Ripe for Abuse’: How Catholic Sex Scandal Convinced One Seminarian to Go Public

Philly Inquirer ^ | 11/12/18 | Julia Terruso

[marshmallow]

DENVER — Stephen Szutenbach had never kissed anyone when, he says, a priest he had befriended in the late 1990s started making sexual advances. Szutenbach was 18, a devout Catholic teenager interested in the seminary; the Rev. Kent Drotar was a 39-year-old ranking administrator at St. John Vianney Seminary.

"I was so sheltered and I was very uncomfortable because … he's in charge," Szutenbach said. "He's the person who could say, 'I don't think he's fit to be in the seminary.' "

But the young man did get into the seminary. And in the ensuing four years, he experienced repeated unwanted sexual contact with Drotar, he said.

In 2007, Szutenbach reported the allegations to one of his former seminary teachers. The Denver Diocese, led by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput before he came to Philadelphia, sent Drotar to counseling and then reassigned him to another parish. The priest was later removed permanently from ministry after Szutenbach said he warned Chaput he would take his claims to the media.

Szutenbach didn't disclose his story at the time but reached out to the Inquirer and Daily News this year after a wave of high-profile reports of sexual misconduct in Catholic seminaries or against young priests in training. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington resigned in July after allegations that he abused minors and seminarians as the church leader in Newark and Metuchen, N.J. Four dioceses — Philadelphia, Boston, Newark, and Lincoln, Neb. — are investigating claims about misconduct in their seminaries.

[marktwain]

The Pope seems to be taking the view that this sort of abuse is OK, because it involved adults...

[oldbill]

The Pope is very concerned because this sex scandal is taking attention away from his primary church duties, complaining about climate change and capitalism.

Saving the climate is more important than saving souls.

[Trumpet 1]

Drotar is no longer in the priesthood?! Good! Question is, where is he now?!

[Beautiful_Gracious_Skies]

Here he is: Rescuing animals, helping them thrive at Wild Animal Sanctuary ... getboulder.com/rescuing-animals-helping-thrive-wild-animal-sanctuary/‎ Kent Drotar, director of the Sanctuary Ambassador Program, began volunteering at the Wild Animal Sanctuary more than seven years ago, after learning about ... Boulder

[Eagles6]

I thought Chaput was one of the good guys.

Maybe because the guy wasn't a minor?

They eventually did kick him though.

[ronniesgal]

getting folks to donate to the church is more important than either things u mentioned. UGH.

[Saltmeat]

Very early in this article the young man stated that he pursued the priesthood because it was an excellent place to conceal his homosexuality. He did not participate in his church choice to worship God. In the last paragraph he says that the way the church treated him caused him to lose his faith. His faith in what—God or the church?

[Jacquerie]

Gee and all these years the media pointed to “pedophilia” rather than middle-aged faggots attracted to young men.

[Buckeye McFrog]

The Pope seems to be taking the view that this sort of abuse is OK

It wasn't when Les Moonves and Harvey Weinstein did it.

[marktwain]

Very early in this article the young man stated that he pursued the priesthood because it was an excellent place to conceal his homosexuality.

I went back to find that. It appeared to me to be right in the middle of the article, not near the beginning.