JOLIET (IL)
WLS
September 13, 2012 (JOLIET, Ill.) — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Joliet will allow a priest to resume limited duties after the Vatican determined his alleged sexual relationship with a teenager in the 1970s didn’t meet the criteria of a crime under church law at that time.
The diocese said the Rev. F. Lee Ryan will minister to homebound parishionersof St. Edmund Catholic Church in Watseka, south of Kankakee, and St. Joseph Mission in Crescent City. Ryan was removed from the ministry in 2010 because of the allegations.
A 52-year-old Florida man had alleged that he was 14 when he and Ryan began the relationship.
Church officials said the man’s complaint was assessed by a local review board, then sent to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Catholic officials in Rome decided that because of church law in the 1970s, which stated that 14 was the age of consent, Ryan did not commit a serious crime by the church’s standards and could not be permanently removed from ministry, a spokesman for Bishop R. Daniel Conlon said.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.