TENNESSEE
Chattanooga Free Press
January 16, 2020
By Wyatt Massey
After months of publicly discrediting and denying sexual abuse allegations against prominent priests and a diocesan employee, documents obtained by the Times Free Press suggest the Diocese of Knoxville may have known about those allegations for almost a year before suspending the accused employee.
In December, the diocese settled a July lawsuit by East Tennessee resident Michael Boyd alleging he was repeatedly sexually abused by Monsignor Francis Xavier Mankel, Bishop Anthony O’Connell, visiting priests and diocesan employee William Michael Lovelace. The abuse allegedly occurred between 1991 and 1995 when Boyd was a preteen student at Sacred Heart Cathedral School in Knoxville.
Information gathered from a variety of documents — including a copy of the lawsuit, a police report, multiple diocese releases and Boyd’s 18-page, handwritten statement given to police— create a timeline that contradicts the diocese’s claims of not knowing about abuse allegations made against Lovelace until summer 2019.
The documents point to Lovelace being identified in the summer of 2018 and being allowed to have contact with children for another school year.
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