JOLIET (IL)
Southtown Star
September 20, 2012
Editorial
After a disturbing decision to return a priest accused of child sexual abuse to ministry, Joliet Diocese Bishop R. Daniel Conlon changed his mind this week and returned the priest to permanent leave.
It’s clearly the right move, but we’re left wondering why the Catholic Church made it necessary — the priest never should have been brought back.
Conlon last week assigned the Rev. F. Lee Ryan to a limited ministry for homebound parishioners in the Watseka area after the Vatican had ruled that Ryan did not violate church law, apparently because the alleged victim of abuse was not younger than 16 — the age of consent under church law.
Ryan was removed as an active priest in May 2010 by Conlon’s predecessor after a diocesan review panel found credible evidence that he had a sexual relationship in the 1970s with a student at Providence Catholic High School in New Lenox.
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