Richard Lavigne, Part 4
I door-knock the murderer-priest and he shows me his paintings, altar and chalice.
A quick refresher on the sins and crimes of Richard Lavigne, the worst of all the bad priests in the Catholic diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts: In 1972, Lavigne murdered Danny Croteau, the sweet and innocent 13-year-old boy who the priest had been molesting for years. Also, we know that Lavigne sexually assaulted multiple dozens of others — mostly altar boys — during the 1970s, 80s and up until 1991. As I explained in the first three episodes (1 2 3) of Unholy Fathers, the Catholic diocese of Springfield, along with local DA and others, covered up for Lavigne. Until 1991, when a brave teenager came forward with a thorough and horrifying accounting of the three years of abuse he suffered at the hands of Lavigne.
In today’s episode, we’re going back in time, to February 2019, when I knocked on the door of Richard Lavigne’s dead parent’s house in the western Massachusetts city of Chicopee for the murderer’s ONLY media interview, ever. Thing is, despite my hidden recording equipment, Massachusetts law prevents me from using the audio. (Laws vary from state to state.) However, here’s a pic of the then-78-year-old murderer sitting in his living room, during our interview, before he gave me a tour of his abode.
This podcast episode is a verbatim account of my conversation with the murderer Lavigne. Obviously since this was initially published five years ago, a lot has changed since. However, there is a specific update to this episode that is pertinent in today’s climate of cover-up and distraction.
The day after my interview with Lavigne in February 2019, I drove to the Springfield Chancery — aka the Diocese’s headquarters — and knocked on enough doors until the church’s local spokesman Mark Dupont agreed to meet with me in a vestibule for a brief conversation.
My goal: specifically ask about the allegations Lavigne made regarding Father John Klekotka, the pastor of Lavigne’s first parish when the murderer was a young priest.
from Richard Lavigne, Part 4
“He used to bring kids into his room. And I’d say ‘what the hell are they doing up there?’ Because they were up there for a long time. So I took the ladder and went up and peeked in. And they were naked in the bed with this guy. And he must have been 80 years old.”
“What?” I asked. “What was his name again?”
““Kli-co-caw.”.”
I’d never heard of this alleged child molesting priest before. Multiple kids with an eighty-year-old priest. Was Lavigne telling the truth? I wanted more details, from his perspective, so I kept the conversation going.
“So you took a ladder, you climbed up and you witnessed him molesting children?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“In the rectory?”
“Yes,” Lavigne said. “And then I went and called the Bishop and told him. And he told me not to say anything to anybody about it…That was Bishop Weldon. And that guy stayed there. As pastor for years.”
“Did you call the police?”
“I never thought of going to the police. I thought the Bishop would take care of that. But he didn’t though.”
“Do you think that happened a lot? That they covered up stuff like that?”
“I have no idea.”
“That’s a terrible stain on the church.”
“Oh yeah.”
To say Dupont was non-reactive to Lavigne’s accusation would be an overstatement. The diocese spokesman claimed not to know anything about Father Klekotka and declined to answer any questions and ignored several follow up emails.
Here’s the thing, in late May of 2021, a year-and-a-half after today’s podcast episode initially aired, the Diocese of Springfield released an updated list of bad priests, including an additional 40 new names of priests credibly accused of molesting children.
And on that list: the aforementioned Fr. John R. Klekotka, the pastor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus parish in Easthampton, Massachusetts. Church officials, however, were still hesitant to convict the now-dead priest who shuffled his mortal coil — hopefully to hell — in 1974. Fella can’t defend himself from beyond the veil, church officials argue, so his name is on the list with an asterisk of sorts.
The available info about Klekotka from the diocese — not surprisingly — is less than scant. Here’s the official version: Fr. John R. Klekotka served as a priest for almost 50 years until he kicked the bucket. The “nature of reported conduct” is “sexual abuse of a minor” for a seven year period, from 1963 until 1970. According to the diocese, it was the sole credible allegation.
And if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to the Vatican for sale. Cheap.
Anyways, I’m pretty damn sure that diocesan spokesman Mark Dupont knew in February 2019 that Klekotka was a pedo when I asked specifically about that priest. Dupont, as the number one flack for the Springfield Diocese for almost 40 years (according to his Linkedin), must know a lot of secrets about bad priests in western Mass. From serial molesters and child rapists to murderers like Lavigne, Dupoint would’ve been privy to all the details of diocesan damage control and cover-up since at least as far back as the mid-1980s.
To me, guys like Dupont are complicit in the Bishop’s longtime strategy (which, until 2004, was to deny and subvert all accusations) that victimized and re-victimized the kids (now adults) who were sexually assaulted by faux-holy men. Why were priests with known histories of child rape allowed to live in rural western Massachusetts, in the wild, un-supervised, as parish pastors with virtually unlimited access to children? And 99 percent of the time, these bastards got away with committing crimes against kids with zero prison or punishment.
I don’t understand why anyone would want to do Dupont’s job. Or work — for forty years — on behalf of a church that protects and defends child-raping priests. Gotta wonder how this guy sleeps at night. And, knowing what he knows, how the hell does he attend Mass on Sundays?
Arg.
Which gets me thinking about our current situation. There are so many people — in the government, the police and the courts — actively working to protect Trump and the rest of the gazillionaires on the dirty Epstein list and/or name-dropped in the million-document files. While FBI agents and other feds busily redact and revise the crimes out of the narrative, they are actively subverting the horrible truth: There is a pedophile cabal in America. And they’re working for that cabal.
Just as we’ve seen in the Catholic sex abuse scandals, the protected pedos escape punishment. Meanwhile, truth, justice — and re: America — democracy festers. And the neo-GOPers bootlick as Trump fiddles and the Constitution burns.
The next episode of Unholy Fathers features my friend Cat, Danny Croteau’s younger sister and a high school classmate of mine. Despite her world being shattered by a murderer priest, she’s an amazingly strong woman with a valuable perspective on grief.
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