MINNESOTA/SOUTH DAKOTA
BishopAccountability.org
Summary of Case: Clarence Vavra was ordained a priest of the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese in 1965. In his 38 years of active ministry, he was transferred 17 times. The Official Catholic Directory reveals several gaps in his assignment history which include a “sick leave” in the early 1970s, an unspecified “special assignment” in the mid-1980s and an unexplained absence from the 1997 and 1998 Directories. He is known to have received inpatient psychological treatment in 1996. In 1975-1976 Vavra worked at a Jesuit mission on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota; he admitted in a 1996 psychological evaluation to having sexually abused several boys ages 9-12 and a teen boy while there. Vavra agreed to retire in 2003, in exchange for an extra $650 per month from the archdiocese. In November 2013 he is living in a residential New Prague, MN neighborhood, a block away from a school. Also in November 2013, Rosebud Indian Reservation law enforcement officials opened an investigation.
Ordained: 1965
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