Retired judge and current Pullman & Comley partner Robert Holzberg. Courtesy photo

The revelation that 71 Bridgeport Diocese priests molested 281 children over the last 66 years made it clear the diocese failed the victims.

That was one takeaway from the yearlong investigation that Pullman & Comley partner Robert Holzberg and his team of five attorneys and investigators found after interviews with survivors and others and sifting through more than 250,000 papers and electronic records.

The 67-year-old Holzberg, a former judge, unveiled the findings from the 250-page report at a press conference Tuesday. He then spoke to the Connecticut Law Tribune about the investigation.

Here are Holzberg's answers, edited for clarity and news style:

Connecticut Law Tribune: What was the most important takeaway from the report?

Holzberg: The most important takeaway was the failure of Bishops [Edward] Egan and [Walter] Curtis to compassionately and effectively respond to the abuse that was evident and clearly identified.

In the course of our reviewing hundreds of thousands of documents and electronic records, we saw a willful indifference to the suffering of the victims, and the need to remove, immediately, abusive priests. That failure stems from a profound misplaced sense of priorities in which protection of the assets of the church and avoidance of embarrassing news articles became paramount.

CLT: What was your biggest obstacle or hurdle in preparing the report?

Holzberg: The biggest challenge we faced was synthesizing and analyzing the overwhelming amount of information and data that we collected.

Our commitment, at the outset of the investigation, was to cast as wide a net as possible in terms of reviewing records and interviewing witnesses and interested persons. Once we collected the vast amount of information, the next challenge was to make sense of it by organizing it and identifying the trends that would form the basis of our report.

Because we've reviewed the course of conduct over 65 years, we saw a different approach and different attitudes with respect to Bishops [William] Lori and [Frank] Caggiano then we did with respect to Bishops Curtis and Egan.

CLT: How did the disturbing conduct of so many priests affect you personally?

Holzberg: It was very difficult, not only for me, but for my colleagues to read daily the disturbing histories of the victims, and the failure of response by the diocese during the Curtis and Egan administrations.

To a certain extent I was able to steel myself from the pain of these events because of my prior experience in dealing with the awful St. Francis Hospital sexual abuse cases. My colleagues were very disturbed by what they read and learned, but it's important to emphasize that we are also encouraged by the new and positive approach taken by Bishops Lori and Caggiano.

While there is still much work to be done, we conclude that there have been positive and significant improvements with respect to child protection and the screening of priests.

CLT: What is your message to priest sex-abuse victims who might attend the Bridgeport Diocese, or any other diocese, about accountability in the age of the #MeToo Movement?

Holzberg: I think that it takes a tremendous amount of courage for a victim of child sexual abuse to come forward and make their story known. At the same time, I have the sense that if there is a way for the individual to seek accountability, through whatever process, that that can be liberating and provide some measure of peace.

Certainly, we have learned that at least over the past two decades, there has been an effort by the diocese to reach out to victims and to try as best it can to be supportive of victims.

One of the things we learned from this process is that the journey of the survivors is highly individual, and that one size does not fit all. There is no uniform approach that works for all.

CLT: How did you prepare and plan for interviewing the survivors of sexual assault as part of your investigation?

Holzberg: Fortunately, during the course of my many years as a judge, I had the opportunity to work with sexual abuse survivors and survivors of catastrophic accidents. In those cases, I always insisted that I have the opportunity to meet with the victims so they can tell their story directly to me. Out of those experiences, I learned how important it is to listen, to acknowledge, and to promise that I and my colleagues would work as hard as we could to allow their voices to be heard, and to bring the process to a fair conclusion.

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