MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
POSTED BY DAVID CLOHESSY ON MAY 08, 2013
A St. Louis priest has been “permanently removed from active ministry” – but apparently not defrocked – 31 years after the first of at least five child sex abuse accusations against him surfaced. And a local support group for victims is criticizing the archdiocese for not evidently supervising the cleric for the last 11 years and for what it calls “a hurtful and gratuitous announcement” about the defrocking.
Child sex abuse allegations against Fr. Leroy A. Valentine first emerged in 1982, when a North County mother reported that he sexually assaulted her three sons. The St. Louis Archdiocese paid the boys a settlement – believed to be around $20,000 each – and reportedly sent Valentine for treatment and then transferred him. Catholic officials insisted that the boys never speak publicly about the abuse or the settlements.
In 2002, Valentine was an associate pastor at St. Thomas the Apostle in Florissant with an adjoining parochial school. He was one of “at least three St. Louis priests who have been accused in civil court of sexual abuse remain active in the archdiocese today, two in contact with children,” according to the New York Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
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