KNOXVILLE (TN)
Knoxville News Sentinel [Knoxville TN]
May 25, 2023
By Tyler Whetstone
Stika against sending ex-seminarian home
Knoxville Bishop Richard Stika told a priest in the spring of 2021 he would resign before he’d allow a former seminarian accused of raping a church employee to be sent back to Poland, according to a written account by the priest.
The priest reported the bishop’s comments in a May 2021 email to a Louisville priest who was investigating the diocese on behalf of the archbishop in Louisville, who oversees the Knoxville diocese.
The email was included in a batch of documents obtained by Knox News. We are not identifying the priest to protect him from retaliation, or the former seminarian because he has not been charged with a crime.
The email went to the personal inbox of Louisville priest Paul Beach who visited the diocese – along with then-Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, the former bishop of Knoxville – to assist “with our difficult situation,” according to the email.
The Knoxville priest had recently met with Stika over news reports about the former seminarian that were published by The Pillar, a Catholic news organization.
“What is very telling to me during that meeting was that he threatened to resign as a bishop over this seminarian. He did not want to send him back to Poland,” the priest wrote in a section of notes detailing what he described as a pattern of intimidation by Stika.
Stika, through diocesan spokesperson Jim Wogan, did not dispute the priest’s recounting but declined to comment on “private conversations.”
Knox News could not independently confirm what, if any, response resulted from the email or if Stika told anyone else he would resign.
Email came after scuttled investigation, payments for education
In March 2021, two months before the priest sent the email to Louisville, Stika was told the seminarian had been kicked out of an Indiana seminary over sexual harassment complaints. Shortly after, the diocese began investigating whether the seminarian had raped a church employee here.
Stika interfered with that investigation by firing the third-party investigator, and in April 2021 he authorized nearly $50,000 of diocesan funds to pay for the man, who was no longer a seminarian, to continue his education at Saint Louis University, Stika’s alma mater.
The university is a highly regarded Jesuit institution, but is not a seminary.
Seminarian lived with bishop
In comments to a group of priests in 2021, the audio of which was obtained by Knox News, the bishop explained the seminarian had been living with him and former Cardinal Justin Rigali to help take care of the elder Rigali and “drive us.”
“If I had been living by myself, I would not have asked him to come live with me even though we have some priests live with seminarians in the summer,” Stika told the priests. “I was not going to put myself in that position. So, I gave (him) a thorough evaluation.”
Lawsuit update
The former church employee filed a lawsuit against the diocese and Stika in February 2022. Knox News identifies the man as John Doe, the pseudonym he originally used in the lawsuit to protect his identity. He has since been forced to refile his lawsuit under his legal name after the diocese went to court to demand he be identified in legal proceedings.
In a recent court filing, Stika admitted he told a room full of priests that the man who says he was raped by the former seminarian was actually the predator, not the other way around. He also admitted to telling a separate group of priests that John Doe groomed the seminarian for sexual abuse.
Tyler Whetstone is a Knox News investigative reporter focused on accountability journalism. Email tyler. whetstone@knoxnews.com. Twitter @tyler_whetstone.