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  Accused Priest Sues for Defamation

Naperville Sun [Chicago IL]
March 23, 2007

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/napervillesun/news/309714,6_1_NA23_PRIEST_S1.article

A Roman Catholic priest accused of molesting a young boy in the late 1980s filed suit Tuesday against the lawyers for the boy, as well as two organizations that work to advocate on behalf of survivors of abuse by priests and to seek greater accountability by bishops.

The priest, Rev. Chester J. Pryzbylo, now pastor of the Shrine of Christ the King in Winfield, was sued last year for alleged abuse of a 13-year-old Polish immigrant. The abuse allegedly happened while Pryzbylo served as a priest at Five Holy Martyrs parish on the southwest side of Chicago.

In a lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court Tuesday, Pryzbylo said the lawyers who represented the boy who was allegedly molested, as well as Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and BishopAccountability.org have defamed him with the accusations.

The Shrine of Christ the King, which according to the suit is "a not-for-profit corporation (which works to) promote, preserve and extend the use of the Tridentine Latin Mass of the Roman Catholic Church," is not recognized by a Roman Catholic Archdiocese.

One of the lawyers in the suit against Pryzbylo "specializes in suing priests, clergy, the Catholic Church and other religious organizations and has generated well over $60 million in legal fees from having filed more than 600 such cases," Pryzbylo's suit claims.

The defendants, according to the Tuesday suit, publicly depicted Pryzbylo "as being unchaste and immoral, possessed of dangerous sexual proclivities and who, being a pedophile, had repeatedly committed felonious crimes of moral turpitude, immoral behavior and despicable misconduct by being a child sexual abuser, batterer and molester."

As a result, the suit says, Pryzbylo has been "wrongly held up to great, horrendous and horrific scorn, hatred, shame, ridicule (and) public stigmatization."

The suit seeks unspecified damages.

 
 

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