AN ANNUAL TRADITION
November 9, 2018
QUIT FOR LIFE
November 9, 2018
A specially-appointed review board met with the Houma-Thibodaux diocese’s spiritual leader Saturday, to enable their solemn and unprecedented task of publicly identifying priests accused of sexually violating children.
The nine-member review panel include attorneys, law enforcement officials and other professionals.
“We brought to them everything, every sheet of paper on every priest that we have ever had in the diocese and we brought to them anything we thought would be remotely of question,” said the Very Rev. Father/Vicar Mark Toups, who is a non-voting member of the board. “Saturday we went through the ones who are diocesan. For the religious orders such as Franciscans, Jesuits, etc. we don’t know their entire history and we have to go back farther.”
The Most Rev. Bishop Shelton Fabre, the spiritual shepherd of the diocese, has made clear his intentions for maximum transparency during a time when the Catholic Church is displaying transparency its critics — including past victims of sexual abuse — say is long overdue.
“Bishop Fabre has been very intentional about having us do this the right way the first time,” Toups said.
Although the release of the Houma-Thibodaux list could be months away, names of accused priests associated with local parishes have already appeared on a list prepared by the Archdiocese of New Orleans made public last week.
A total of 58 priests were identified on a list that cited abuse accusations going back to 1910. The Houma-Thibodaux Diocese was organized in 1977, and so allegations of priests at its churches or schools would only go back to that time in its own records. Prior to that the priests would have been under the aegis of New Orleans.
Among them is Gerald Prinz, who served at St. Gregory Barbarigo Church in Houma and St. Louis Church in Bayou Blue.
Prinz was the subject of a suit brought in 2002 by an unidentified man alleging that he was molested in 1973 and 1978. Court papers at the time said that he recovered the memories in 1994.
Questions about the validity or admissibility of the repressed memory information and theories related to it were answered by the court with a decision allowing them. The court, which found for the victim, was upheld on appeal. Prinz, now 69-years-old, was ordained in 1968 and resigned from the priesthood in 1990.
In addition to service at St. Gregory Barbarigo and St. Louis, Prinz had also spent time at St. Francis de Sales in Houma.
Lawrence Hecker is on the New Orleans list. Now 87-years-old, ordained in 1958, Hecker was accused of molestations occurring during the 1960s and 1970s. In addition to assignments in New Orleans, Luling, New Roads, Metairie and Gretna, Hecker served at St. Bernadette in Houma.
Gerard Kinane, 73, was ordained in 1973 and accused of abuses occurring in the 1970s and 1980s. Removed from ministry in 2004, the allegation against him was received 11 years earlier.
He served at Our Lady of the Isle in Grand Isle, St. Hilary in Matthews and St. Mary’s Nativity in Raceland. His other assignments were in the greater New Orleans area, Florida and Pennsylvania.
Five priests who served in what is now the Houma-Thibodaux Diocese and are now deceased are on the New Orleans list.
Howard Hotard, who died in 2013, was accused of abuse in 1995, which would have occurred in the 1980s.
Once assigned to St. Mary Pamela in Raceland, he also served in New Orleans, Slidell, Lacombe, Metairie and Destrehan.
An accusation was received against Michael Hurley in 1945, two years after his ordination. The behavior was alleged to have occurred during the 1940s. He left the Archdiocese of New Orleans ten years after the allegation. He was assigned to St. Francis de Sales in Houma, as well as churches in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Marrero. Hurley died in 2005.
Malcolm Strassel, who died in 1987, also served at St. Mary Pamela, and churches in St. Amant, New Orleans, Destrehan, LaCombe and Baton Rouge. H was posthumously accused in 2006.
John Thomann, who died in 1989, was accused in 1966 of acts committed in the 1960s. He was removed from ministry in 1967 and had served at Our Lady of Prompt Succor in Chackbay and St. Joseph in Galliano.
His other assignments included New Orleans, Gretna and Destrehan.
John Weber was accused of abuse in the 1940s through communication received in 2005. He was a priest at St. Elois Church in Theriot, working also in Plattenville, New Orleans and Morganza.
Louisiana’s bishops are individually managing their protocols for release of information on accused priests. In Houma-Thibodaux, Toups said, there is no set date for release but he does not envision that it is far into the future.
Any accused priests who are still living, he said, will be notified prior to release of the information.
