Posted on 06/19/2002 11:57:16 AM PDT by areafiftyone
Days after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops set a nationwide policy on handling molestation of minors by priests, new allegations of sexual misconduct have surfaced in a Queens parish.
According to a report in the New York Times, the pastor of St. Elizabeth's in Ozone Park, Reverend John Thompson, lived with an 18-year-old gay lover in the parish rectory. The 50-year-old priest reportedly lavished the young man with gifts using funds from the budget of a parish school that was deep in the red.
The principal of the school, Barbara Samide, told the Times that church officials had repeatedly told her to look the other way when she raised the problem. Finally in March, amid the flood of sex abuse allegations against the Catholic clergy nationwide, Samide threatened to go to prosecutors, and Thompson resigned.
But Thompson is now at St. Gertrude's Parish in Far Rockaway, where he continues to say Mass and is considered a priest in good standing.
The Brooklyn Diocese says it's cooperating with prosecutors conducting a criminal investigation into the alleged financial mismanagement. But Samide says officials in the diocese are still urging her not to talk about the case.
In Westchester County, meanwhile, a grand jury, saying officials in the Catholic Church orchestrated a mass cover-up, is calling for new laws to make it a felony for any church official to fail to report child molestation claims. The jury is also asking the state Legislature to root out molesters in the clergy and punish church officials who cover up their crimes.
The New York Archdiocese called the grand jury's 13-page report "unbalanced, unfair and inaccurate."
Currently, church officials are exempt from a state law compelling certain professionals who work with children to report any suspected abuse to authorities.
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