Posted on 03/08/2002 2:41:46 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (AP) - A Roman Catholic bishop admitted molesting a teen-ager at a Missouri seminary more than 25 years ago and resigned Friday, becoming the highest-ranking clergyman brought down in a wave of allegations touched off by the sex scandal in Boston.
"I am truly deeply sorry for the pain, hurt, anger and confusion I have caused," said the Rev. Anthony J. O'Connell, bishop of the Diocese of Palm Beach. "I've been loved since I entered this diocese, far more than anyone should be loved."
O'Connell, 63, admitted to the allegations leveled by Christopher Dixon, his former student at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Hannibal, Mo. O'Connell was the rector there at the time.
Dixon, now 40, said they two touched inappropriately in bed after he sought out O'Connell for counseling. Dixon said the abuse began when he was in the ninth grade and continued through the 12th grade.
"For those who will be angry, I certainly ask, when the time is right, that they pray for my forgiveness," O'Connell said.
Asked whether he had been involved with any other youngsters, O'Connell said there could be "one other person of a somewhat similar situation, in a somewhat similar time frame." He would not elaborate.
The nation's latest and biggest sex-abuse scandal involving priests began in the Archdiocese of Boston, where Cardinal Bernard Law admitted that a former priest molested children for years but was shuttled from parish to parish anyway. More than 130 people have come forward to say the defrocked priest, John Geoghan, abused them.
Since January, when the Boston case gained national attention, dozens of priests out of more than 47,000 nationwide have been suspended or forced to resign, and priests' names have been turned over to prosecutors.
O'Connell, who has been a priest for 38 years, was bishop of Knoxville, Tenn., before coming to Palm Beach in 1999. He succeeded J. Keith Symons, the first U.S. bishop to resign because of sexual involvement with boys.
After that scandal, Florida's bishops began background checks for all clergy, lay employees and volunteers who work with children, elderly and disabled people.
O'Connell said he failed to tell his superiors about the relationship when he was asked to replace Symons. "It should have come up from myself," he said.
O'Connell's admission came only hours after Florida's bishops issued a statement calling sexual abuse "both criminal and sinful" and assuring their 2.2 million followers that the church has procedures to deal with such allegations.
David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests in St. Louis, called O'Connell's disclosure "one more painful reminder that an enormous gap exists between the church's wonderful, flowery words and its leaders' terrible deeds."
O'Connell offered his resignation to the pope's top representative in the United States. No one was available to comment at the papal nuncio in Washington.
O'Connell's admission was first reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
"I was as wrong as I can be in taking that approach with him and I am sorry," he said. "There was nothing in the relationship that was anything other than touches."
The Jefferson City, Mo., Diocese paid Dixon $125,000 in a 1996 settlement, and he promised not to pursue further claims against the diocese, O'Connell and two other priests. The diocese did not admit any wrongdoing by Dixon.
The other priests are the Rev. Manus Daly, who allegedly abused Dixon at the seminary, and the Rev. John Fischer, who allegedly began abusing Dixon at a Catholic school when he was 11. Daly was removed from a Marceline, Mo., church this week and Fischer was removed from the priesthood in 1993 after allegations involving other children.
Dixon said he thought he could trust O'Connell when he told him about the abuse from Fischer. "But under the guise of trying to help me come to terms with my own body, he ultimately took me to bed with him," Dixon said.
Dixon himself was a priest for five years before he was diagnosed with depression in 1995. He said the depression came after he was assigned to work at the Hannibal seminary under Daly - a move that brought back memories of abuse. He later left the priesthood.
"I had a wonderful way of burying the impact it had on me, emotionally and psychologically," Dixon said Friday. When it resurfaced, "I was either going to kill myself or get help."
O'Connell is not the highest-ranking clergyman felled by a sex scandal.
In 1993, Archbishop Robert Sanchez of Santa Fe, N.M., resigned over his involvement with several women, some of them teen-agers. Archbishop Eugene Marino of Atlanta and Bishop G. Patrick Ziemann of Santa Rosa, Calif., resigned after sex scandals involving adults.
The late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in Chicago was accused of abuse in a 1993 lawsuit, but the accuser later recanted.
If only Cardinal Law had some integrity.
"They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth." 1 Tim. 4
I think your question doesn't address the problem.
Marriage won't solve the basic problem with pedophilia, it will only give the perp more cover. There have probably been just as many, if not more instances of abuse among married clergy all over the country as among Catholic priests, but they are not publicized near as much. The Catholic Church is a HUGE target because it is so outspoken about sexual sin; folks looking to beat up on the Church latch on to scandals like this to point out hypocrisy. But the Church is made up of humans who are sinful like all humans. Most priests are kind men trying to be holy to lead their parishoners to holiness. All of those wonderful men are smeared when something like this happens.
I hope the Bishops will now be more careful about who they elect for ordination; they have many years in seminaries to weed these perverts out, they just haven't done it in the past because the liberal nuns and priests running the Seminaries were looking for 'progressives' to be priests. Well, they got what they asked for, but I don't think it is exactly what they expected!
These are homosexual predators who have come to the churches to prey on the young. They are not Christians!
Being a Priest, a Bishop or a Cardinal has been a free pass to be a predator!
The problem is not celibacy. Rather, the problem is men making vows and then breaking them.
Married men in large numbers do the same thing. It's called adultery.
Yeah, it wasn't sodomy--we were just touching each other in a very specific way.
How many people do you think the Catholic church loses because they are unable to maintain that vow?
Yes, it's a complete no-brainer. It would instantly and dramatically increase the pool of normal men available for the priesthood.
I assume you mean how many priests leave the priesthood for that reason. I don't know. I've never seen any statistics on the matter. A lot of priests left the priesthood in the past 30 or so years, some because they wanted to marry.
I've read a number of articles by some who left and married and who regretted doing so. They regretted the marriage, but moreso leaving the priesthood.
To each other?
I believe that Cardinal Law must have considerable personal baggage in this scandal. What other reason on earth could be behind is half truths, waffling, and ultimately obstruction of justice.
The fact that Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Riley is now running the investigation kinda says it all-as the old saying goes when you want to hide something real good just stick it in one of Riley's law books.....he'll never look there.
Law should be compelled to testify or to plead the Fifth. If the state won't get the job done....federal charges should be brought.
It is just getting interesting in some of the civil cases.
Married priests will not lessen pedophilia,todays Arizona teacher's arrest was a married man.Mark my words,and I don't mean to be strident but I am very concerned,nothing will improve with married priests. Things will get worse, the homosexual priests will continue to recruit teenagers while claiming they should be allowed to marry their same sex lovers and then they will have to support same sex marriages and adoption of children. The money problems will increase as families of married clerics will have to be supported, then we can probably add divorce and alimony and adultery.
The "progressives"who have sought to destroy the Church since the French Revolution are waiting with bated breath, salivating for this to play out. Do not be deceived,you wouldn't believe how many ex-priests now married are living out here in the sunshine,ready to jump back in. By the way,might your byfriend be a priest?
So I've heard tell.
But it's not dogma. I've heard the priests sometimes preach against it, during their idle moments.
Toward freedom, and sense. Not too much of either, thanks, my heart is weak. You read the record and weep.
On a very serious note: FOR THE CHILDREN!
P.S.: Seriously.
P.P.S.: Seriously.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.