NEW YORK
BishopAccountability.org
Summary of Case: Henry Mills was ordained for the Archdiocese of New York in 1988. He was an assistant priest at Christ the King parish in the Bronx for eight years, followed by one year in the same role at St. Joseph of the Holy Family in Harlem.
Mills was removed from St. Joseph’s in 1997 after he was accused in a lawsuit of raping a 17-year-old male parishioner. The abuse was said to have begun in 1992 at Christ the King, when the youth went to Mills for counseling, and to have continued over several years. Mills’ accuser claimed that the priest plied him with alcohol, threatened to say that the boy tried to seduce him if he told, and said that “nobody would ever believe” him. The lawsuit also accused the archdiocese of a cover-up and of breaking a promise to provide psychological help. The archdiocese denied the allegations and said “if anything occurred, it was consensual sex.” Mills countersued his accuser in 1998.
After his removal Mills was sent to a treatment facility in upstate New York, after which he was sent reside at St. Elizabeth parish rectory in Washington Heights. In 2002, despite his “Absent on Leave” status, Mills was discovered by a news reporter to have been actively ministering at the parish and its school. At the time, neither of the lawsuits had been resolved.
Mills’ whereabouts and status in April 2017 are unclear.
Ordained: 1988
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