SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
The Examiner
Sex-abuse scandal at North Beach church the latest dust-up that has garnered worldwide attention
By Chris Roberts @Cbloggy
In a time of trials that have tested the will of the faithful worldwide, the Roman Catholic Church in San Francisco has emerged relatively unscathed.
The sex abuse scandals staining archdioceses in Boston, Los Angeles and now Chicago have had no parallel in San Francisco. Instead, the local archdiocese’s reputation has recently been sullied across the world by lurid claims of sexual battery and harassment, all allegedly committed within one of its most sacred spaces.
A lawsuit filed late last month by a 33-year-old woman formerly employed by the church accuses her ex-bosses of harboring a veritable den of sin underneath the roof of a shrine dedicated to The City’s patron saint. Jhona Mathews alleges that one of the men, who is in his 60s, hired and used her for sex. And a charming and popular priest who wielded significant influence as the archdiocese’s second-in-command let it all happen, the suit claims.
The lawsuit contains lurid details, including paddling the woman’s bare bottom, and comes after years of chaos at the North Beach church, including a fight over interring dead pets and a holy order’s dismissal from the chapel.
HOUSE OF WORSHIP RICH IN HISTORY
Catholics have worshipped at what’s now the corner of Columbus Avenue and Vallejo Street since the Gold Rush days. Once a thriving parish for the Italian-Americans who still lend their culture to the area, damage from the Loma Prieta earthquake and the steady exodus parishioners from the church led the archdiocese to close the Church of St. Francis in the 1990s. It was reborn a few years later in with a new mission, and special status, from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops as the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi — the namesake and patron saint of San Francisco.
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