CALIFORNIA
Ventura County Star
By Tom Kisken
Posted February 9, 2013
When Archdiocese of Los Angeles officials asked a onetime Oxnard priest who admitted to fondling boys and girls while they slept to voluntarily leave the priesthood, they offered $30,000 to help with the transition.
The Rev. Gary Fessard asked for more.
“I am asking for a settlement sum of at least $2,500 for each year of ordination,” wrote the priest, who worked in the archdiocese for 30 years and was alleged to have sexually abused more than 20 people, according to church files. He also asked for continued health insurance.
“I must state that without the archdiocese continuing to provide permanently the full present level of my medical coverage, any thought of my seeking laicization is neither realistic nor possible,” he wrote, detailing his debt and his limited chances of finding another vocation as a lay person.
The letter is tucked inside a 727-page personnel file. It’s part of an avalanche of clergy abuse records placed online by the church more than a week ago in a release linked to a $660 million settlement in 2007 with more than 500 clergy abuse victims.
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