A former Newark priest protested outside Seton Hall’s Farinella Gate and the Health Services building on South Orange Ave. on Tuesday, Feb. 11.
Robert Hoatson, who says he served as an adjunct professor in 2001 in the former College of Education and Human Services (now merged into the College of Human Development, Culture, and Media), was holding a neon pink sign that read “Sex abuse Hidden University,” according to a video posted on SHU’s Snapchat community story by Juan Daniel Lotero, a senior history major.
Hoatson said he is a survivor of clergy sexual abuse. According to him, during his time in the Immaculate Conception Seminary on SHU’s campus, he was propositioned for sex and filed a complaint but it was ignored. He held a demonstration at SHU in 2019 and continues to advocate against sexual abuse as the co-founder and president of Road to Recovery, a non-profit dedicated to assisting sexual-abuse victims and survivors, with a concentration on clergy abuse.
In an email to The Setonian, Hoatson said that he and the co-founder of Road to Recovery, Msgr. Ken Lasch, are working on the case of a seminarian who claims he was recently removed from the seminary after reporting that he had been propositioned by a fellow student.
“[The alleged victim] is not quite ready to be named, but he knows the basic story needs to be told,” Hoatson wrote.
Lotero, the student who posted the video of Hoatson’s protest, filmed it while walking to campus from his house. He has no affiliation with Hoatson and said he does not agree or disagree with his protest.
“The individual was showing the sign to every car that passed by, making sure they saw it,” Lotero said.
Undecided freshman Dylan Jarkas said he was surprised to see a protester on his commute to campus on Tuesday morning.
“I did not realize it [the poster] was an acronym for SHU,” Jarkas said.
Lotero said he also noticed that the man was protesting solo.
“I was surprised because typically protests against the school are with groups, but this was one person,” Lotero said. “I thought the sign was clever and eye-catching which is why I decided to record it.”
In addition to posting on Snapchat, Lotero posted on Fizz, an anonymous social media app.
Lotero said that the protester is a trending topic on Fizz. His post about it was taken down by the moderators, but students continued to post photos, comments, and questions about the protest on the app.
A sophomore psychology major, who requested anonymity due to fear of others’ opinions, witnessed the protest while walking home with a friend. They also posted a picture of the protest on Fizz.
The post sparked conversation in the comments about allegations against Seton Hall president Msgr. Reilly, uncomfortable dorm experiences, and opinions on older priests in the freshman dorms, the anonymous student said.
Msgr. Reilly was named SHU’s 22nd president in April 2024 and officially assumed his position as university president on July 1 of the same year. In December 2024, about six weeks after SHU held an investiture ceremony for Reilly, Politico published an article claiming that an internal investigation commissioned in 2018 by the university concluded Msgr. Reilly knew about the sexual abuse allegations surrounding disgraced Cardinal Theodore McCarrick but did not report them. McCarrick, who was defrocked in 2019, was found to have sexually harassed seminarians at SHU’s Immaculate Conception Seminary.
On Feb. 10, the current Archbishop of Newark, Cardinal Joseph Tobin, issued a statement saying the church would “conduct a comprehensive third-party review” of the original Latham & Watkins report in 2019 that investigated McCarrick’s actions. This new review will include how the findings of the report relate to Msgr. Reilly, the statement said.
Cardinal Tobin also serves as the president of the Board of Regents and chair of the Board of Trustees at SHU.
Sofia Kasbo is the assistant editor for The Setonian’s News section. She can be reached at sofia.kasbo@student.shu.edu.
