CINCINNATI
WCPO-TV, Channel 9

December 7, 2020

By Craig Cheatham

Abuse survivor: ‘It needs to come out’

[PHOTO: In personal journals from the 1980s, a Catholic priest repeatedly accused of molesting boys, asks God to forgive him. The Rev. Herman Kamlage worked at eight northern Kentucky churches. He died in 2018.]

BURLINGTON, Ky. — I’ve failed you again. I haven’t been faithful to my office for 10 days.
I still have these primitive urges.
August 9, 1981

In a series of hand-written “love letters” to God, penned over the course of four years, The Rev. Herman Kamlage, a Catholic priest, begged for forgiveness for undisclosed “carnal” behavior that he claimed he could not control.

In July, the Diocese of Covington publicly identified Kamlage — who held positions at eight northern Kentucky parishes — and 89 other former diocesan employees who had “substantiated” allegations of child sexual abuse…