MINNESOTA
The Freethinker
BY BARRY DUKE – OCTOBER 8, 2013
BACK in 2004, a computer that belonged to a Catholic priest, Fr Jonathan Shelley, wound up in the possession of a Minnesota man called Joe Ternus.
Termus’s father got the computer from a house he that he owned at that time. It was being used as the rectory and Shelley was the last pastor to live in the house, which was scheduled for emolition.Ternus was given the computer by his dad, and was about to pass it onto his kids. But before doing so, he wanted to see what was on it.
A link on the desktop was the first thing I found – it was a dial-up link for adult content. My radar went way off.
He looked further, searching for photo files.
And boom, there was a ton of stuff.
He said he looked at only a half-dozen of the porno images, but he estimated there were thousands of them.
What I saw was enough to want to get the church involved.
The family, who belonged to the St Jude parish, called an attorney, who contacted the archdiocese. Several days later, a private investigator hired by the archdiocese contacted him.
He told me to bring (the hard drive) to my office that day, and that I WAS going to turn it over.
He said the investigator’s attitude was bullying and that raised his hackles. He also he suspected that no action would be taken against the priest.
I was absolutely enraged at that point that a parish priest had this on a computer in the first place.
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