A defrocked New York priest “credibly accused” of sexually abusing a minor runs a charity that gives scholarships to Catholic colleges for underprivileged youngsters, in response to public data.
John J. Voglio, 65, is president of Mary F. Clancy Charities, which was based in 2000 by one other former priest, John Harrington, who was additionally accused of sexually abusing a minor, in response to the Archdiocese of New York.
Voglio steadily mingles with youngsters and youngsters who attend charity occasions, a member of the group’s board of administrators informed NBC Information.
“He’s excellent with the youngsters,” Madelaine Cavegn mentioned. “They like him very a lot.”
Voglio doesn’t point out on the charity’s web site that he’s a former priest, and he didn’t return a number of cellphone calls in search of remark about his actions.
Voglio has by no means been charged with against the law so was by no means required to register as a intercourse offender in Massachusetts, New York or New Hampshire, all locations the place he as soon as labored as a priest or brother.
Cavegn, nonetheless, acknowledged that she and a number of the different board members are conscious Voglio was a priest.
“I can’t reveal any of that,” Cavegn, 88, responded when requested whether or not she knew why Voglio had been laicized. “However are you aware that he by no means had an opportunity to defend himself?”
Cavegn described Voglio as a faithful chief of the charity.
“He’s like a missionary,” Cavegn mentioned. “He’s very concerned. Earlier than we give out any grants, he conducts all of the interviews with the colleges.”
One other director on the board, John Crapanzano, mentioned “the charity may be very lively” and Voglio “may be very a lot concerned within the day-to-day operations.”
“We’ve diversified our actions in recent times to incorporate a meals pantry within the Bronx to assist needy households,” Crapanzano, 77, mentioned. “We additionally helped construct a playground for the youngsters at a Bronx faculty.”
David Clohessy, a intercourse abuse victims advocate on the Survivors Community of these Abused by Clergymen (SNAP), mentioned somebody like Voglio shouldn’t be working this type of charity.
“Credibly accused youngster molesting clerics, particularly in the event that they’ve been defrocked, belong in no place of energy or management, particularly one that’s related in any manner with youngsters,” Clohessy mentioned.
Mitchell Garabedian, a lawyer whose pursuit of pedophile clergymen was dramatized within the Oscar-winning film “Highlight,” mentioned it doesn’t shock him that Voglio continues to be concerned in actions that would enable him to stay near youngsters.
“Expertise has taught me that it is not uncommon for credibly accused clergymen and non secular brothers to proceed to work at organizations, as an illustration, colleges, camps, church buildings, hospitals, boy scouts and golf equipment,” Garabedian mentioned in an e mail.
The Archdiocese of New York supplied no clarification for his elimination from the priesthood in its “Listing of Archdiocesan Clergy Credibly Accused of Sexual Abuse,” which was first printed in 2019 and up to date not less than as soon as in recent times. He had been ordained in 1987.
In 2002, a Massachusetts man informed New Hampshire investigators that Voglio had seduced him 20 years earlier at a Salesian Brothers summer season camp in that state, in response to a report ready by Paul Brodeur, a former investigator with the New Hampshire Legal professional Common’s Workplace. The accuser mentioned he was 12 when the abuse occurred in 1982.
Voglio was a Salesian Brother on the time and dealing as a camp counselor, the report states.
“The fondling and oral intercourse went on starting inside a couple of days of arriving and continued to the tip of two weeks,” the accuser, whose identify was blacked out, mentioned within the report.
The accuser “suggested that he had not seen VOGLIO once more however did acquired a Xmas card from him the Xmas of 1982 postmarked Ohio,” the report states. “VOGLIO spoke about happening to to change into a priest with the Selesian’s (sic).”
NBC Information has reached out for remark to the Salesians of Don Bosco, a world Roman Catholic non secular congregation of males based mostly domestically in New Rochelle, New York. Nobody from the group responded.
Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, mentioned it doesn’t hold monitor of laicized clergymen or carefully monitor donations from charitable organizations to its particular person colleges.
“To the most effective of our information, Voglio has not visited any of the colleges,” Zwilling mentioned.
Voglio has additionally moonlighted as a “Catholic priest on name,” promoting to carry out weddings by means of a enterprise known as “John Voglio Weddings,” in response to his LinkedIn and Fb pages.
Zwilling, after being made conscious of Voglio’s facet job, mentioned the previous reverend isn’t allowed to carry out Catholic weddings.
“He’s not a Catholic priest,” he mentioned.
Voglio additionally claimed on the charity’s web site that he’s a “member of a neighborhood department of the Kiwanis Membership within the Bronx” and has organized “yearly fundraisers” for a company that helps deprived youngsters world wide and is concerned in youth actions.
Ben Hendricks, a spokesman for Kiwanis Worldwide, mentioned “a radical evaluation of our present and previous membership reveals that Mr. Voglio isn’t, and has by no means been a member of Kiwanis Worldwide.”
Voglio was nonetheless a priest when he took over the management of Mary F. Clancy Charities, Inc., which bears the identify of a New York Metropolis-area social employee who supplied the “preliminary funds” to begin the group, in response to its web site.
Harrington, like Voglio, additionally landed on the New York archdiocese’s 2019 record of credibly accused clergy.
Voglio was paid a bit of over $31,000 in wage and compensation by the charity, in response to the newest obtainable 990 report for the fiscal yr ending in Could 2020. A 990 Type is a tax doc nonprofits are required to file with the IRS.
The charity, which Voglio seems to be working out of a Yonkers, New York, condominium simply north of the Bronx, has practically $700,000 in belongings, the report reveals. Information point out Voglio lived on the Yonkers tackle and likewise has a house in Garnerville, a small city about 30 miles north of New York Metropolis.
Mary F. Clancy Charities claims on its web site that it helps different teams that work with troubled households, however the 990 submitting in 2020 doesn’t point out the group gave out any grants in 2019, which it might have been required to report if it had executed so.
The charity reported it held a “golf outing” and a “cigar night time” that raised $39,222. However the price of placing these collectively was precisely $39,222, making the online earnings from the 2 occasions zero.
Voglio took over the reins of the charity in 2006 from Harrington, who died three years later, in response to the web site. In 2011, Voglio took the non-public charity public “so as to have the ability to actively elevate cash to develop the scope of the muse,” the web site states.
On the web site, Voglio named 5 teams which have acquired funds from his charity: Catholic House Bureau Maternity Providers; the STEPS Program of Edwin Gould; Incarcerated Moms and their Youngsters; Catholic Neighborhood Providers of Rockland Inc.; and Rosalie Corridor.
Earlier than the Gould group grew to become a part of one other charity known as Rising Floor in 2018, it acquired a $15,000 present from Mary Clancy Charities in 2011 and a $5,000 present in 2015, mentioned Rising Floor spokesman Adam Brill.
“Since then, we’ve had no contact from Mary Clancy Charities,” Brill mentioned in an e mail.
Catholic Neighborhood Providers of Rockland Inc., whose precise identify is Catholic Charities Neighborhood Providers of Rockland, didn’t reply to emails in search of remark.
Rosalie Corridor, a house for teen mother and father within the Bronx, is a part of a New York Metropolis group known as Catholic Guardian Providers, which didn’t reply to requests for remark.
The entity recognized on the 990 report as Catholic House Bureau Maternity Providers additionally seems to be run by Catholic Guardian Providers.
NBC Information couldn’t find a company in New York known as Incarcerated Moms and their Youngsters.