LOUISIANA
The Advocate
BY JIM MUSTIAN | JMUSTIAN@THEADVOCATE.COM SEP 2, 2016
A decade after his death, a beloved and eccentric Jesuit priest who taught Zen at Loyola University has been accused of repeatedly raping a young girl on campus more than 30 years ago, allegations that prompted church officials to begin paying the woman’s medical bills after she came forward last year.
A new lawsuit claims the Rev. Benjamin L. Wren, known affectionately to many as “Zen Ben Wren,” sexually assaulted the girl dozens of times beginning in 1978 – when she was just 5 years old – and coerced her silence by warning that her family would be sent to hell if she revealed their “special secret.”
Doctors attributed the woman’s delay in reporting the abuse to “repressed memory, shame, embarrassment and fear,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in Orleans Parish Civil District Court. The woman is identified in the lawsuit by the pseudonym Jane Doe.
The lawsuit seeks damages from Loyola, the Archdiocese of New Orleans and the Jesuits of the USA Central and Southern Province, claiming the defendants “had superior knowledge about the risk that Father Wren posed to Jane Doe as a minor child” and failed to report the abuse to the authorities.
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