San Jose’s Bellarmine hit with two lawsuits alleging long-ago abuse by disgraced Jesuit

Two men who attended Bellarmine College Preparatory High School in the 1960s and 1970s have filed separate lawsuits against the school and Roman Catholic authorities alleging they were sexually assaulted as students by a Jesuit school official who insisted on giving them unwarranted hernia checks.

The lawsuits were filed late last year by California men now in their 60s identified only as John Roe and John Roe 1. The suits claim they were sexually abused by William C. Farrington, a Jesuit brother whom Bellarmine more than a decade ago acknowledged was credibly accused of molesting another former student years earlier.

“It turns out Brother Farrington has a long history of sexually assaulting minors,” attorney Mary Bajo said.

Bellarmine is a prestigious Jesuit school in San Jose founded in 1851. Its alumni include retired California Supreme Court Justice Ming Chin, state Sen. David Cortese, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and former mayors Sam Liccardo and Tom McEnery. The school deferred comment to the western province of the Society of Jesus, the largest order of priests and brothers in the Roman Catholic Church, which sponsors Bellarmine.

“The Jesuits West Province has a zero-tolerance policy for abuse of a minor or a vulnerable adult and stringent procedures in place to ensure their safety,” said Tracey Primrose, provincial assistant for communications at the Jesuits West Province.

“Because of the importance that Jesuits West places on transparency, accountability and safety in ministry, in 2018, the province released the names of all Jesuits who had been credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor or a vulnerable adult since 1950,” Primrose said. “We encourage anyone who feels they might have been victimized by a Jesuit to contact the province as well as appropriate law enforcement and child-protective agencies. We know that God’s love is a powerful force for reconciliation and healing, and we pray for all victims of abuse.”

The lawsuits were brought under a California law, AB 218, late last year, which made it easier for people sexually abused as children decades ago to file claims that otherwise would be barred by the statute of limitations during a three-year period from 2020 through 2022. The accused abuser and school have now been identified publicly following a preliminary judicial review of the claims under that law.

John Roe’s lawsuit alleges that during the 1969-1970 school year when he was a 15-year-old sophomore living on campus at Bellarmine, he was sexually assaulted by Farrington “on multiple occasions,” including “in the infirmary on school grounds under the guise of performing a hernia check.”

John Roe 1’s lawsuit claims he attended Bellarmine from 1968 to 1971 as a student living on a campus dormitory, and that Farrington subjected him to needless hernia checks every time he visited the infirmary, about three or four times a year, from his freshman year and into 1971.

A common type of hernia in males occurs when visceral tissue protrudes through a weak spot in the abdominal muscles in the groin area, causing a bulge that can be painful. It often is diagnosed by a doctor feeling around the groin while asking the patient to cough.

The lawsuits say Farrington was the infirmary supervisor at Bellarmine, but Bajo said he wasn’t a doctor.

“To our knowledge, he had no medical training,” Bajo said. “He certainly was not a licensed doctor or certified nurse. This was a huge red flag that Bellarmine should have seen and put a stop to Farrington’s behavior.”

The lawsuits name Farrington, Bellarmine, the Jesuits West Province, the Archdiocese of San Francisco, which oversaw the Catholic church in Santa Clara County until the 1980s, and the Diocese of San Jose as defendants responsible for the men’s sexual assault.

They allege school, Jesuit and diocesan officials were negligent and knew or should have known Farrington was sexually abusing children as far back as 1963.

Bellarmine in 2012 acknowledged credible accusations against Farrington in a letter to alumni about a different victim who had come forward with accusations about the Jesuit brother that occurred some 40 years earlier. Bellarmine at the time said Farrington had been removed following a different allegation, although the school did not say when that complaint was made.