SPRINGFIELD (MO)
Springfield News-Leader
February 25, 2020
By Harrison Keegan
A spokeswoman said the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau was aware in 2002 that one of its priests had been accused of sexually abusing a teen.
But the accused clergyman was allowed to keep working as a priest for the next nine years, until he retired in 2011.
That now-former priest, 76-year-old Frederick Lutz, was arrested at his Springfield home last week on charges of forcible sodomy, statutory sodomy and sexual abuse for acts that allegedly occurred in 2000 in Stoddard County in southeast Missouri.
The criminal charges stem from those same allegations that the diocese says it found out about in 2002, involving a 17-year-old boy.
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