KIRKSVILLE (MO)
Kirksville Daily Express
November 9, 2018
By Jessica Karins
Two priests who served in Kirksville are among those “credibly accused” of sexual abuse of children in a list released Thursday by the Diocese of Jefferson City.
John Whiteley was accused of sexually abusing David Clohessy, now the national leader of the Survivor’s Network of those Abuse by Priests, in the 1960s and 1970s. Whiteley later worked at Mary Immaculate Church in Kirksville. Clohessy sued the diocese in 1991, but the suit was dismissed due to the statute of limitations.
One of the other accused priests is David Clohessy’s brother, Kevin Clohessy. In 1989, Kevin Clohessy became the director of the student Catholic center, Newman Center, at what is now Truman State University. Kevin Clohessy has been accused of abusing both an 18-year-old student in Kirksville and a younger boy in Jefferson City, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Clohessy was director here until 1993.
Both Whiteley and Clohessy have retired from the active priesthood; both are listed on the diocese’s list as having been “removed from ministry,” meaning they do not participate in the duties of a priest but have not been formally defrocked.
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