Mater Dei’s E-Mail Stirs New Pain

A new controversy has erupted at Mater Dei High School over allegations of sexual abuse at the Santa Ana parochial school.

Former students who have alleged that they were molested say they are infuriated by an e-mail graduates received March 31 that they contend minimizes their concerns.

Mater Dei officials say the e-mail was an attempt to inform former students that the school was not responsible for a series of e-mails to alumni that included attachments of news stories reporting allegations of abuse at the Roman Catholic school.

“It’s painful to see the repeated rehashing of alleged incidents at our school,” Jonathan Tufo and Joseph Medlin, Mater Dei’s director of development and alumni director, respectively, wrote in the March 31 e-mail. “It is a shame that the thousands of graduates who had a positive experience at Mater Dei do not receive the same attention from the news media.”

Friday afternoon, Tufo and Medlin e-mailed an apology to officials at a victims’ rights group, Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

“In no way was our e-mail of March 31 to our alumni intended to cause further pain to the victims and their families,” it read. “We apologize if our words had this unwanted effect.”

But SNAP officials and victims of alleged sexual abuse at Mater Dei say the initial e-mail’s damage has already been done.

One alleged victim, John Grimley, said he felt compelled to make his claims against Mater Dei public after reading the alumni letter.

Grimley, a former aide in the George H.W. Bush White House who now lives in London, wrote to various news media outlets, the Diocese of Orange and Mater Dei this week, detailing repeated incidents of sexual molestation in the early 1980s.

“I have a message for Joseph Medlin and every Mater Dei supporter who chooses keep his or her head in the sand,” wrote Grimley, who also has sued the school. “The stories of sexual abuse are no rehash.”

In 2001, the Los Angeles and Orange diocese paid $5.2 million to a victim to settle molestation claims against former principal Michael Harris.

John Manly, a lawyer and former Mater Dei student representing seven alleged abuse victims, said he believes there are nine people accused of sexual abuse who worked at Mater Dei from 1970 to 1997.

Joelle Casteix, a 1988 graduate who claims she was a victim of repeated sexual molestations while at the school, said she was surprised to receive the March 31 e-mail.

“How tragic that they would send this letter to all of us victims,” Casteix said. “They’ve shown us that anyone who comes forward to try and tell their story will be ostracized and vilified.

“Where is the Christian compassion? Normally, I expect to see a little fake compassion. There wasn’t even that.”

Responding to the March 31 letter, SNAP officials sent an e-mail to Mater Dei this week asking for an open listening session to “put a human face on the problem and begin to heal -- in cooperation with you.”

In the Friday letter to SNAP, Mater Dei officials did not respond to the request.