Former priest is accused of sexual abuse

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
January 12, 2005

Former Roman Catholic priest Michael S. McGrath was sued Tuesday over allegations that he sexually abused a teenage altar boy at All Souls Church in Overland in 1980 and 1981.

John Doe GM, as he is known in the lawsuit, also sued the Archdiocese of St. Louis and Archbishop Raymond Burke.

The suit, filed in St. Louis circuit court, says church officials knew that McGrath took trips with young children, invited them home and spent "unusual amounts of time alone" with them, but didn't tell parishioners or parents. Church officials also didn't properly supervise McGrath and remove him when allegations surfaced, the suit says.

McGrath and the archdiocese have been sued 17 other times since 2003, according to court records. The church has settled many of those suits and settled another Monday, says Bernard Huger, one of the lawyers representing the church.

Neither McGrath nor his attorney could be reached for comment.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests asked Burke Tuesday to release all church records of complaints against McGrath, the Rev. Michael A. Freymuth and the Rev. Juan Carlos Duran to law enforcement officials. Freymuth is former chaplain at Cardinal Ritter College Prep High School.

Police issued a warrant for Duran's arrest in September, charging that he sodomized a boy in his early teens sometime between 1999 and 2002 while Duran was at St. Francis de Sales Church.