CALIFORNIA
California Catholic Daily

Stockton priest removed from ministry after jury finds he molested boy in mid-1980s, bishop says he still believes the priest is innocent

Stockton Bishop Stephen Blaire has removed a longtime diocesan priest from ministry even though the bishop says he believes the priest is innocent of any wrongdoing.

Bishop Blaire took the action on Friday, April 6, after a San Joaquin County Superior Court jury found Fr. Michael Kelly, 62, liable for damages in a civil suit filed against him alleging he sexually molested a former altar boy in the mid-1980s at the Cathedral of the Annunciation in Stockton.

Fr. Kelly, until Friday pastor at St. Joachim’s Catholic Church in Lockeford, vigorously denied the allegations and testified in his own defense at the trial. But the jury apparently believed his now 37-year-old accuser, identified in court records only as “John TZ Doe,” who maintained that,…