BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News
July 9, 2019
By Jay Tokasz
Fourteen months after a Lockport man accused Monsignor John M. Ryan of molesting him in the 1980s, Bishop Richard J. Malone has yet to decide whether Ryan committed the abuse and should be further punished.
The man’s May 8, 2018 application to a Buffalo Diocese program that compensates victims of clergy abuse prompted Malone to suspend Ryan, 89, last July from publicly celebrating Masses and other priestly functions.
This past May, the diocese received a second complaint about Ryan from a Pennsylvania woman who said the former superintendent of Catholic schools repeatedly molested her in the late 1950s when she was a parishioner at Queen of Heaven Church in West Seneca. Her lawyer notified the diocese in a letter.
Both accusers said they plan to sue the diocese in August under the Child Victims Act, which allows a one-year window for childhood sex abuse victims to pursue civil cases from years ago that were time-barred under statutes of limitations.
Ryan served as superintendent of Catholic schools from 1975 to 1981, overseeing more than 42,000 students in about 150 elementary and high schools in eight counties at the time.
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