NASHVILLE (TN)
The Tennessean
April 6, 2019
By Holly Meyer and Anita Wadhwani
Kathleen Lisle cannot forget the summer day a priest at Christ the King Catholic Church called her childhood home, asking her to help fold bulletins for Mass.
She hesitated to go.
Lisle was 12. She did not want to be alone with the Rev. James Arthur Rudisill, but, in the 1950s, explaining that to her mother seemed impossible. A frequent guest at the Nashville home where she grew up with 10 brothers and five sisters, Rudisill sometimes sat next to Lisle, rubbing her leg while playing chess.
At her mother’s urging, Lisle walked the few blocks to the parish church.
“He was kind of touchy while we were doing that and then afterwards he said, ‘I need to go over to the school,’ ” said Lisle, who asked to be identified by her maiden name. “I was afraid to go, but you heard back then, ‘Do whatever father tells you to do.’ So I went.
“He took me over to the gym and up on the stage to the closet on the right hand side and that’s where he molested me.”
It would take Lisle about 40 years to find the courage to report the sexual abuse to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nashville. Nearly a quarter of a century would pass before the diocese would make the allegation against Rudisill public.
The Nashville diocese is one of about 60 across the nation to release the names of accused priests they have long kept secret — in some cases for decades.
The names have rolled out in news releases and newsletters since a Pennsylvania grand jury investigation in August laid out in detail the “horrifying scale” of sexual abuse perpetrated by 300 priests on more than 1,000 identified victims spanning nearly eight decades.
Rudisill, who died in 2006, is among the 21 clergy the Nashville diocese has named since November.
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