Fr. William A. Wheeler
From Ireland. Worked in the Diocese of Galloway, Scotland until 1940, as a chaplain for the British Army in WWII, later moving to Canada. Arrived in the U.S. in 1955. In a 1996 civil suit, two men alleged that they were fondled by Wheeler several times in the mid-1950s at an El Dorado children’s home. (Same suit alleges that another brother was molested by a nun and that a second priest fathered a child with their sister.) The suit was dismissed due to the statute of limitations. Wheeler died in 1994. Name included on the diocese’s 9/20/2019 list of clerics with substantiated allegations. It notes that Wheeler’s ministry ended in 1985. Also publicly accused in 2/2020 of raping a girl who was a grade school student at Holy Cross in Hutchinson in the 1960s. His accuser said she had first been raped by a priest who preceded Wheeler at the parish.
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