Diocese: Catholic priest under investigation kills himself (Ohio)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A Catholic diocese in Ohio says a parish priest under investigation for "questionable" communications with a minor and possible misuse of church funds killed himself.

The Catholic Diocese of Columbus said in a statement Thursday that the Rev. James Csaszar killed himself Wednesday in Chicago. Csaszar was pastor of Church of the Resurrection in the Columbus suburb of New Albany.

You mean like having a wife and family?

It is a problem that having one priest per parish has led to.

Back when I was a kid there was usually at least two priests in a parish. There would be a comradeship that could help deal with problems

This priest I would hope would have family that could help with this problem; father, mother or sibling.

Close friends in the parish could stay with him. Even if you believe what they say of him Christian charity would require you to help him through this time.

And by the way as far as the celibacy debate goes, having a wife and child does not exclude this kind of behavior. Married men have been known to be unfaithful or commit acts of pederasty.

And by the way as far as the celibacy debate goes, having a wife and child does not exclude this kind of behavior.

No, but he would have spent a lot less time alone,
which the article says would have made a difference.

Priests I know have circles of friends for support, mostly among their fellow priests. This guy probably had such support at one time, but when things started to slip sideways he may well have withdrawn and isolated from others.

Don't know what exactly he was accused of or what he did, but yes it's sad for everyone involved.

When stuff like this happens, it makes me inclined to beleive that many in the field of religious leadership don’t actually believe what they’re talking about.

Distressing.
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I agree with you 100%.

No, this was the essence of the report. It isn’t a study, but reflects the experiences of insurance companies insuring against such things. Actually, I’d tend to believe the insurance companies, since they are putting their money on the line. The insure 40,000 churches against it! I would consider that more reliable than a study personally.

insurance companies have offered sexual misconduct coverage as a rider on liability insurance, and their own studies indicate that Catholic churches are not higher risk than other congregations. Insurance companies that cover all denominations, such as Guide One Center for Risk Management, which has more than 40,000 church clients, does not charge Catholic churches higher premiums. “We don’t see vast difference in the incidence rate between one denomination and another,” says Sarah Buckley, assistant vice president of corporate communications. “It’s pretty even across the denominations.” It’s been that way for decades. While the company saw an uptick in these claims by all types of churches around the time of the 2002 U.S. Catholic sex-abuse scandal, Eric Spacick, Guide One’s senior church-risk manager, says “it’s been pretty steady since.” On average, the company says 80 percent of the sexual misconduct claims they get from all denominations involve sexual abuse of children. As a result, the more children’s programs a church has, the more expensive its insurance, officials at Guide One said.

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