Alleged victim of sex abuse by North Jersey priest breaks silence, sues Archdiocese of Newark

WOODLAND PARK (NJ)
NorthJersey.com

January 23, 2020

By Kaitlyn Kanzler

https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/essex/verona-cedar-grove/2020/01/23/newark-archdiocese-sued-victim-alleged-sex-abuse-verona-priest/4540653002/

Chris Rodgers is no longer a man of faith.

After struggling for years just to get up each morning after allegedly being sexual abused by a man he trusted, Rodgers’ faith is limited to believing there is a spiritual side to things.

Rodgers, who now lives in New York, is among the latest to file suit against the Catholic Church after New Jersey extended its civil statute of limitations on Dec. 1, allowing survivors a two-year window to bring a sex abuse case. Rodgers filed his suit against the Archdiocese of Newark for alleged sexual abuse by the Rev. Eugene Heyndricks, a former priest at Our Lady of the Lake in Verona.

Heyndricks, who died in 2007, was already on the list of credibly accused priests that the Archdiocese of Newark released last year. Heyndricks was placed on administrative leave in the early 2000s after he was caught in a police sting in Montreal soliciting an underage male prostitute. He pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to two years of unsupervised probation.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.