MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By Lilly Fowler

A quiet street and a quaint three-bedroom home drew Mike Stenzhorn and his family to Dittmer 15 years ago.

Stenzhorn and his two children loved the neighborhood in the small community 40 miles southwest of St. Louis.

They didn’t put much thought to the Roman Catholic facility across the street — a small complex of buildings called the Vianney Renewal Center.

Stenzhorn knew the center had something to do with helping struggling priests. In any case, it seemed harmless, and the neighborhood was nice.

“If you had to live somewhere in the Midwest, and you wanted quiet, this is the place,” Stenzhorn, 62, said one recent afternoon.

But in the years that would follow, the full truth about the Vianney Renewal Center would come to light.

The facility, operated by a Roman Catholic order called the Servants of the Paraclete, cares for…