NASHVILLE (TN)
Nashville Scene

July 21, 2020

By Steven Hale

An investigation by the U.K.-based Catholic Herald raises questions about how the diocese responded to the allegations

The Catholic Diocese of Nashville paid $65,000 in May to settle the case of an adult woman who says she was sexually abused by a priest who was working as a chaplain at Aquinas College and the Dominican Campus.

The settlement was revealed by the London-based Catholic Herald, which published an investigation over the weekend raising questions about how the diocese handled the abuse allegations. The woman reported to the diocese in March 2019 that Father Kevin McGoldrick had abused her in 2017 at Aquinas College, where she was a student. In her first-person account, published by the Herald, the woman says that McGoldrick — a relatively young guitar-playing priest who was her personal spiritual director — invited her to the rectory…