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7 names missing from Columbus priest sex abuse list, victims group says

By Danae King
Columbus Dispatch
March 20, 2019

https://web.archive.org/web/20190320182152/https://www.dispatch.com/news/20190320/7-names-missing-from-columbus-priest-sex-abuse-list-victims-group-says

Judy Jones, midwest leader of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and Steven Spaner, a SNAP volunteer coordinator, speak during a news conference on Wednesday, March 20, 2019 outside St. Joseph Cathedral in Columbus, Ohio. The two were speaking out about four clergy credibly accused of sexual abuse were left off of the Columbus Diocese’s recently released list of accused priests.
Photo by Joshua A. Bickel

An advocacy group for survivors says it has identified seven priests who have been accused of abusing children but were not on the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus’ list of “credibly accused” clergy released on March 1.

On Wednesday afternoon, two representatives of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) stood in front of St. Joseph’s Cathedral on East Broad Street Downtown, calling for more action by the church. One of them held a sign with photos of 12 children who they said are survivors of priest abuse.

“We have to remind ourselves these are children,” said Steven Spaner, a volunteer coordinator with SNAP. “They might be grown up adults now, but they were children.”

The Columbus Diocese’s list originally identified 34 priests, many of whom are dead, but it added two names on March 5: Monsignor Robert A. Brown, who was included on the Diocese of Steubenville’s list, and the Rev. John J. Ryan, who was accused after someone came forward upon seeing the Columbus list.

The list includes priests who served in the Columbus diocese, but were accused while serving elsewhere.

Judy Jones, Midwest regional director for SNAP, identified the seven in a news release, saying accusations against them had already been made public. They are the Rev. James F. Gates, the Rev. John J. Walsh, Joel A. Wright, the Rev. Fintan Shaffer, James Csaszar, Robert E. Paul Hayden and the Rev. Walter Hubert Maria Horan.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the diocese had not responded to requests for comment by The Dispatch.

In a March 2 story, The Dispatch identified Wright, Shaffer, Csaszar and Hayden as missing from the list. Diocesan spokesman George Jones has given various reasons why the four were not included.

As far as the other three clergy members, SNAP said:

• Gates, a Jesuit who served at Holy Rosary-St. John’s Parish in Columbus from 1994-2002, is accused of abusing 16 minors on the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington state in the 1960s and ’70s. He’s on the USA Midwest Province Jesuits’ list of accused priests, as he was a member of the group.

• Walsh, who the Columbus Diocese has previously said it has no record of, is accused of abusing a woman in the early 1970s in Massachusetts, according to a 2011 Boston Globe story. The Official Catholic Directory says he was in residence at Saints Simon and Jude in West Jefferson from 1961 to 1962.

• Horan, a Dominican friar of the Province of St. Joseph Order of Preachers, is on the order’s list of accused priests. He taught Latin, history and religion at Bishop Hartley High School in Columbus for 14 years starting in 1969 and died in 1983. He also served as a chaplain at Ohio Dominican University.

Earlier this month, George Jones said Wright, who was sentenced in July 2016 to 15 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to trying to adopt and buy baby girls in Mexico so he could sexually molest them, was not included on the list because he did not serve in the diocese. He was a seminary student at the Pontifical College Josephinum on the Far North Side.

George Jones said Shaffer and Hayden, who were accused of sexually abusing developmentally disabled men at a group home in southern Pike County from 1981 to 1985, were brothers of a religious order but not diocesan priests.

And he said there was never an allegation of sexual abuse against Csaszar, who killed himself in December 2017 after being placed on leave after a parent said he had exchanged inappropriate calls and text messages with her teenage son. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations said there was a nude photo of the boy sent to Csaszar but the teen denied a sexual relationship with the priest and BCI closed its case after Csaszar died.

Judy Jones said they should be on the Columbus Diocese list because they worked within the geographical area of the diocese and could have abused children locally.

“Child predators are a danger anywhere,” she said. ”... Victims want them on the list. It’s kind of a sense of justice for them.”

Contact: dking@dispatch.com




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