Chaminade

Yesterday, six fellow students and I published an op-ed in the New York Daily News about the high school from we which graduated, Chaminade, in Mineola, New York. In the piece, we express our strong disappointment in how the leaders of the school handled allegations — which they found “credible” and “unequivocal” — of the sexual abuse of a student by the now-former school president, Father James Williams. The level of that disappointment is such that while we acknowledge the fact that we are graduates, we do not consider ourselves “alumni” — nor Chaminade our “alma mater.”

(That editorial captures what we, as a group, wished to express; what follows here are my own thoughts on the matter — I am not representing anyone else’s views.)

No school can completely eliminate risk, but leaders can control the atmosphere in which students learn, and its response to crises. While what Mr. Williams — who is no longer at the school, and has been stripped of his priestly faculties — has been credibly accused of is abominable, I personally find what so far have been reported to be as (and may have been) the actions of the school’s leaders worse.

Chaminade has issued two statements on the matter: the first initially was placed on the school web site, with no link to it present on the site itself, on the Friday before the allegations were to made public by the media. The second was a letter from the president posted two days later. The school alleges that it only learned about the incidents in 2015, and only then did it conduct a private investigation of the allegations, releasing the information publicly after concluding that investigation.

However, the timeline of events is particularly troubling, and suggests the possibility that school leaders have not been fully honest about what they knew and when they knew it.

Then-Father Williams was, arguably, the most successful school official in Chaminade’s history. His appointment as president of such a prominent and prestigious institutions— succeeding someone who had held the post for twenty-five years — only one year after being ordained a priest surprised many. However, Williams won over skeptics. He deepened financial support for Chaminade; he significantly expanded the school’s physical facilities; he was media savvy, adept at handling public relations, tragedies, controversies, scandals, education and church politics, and the how the school was affected, in many ways, by the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Williams’ youth, successes, and abilities — combined with the fact that he’d served just under half as long as his predecessor — made it likely, in 2011, that he would continue in the position for some time. Of course, any leader — especially one as ambitious and busy as Williams — might get burned out. But as I understand Chaminade’s history, officials rotate back into the faculty, or at least another position within the administration or religious community. Other than for age or infirmity, I cannot recall another brother or priest at Chaminade who did not retain some role, either as a teacher or official of some sort, after holding a position of authority.

Except for Williams.

The timing of the announcement of Williams’ resignation was to many — and still is —inexplicable. It did not come at the end of a school year, when such changes would place considerably less stress on an organization (and when such announcements would appear to be natural, not causing anxiety among faculty, staff, students, and alumni), but on August 1, 2011 — within days of a new school year beginning.

One of the incidents, which the school found to be credible, occurred in 2011.

The annual alumni edition of the Chaminade newsletter, published in August, 2011 — after the resignation was announced, but surely written, edited, and produced prior to it — makes no mention of Williams stepping down (but does identify, in one photo caption, his successor as the “new CHS President”).

William’s abrupt resignation required this new school president, within days of his appointment, to lead a major pilgrimage to Europe honoring the 250th anniversary of the birth of the founder of the Marianist order and to bring students and faculty to World Youth Day with Pope Benedict. This was a momentous trip, one that any leader at the close of his long, successful service would likely wish to lead himself, as a capstone on his career, rather than his successor — unless the timing of the resignation was not convenient, and could not be avoided.

Williams’ resignation was not announced in advance, with a PR-friendly “roll-out” of gratitude for his service and an introduction of his successor, allowing the Chaminade family to absorb the news and prepare for the transition; it was effective immediately, and announced by Williams in a vague, brief letter.

Even though, at the time he stepped down as president in 2011, it was suggested that he would remain as a “chaplain” and teacher, a few months later, he was out. Moreover, his letter indicated that he believed he was “being called by God to devote more energy to priestly ministry.” According to his LinkedIn profile, though, instead of heeding this call, he moved out of the country, and from 2012 to 2016 he earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Morals from the University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

Given these facts — and that after a “comprehensive and extensive investigation” Chaminade concluded that Williams was guilty of “misconduct and abuse of a minor” — I don’t believe that Williams resigned for the reasons he gave in 2011. I don’t believe that no one at Chaminade knew of the misconduct and abuse until 2015. I don’t believe that Williams misled school officials when he resigned abruptly, and that they all were in the dark before 2015.

If Chaminade’s leadership knew of the allegations back in 2011, and allowed him to resign and flee father than face the charges — and did not report them to the authorities, as they are obliged to do — this not only would be contrary to the church’s policies adopted in the wake of the Boston revelations, it would be evidence of their complicity in his behavior and the creation of a cover-up.

I hope this is not true, but the troubling timeline, the limited information the school has released, and its insistence on speaking one-on-one with those who have questions, rather than having open, public meetings, suggests that it is.

A few months after he resigned — and after at least one of the incidents of abuse occurred — in early 2012, Chaminade bestowed on James Williams its highest honor, the Founder’s Award.