Abuse case against Dominican dismissed

By Ed Langlois
Catholic Sentinel
July 5, 2017

http://sentinel.org/main.asp?SectionID=5&SubSectionID=30&ArticleID=33428

Father Emmerich Vogt

A man who claimed he was sexually abused as a boy by Dominican Father Emmerich Vogt has dropped his lawsuit against Holy Rosary Parish in Portland and the California-based Dominican province.

A lack of evidence and exculpatory testimony by the plaintiff’s brothers caused the shift, says John Kaempf, a Portland attorney representing Holy Rosary and the Dominicans.

“It is a shame that he was able to anonymously damage Father Vogt, Holy Rosary, and the province through false public allegations and organized protests, thereby using his anonymity as a sword, not a shield,” Kaempf says. “My clients have worked diligently and successfully to prevent child abuse, and they will continue to do so.”

The suit, filed in February 2016, alleged that abuse began 20 years ago at Holy Rosary and lasted a decade. Father Vogt denied the allegations.

The brothers, who were altar servers with the plaintiff whenever he was with Father Vogt, say there was no abuse. When the church and the friars discovered the lack of evidence and the brothers’ statements, they refused to pay to settle the suit. The plaintiff then dismissed it, Kaempf says.

Father Vogt, ordained in the early 1980s, taught at Marist High School in Eugene and served as a retreat master for St. Teresa of Kolkata’s Missionaries of Charity. He also gave days of recollection at EWTN. In 2000, he was named pastor of Holy Rosary and was assigned outside the archdiocese three years later.

In 2006, he became prior of St. Albert the Great Priory in Oakland, California, the house of studies for men preparing for the Dominican priesthood or brotherhood.