This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.

The Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey has been named a defendant in a lawsuit alleging a cover up in a case of child sexual abuse. The plaintiff claims that the abuser was an accused pedophile, yet he was allowed to hold a position as a youth minister, giving him unsupervised access to children and resulting in the alleged abuse.

If the allegations are proven to be true, it would not be the first time that Roman Catholic officials have been found suppressing information about or protecting priests accused of abusing children.

Background of the Case

The alleged abuser, Rev. Kevin Gugliotta, was arrested in October of 2018 on charges of trafficking in child pornography. This was not the first time he had been under suspicion.

In 2003, the plaintiff in the current lawsuit, identified in the media by the pseudonym “Richard Roe,” accused Gugliotta of having molested him in the mid-1980s, when he was sixteen years old. At that time, the Archdiocese of Newark placed Gugliotta on suspension pending the outcome of a hearing at the Vatican.

At the time the alleged abuse occurred, Gugliotta, leader of Roe’s Boy Scout troop, had not yet entered the priesthood. Because he was still a layman when the alleged incident happened, the Vatican decided that canon law was inapplicable. Despite the evidence, canon lawyers determined that Gugliotta could not be punished for misdeeds he may have committed prior to his ordination as a priest.

As a result of that decision, the Archdiocese of Newark quietly reinstated Gugliotta in December of 2004. Over the next several years, he was allowed to serve in numerous capacities putting him in unsupervised, unrestricted contact with children and youth. According to the current lawsuit, Gugliotta molested another youth not long after his reinstatement.

Now that Gugliotta is being held on child pornography charges, his reinstatement his being questioned – and has led to the current complaint by his earlier victim.

The Archdiocese of Newark Responds

Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, the Archdiocese issued a press statement, in which they assured that they would “…review the details of this allegation and work diligently in collaboration with the New Jersey Attorney General’s Clergy Abuse Task Force.” It was also noted that Gugliotta was removed from the ministry in 2016, and the process of stripping him of his priesthood authority is underway.

All five of New Jersey’s dioceses have published a list naming Gugliotta and 187 other members of the clergy who have been “credibly accused” of child molestation.

A Worldwide Scandal

The Roman Catholic child sex abuse scandal is not limited to New Jersey or even to the United States.

In August, 2018, a grand jury in Pennsylvania released a report revealing hundreds of cases of child molestation and rape across six of the state’s dioceses. Meanwhile, cardinals in France and Australia have been convicted of sex crimes against underage children, and a third cardinal is under investigation by secular authorities in Chile for covering up cases of alleged abuse.