By Maria Medina
KIMA
March 5, 2008
http://www.kimatv.com/news/16319616.html
[with video]
YAKIMA — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that under the first amendment the Yakima Catholic Diocese had a right to reassign job duties for one of its employees.
"Ii'm disappointed," said Robert Fontana who filed the lawsuit. "In my judgment, the decision just still leaves a lot of questions."
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Fontana said the Yakima Catholic Diocese forced him to quit after he made it clear the church wasn't handling sex cases properly.
"I said,'You have no right to put a priest in ministry that you know is looking at pictures of naked boys,'" Fontana said.
He claims he told the bishop to remove a priest from ministry while the FBI investigated him for downloading child porn. Instead Fontana claims the church put the priest at a church with a school after a doctor reported the priest was not a risk.
"My brother was abused by a priest and three of my best friends from my childhood were abused by a priest," he said. "So I filed a lawsuit because I felt I had to do whatever I could."
"I think the bishop did listen to Mr. Fontana and I don't think Mr. Fontana always liked the responses the bishop gave him," said Rev. Robert Siler of the Yakima Catholic Diocese.
The Diocese claims they did nothing wrong. The accused priest was never charged and has since moved out-of-state.
The Diocese said it encourages anyone with allegations of sexual abuse within the church to come forward.
"I can look at my kids in the eye and I can tell them I did what I thought was right and I'm grateful for that," said Fontana.
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