only has one undergraduate media law class behind him). I have personal experience on how a bad actor in the Church used hiding from a reporter to try to prevent publication of a story unfavorable to him.

Back in 2002, when I was at National Review, a Dallas Morning News journalist reached out to me to see if I could convince Fr Benedict Groeschel to talk to him. I told him I didn't know the man. The reporter said he was working on a story about (if memory serves) how Fr Groeschel's treatment program recycled accused abusers who went on to re-offend. He didn't want to publish without talking to Fr Groeschel, who refused to take his many calls. Eventually he did publish, and noted in the article that he had tried repeatedly to reach Fr Groeschel.

After the story appeared, Fr Groeschel whined to everyone that the journalist had never sought his side of the story. It was a straight-up lie. I can only assume that Groeschel thought that by avoiding the journalist, he could stop the story.

Let me be clear: I am NOT saying that this was what either Father Martins or the Diocese did! I don't know. I can imagine it is very hard to reach Father Martins if one doesn't have his phone number, but the Diocese does have a communications staff. I am just offering this comment to let you know why journalists might be willing to go with a story based only on an official press release from a diocese, even if they don't have other reporting. It is assumed within the journalism profession that a press release from a government official or other official source (like a diocese) is sufficient to warrant a news story.