WILMINGTON (DE)
The News Journal
January 31, 2018
By Xerxes Wilson
In what appears to be a first, Delaware is prosecuting a former Catholic priest for “sexual intercourse” with a child more than 25 years ago.
John A. Sarro, 76, a former priest with the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, was indicted this week by a New Castle County grand jury on charges of first-degree unlawful sexual intercourse and second-degree unlawful sexual contact, according to court records.
Sarro was a priest in Bear and Bellefonte through much of the ’80s and ’90s. He was identified by diocese officials in 2006 as one of 20 local priests with “admitted, corroborated or otherwise substantiated” allegations of sexual abuse of minors against them.
But the conduct that landed Sarro in that group is said to be separate from the current charge.
His Monday indictment accuses him in the early 1990s of having “sexual intercourse” with a girl under the age of 16. Those crimes would have taken place when Sarro’s was serving at St. Helena Parish in Bellefonte, though specifics of his relationship with the alleged victim, or her identity, are not detailed in court documents.
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