MONTROSE (CO)
Montrose Press
Oct. 24, 2019
By Katharhynn Heidelberg
An independent review of Colorado’s three Catholic dioceses’ handling of sexual abuse complaints lists allegations against Western Slope priests, including one who served in Montrose.
The review’s results and recommendations were released Wednesday as a “Special Master’s Report” undertaken by Robert Troyer, a retired U.S. Attorney, as part of an agreement between Colorado’s dioceses and the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.
The report says Gary Kennedy, a former Montrose priest who retired in 2011, was reported last month for alleged sexual abuse said to have occurred between 1967 and 1969, against a boy who was 13 – 15 at the time.
Troyer’s report says Kennedy, who served St. Mary Parish as assistant pastor during the period of alleged abuse, would take a group of altar boys to the church basement where he had set up a mattress behind a curtain and there, would take turns “wrestling” with each boy. The man who came forward in 2019 alleged Kennedy would grab him and grind his genitals against him.
The Archdiocese of Denver was unable to comment on specific cases, its spokesman said Wednesday, after the report was released. The Montrose Daily Press could not immediately locate contact information for Kennedy.
“We must face the past and learn from it, and we must know if our children are safe today,” Archbishop Samuel Aquila said in a letter and video statement released after the report. “Thanks to our ongoing vigilance, they are.” In his statement, the archbishop commended the survivors for their courage and recognized that more survivors might now step forward; Aquila pledged an open-door policy.
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