KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star
BY JUDY L. THOMAS
THE KANSAS CITY STAR
10/06/2014
CommentsThe former vicar general of the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese told jurors Monday that despite complaints of alcohol abuse and concerns about sexual misconduct, Monsignor Thomas O’Brien did not receive treatment for years.
The Rev. Pat Rush told a Jackson County jury that the diocese also did not alert parishioners or report the concerns to authorities. Rather, it recommended in 1978 that O’Brien be appointed as Catholic chaplain for the Kansas City Police Department.
The revelations came on the sixth day of a sexual abuse trial in a lawsuit filed by a former altar boy. Jon David Couzens filed the lawsuit in 2011 alleging O’Brien sexually abused him at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Independence in the early 1980s. Couzens claims the diocese was told repeatedly that O’Brien was a danger to children but failed to prevent abuse.
The diocese contends no credible evidence exists to prove those allegations. It argues Couzens’ claims that he repressed the memories of the abuse for years are invalid. O’Brien, who has been the subject of dozens of sexual abuse lawsuits, died last year at age 87.
The Rev. Pat Rush, a former vicar general of the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese, testified Monday in a lawsuit filed by former altar boy Jon David Couzens, who alleges that Monsignor Thomas O’Brien sexually abused him at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Independence in the early 1980s. The Rev. Pat Rush, a former vicar general of the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese, testified Monday in a lawsuit filed by former altar boy Jon David Couzens, who alleges that Monsignor Thomas O’Brien sexually abused him at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Independence in the early 1980s. | File photo/The Kansas City Star
Couzens’ attorney, Pedro Irigonegaray, questioned Rush for more than two hours Monday. Most of the questions focused on a six-inch stack of documents that Rush described as O’Brien’s priest personnel file.
It included a 1979 letter from O’Brien in which the priest said that former Bishop Charles Helmsing had talked to him about “activity … a couple of years ago.”
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