BishopAccountability.org
 
  Priest Accused of Child Abuse Dies

Seattle Times
August 28, 2011

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016045002_dige29m.html

Priest accused of child abuse dies

The Rev. James McGreal, considered to be one of the most serious offenders among priests in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle accused of sexually abusing children, died last week in a church facility in Missouri, Greg Magnoni, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said Sunday.

McGreal, who was in his late 80s, died of natural causes on Wednesday or Thursday, Magnoni said.

In 2003, the archdiocese paid nearly $8 million to settle a lawsuit brought by 15 men who claimed they were sexually molested as boys by McGreal.

From 1948 to 1988, McGreal served in 10 parishes in Seattle and other parts of Washington state. He was permanently barred from the ministry in 1988 after the archdiocese made a stunning confession that it had assigned McGreal to a Federal Way parish, even though he had been removed from two parishes and a Catholic hospital after being accused of sexually molesting boys.

Court documents claimed that archdiocese officials began receiving complaints about McGreal in the late 1960s and that McGreal had disclosed to a counselor that he had molested hundreds of victims.

 
 

Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.