WATERBURY (CT)
Republican-American
November 7, 2018
By Jonathan Shugarts
The Archdiocese of Hartford was sued Wednesday by a former city man who is accusing a deceased priest of sexually abusing him when he was an altar boy in 1980.
Rev. Walter Vichas, who died in 2008 at the age of 83, is named in the suit as the abuser of Kevin Distasio who is now 46.
The suit was filed in Waterbury Superior Court and accuses the archdiocese of negligence and reckless and wanton conduct in connection to Vichas’ alleged sexual exploitation of the boy while Vichas served as a priest at Blessed Sacrament Church on Robbins Street.
The suit claims that Distasio’s parents were devout Catholics who enrolled their son at the Blessed Sacrament School, which was part of the church. Distasio placed “his faith and trust in his church, its clergy, and its priests, which included Rev. Walter A. Vichas, and placed his trust in the same for his moral and spiritual welfare,” the suit alleges.
Vichas heard Distasio’s confessions, according to the filing. Distasio was raised to believe that priests were to be “obeyed without question” and that priests “represented God and that priests were a form of Jesus Christ,” the suit alleges.
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