VIRGINIA
Washington Post
By Michelle Boorstein, Wednesday, April 18, 3:13 PM
The priest who until last year headed the Arlington Catholic diocese’s office responsible for protecting children from sexual abuse was placed on administrative leave Wednesday while he is investigated for alleged sexual misconduct with a youth.
The Rev. Terry W. Specht, a prominent priest in the diocese that oversees Northern Virginia, denies the allegation of misconduct involving a male minor in the late 1990s. Specht was a parochial vicar at St. Mary of Sorrows Church in Fairfax at the time.
Specht was director from 2004 to 2011 of the Office of Child Protection and Safety, which handles outreach to child abuse victims, training on abuse for church employees and volunteers and monitoring of youth activities “to ensure that all contact with young people is appropriate,” its Web site says.
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