OHIO
The Columbus Dispatch

By Theodore Decker
The Columbus Dispatch Thursday July 18, 2013

A local Roman Catholic priest who was placed on administrative leave this week as part of a child-sex-abuse investigation was caught up in a 1999 public-indecency sting conducted by police at a Far East Side park.

The Rev. Ronald J. Atwood, 69, the pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Church on Buttles Avenue in Victorian Village, will remain on leave during an investigation by the Diocese of Columbus, the diocese said in a news release issued yesterday.

Bishop Frederick Campbell notified Atwood on Tuesday of the allegation and the church’s decision to put him on leave, the release said.

The diocese said the allegation involves the sexual abuse of a child that reportedly occurred between 1976 and 1979, a period that included Atwood’s time as a teacher at Bishop Ready High School and as…