BELLEVILLE (IL)
News-Democrat
By GEORGE PAWLACZYK — News-Democrat
BELLEVILLE — Raymond Kownacki, whose history of years of sexually abusing children was brought out in testimony during a 2008 civil trial that ended with a $5 million judgment against the Diocese of Belleville, has been booted from the priesthood by Pope Benedict XVI.
According to a Jan. 25 “Official Statement” from Belleville Bishop Edward K. Braxton, Benedict’s decree “means that Mr. Kownacki is no longer a member of the clerical state and has been dispensed ‘pro bono Ecclesiae,’ — for the good of the church.”
Diocese spokesman the Rev. John Myler could not be reached for comment. Braxton does not comment to local media.
Kownacki, 78, who resides in a nursing home in St. Louis County, is the second priest from the diocese to be removed from the priesthood following allegations of sexual abuse of minors. In 2007, Benedict removed Robert J. Vonnahmen, a former priest who was alleged by a diocesan review panel to have abused boys at a church-run camp in the 1970s.
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