Blowing the whistle cost them their careers, but Bishop Malone’s top aides have no regrets

But five years later, Siobhan M. O’Connor and the Rev. Ryszard S. Biernat have no regrets about providing a television reporter documents and audio recordings implicating then-Bishop Richard J. Malone in the mishandling of clergy sexual abuse allegations.

“It wasn’t easy to face the whole machine of church administration,” Biernat said in an interview last week. “I don’t like making people hate me but some people did after that. I didn’t take it lightly that I was going to make some enemies doing that.”

O’Connor, Malone’s former executive assistant, knew it would be hard to secure a new office job after she went on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and acknowledged that she was the key source for three WKBW-TV reports that led to protests and widespread calls for Malone to resign.

“It’s a difficult thing to interview for a position … for any executive assistant, one of the priorities is can you maintain confidentiality? And it’s pretty obvious that, at least in certain circumstances, I cannot,” O’Connor said. 

To mark the fifth anniversary of the start of the sexual abuse scandal in the diocese, The Buffalo News spoke with the two whistleblowers, as well as a former bishop and others who played a central role in the abuse scandal that led to state and federal investigations and the bankruptcy of the diocese.