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American Priest Accused of Sex Abuse Commits Suicide
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Reverend Alfred J. Bietighofer |
SILVER SPRING, Marylnad, May 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – As accusations of sexual abuse continue to rock the Catholic clergy in America. A dismissed Connecticut priest accused of child sex abuse hanged himself in his room at an institution that treats troubled clergy members, police told Agence France-Presse (AFP) Friday.
Alfred Bietighofer, 64, had resigned as assistant pastor of Saint Andrew Parish in Bridgeport, in the eastern U.S. state of Connecticut, on April 29, just one day after Roman Catholic Church officials there interviewed two men who claimed he abused them in the late 1970s and early 1980s, according to the Bridgeport Diocese.
He was being evaluated at Maryland's Saint Luke Institute, a psychiatric center that treats clergy who have been accused of molestation, at the time of his death on Thursday.
"Hospital personnel knocked on his door several times and tried to enter his room, but something was blocking his door," said Prince George's County Police Department spokeswoman Diane Richardson.
"When they entered the room, they found the deceased hanging from the door."
Bietighofer was hanging by a bed sheet, Richardson said, adding that his body had been transported to the chief medical examiner in Baltimore, Maryland, for an autopsy.
Bridgeport Bishop William Lori said he was "profoundly saddened" by Bietighofer's "tragic" death, adding that the scandal now worrying the U.S. arm of the Roman Catholic Church "has multiple victims."
"Every person, without exception, has dignity and worth in God's eyes, and every person needs and deserves our compassion," Lori said.
"We must reach out in loving concern to any victims in our community, with the spirit of reconciliation and with the spirit of peace."
Bietighofer was born in New York City in 1938 and was ordained in Bridgeport in 1965. He served in several Connecticut parishes in addition to stints at the Saint John Vianney Parish in Chiclayo, Peru.
"The distressing circumstances surrounding his death do not eradicate all the good he did," Lori said.
Still, he added, "it is best for all concerned when issues of abuse are dealt with immediately."
Lori has served on the Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The bishops will meet in June, when they are expected to discuss instituting a policy of "zero tolerance" for sexually abusive priests.
The Catholic Church continues to be plagued by hundreds of counts of sexual abuse allegations, mostly by people who claimed they were molested as children.
New York's Cardinal Edward Egan testified five years ago that he encouraged a priest to continue working even though he knew the priest was a confessed pedophile, The Washington Post reported Sunday.
Egan, who at the time was bishop in Bridgeport, Connecticut, gave videotaped testimony - a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post - in a 1997 lawsuit against that city's diocese.
Egan, who offered to write the priest a letter of recommendation, also testified that diocesan priests were "self-employed" and not the bishop's responsibility.
In the videotaped testimony, he added that he would not summarily suspend a priest, even in the face of shocking allegations of sexual abuse.
The lawsuit by plaintiff Frank Martinelli alleged that a priest named Laurence Brett had sexually assaulted him three times as a teenager in 1962 and 1963, including biting him during forced sex. That suit ended with an undisclosed monetary settlement.
As New York's cardinal, Egan currently leads the most powerful U.S. Catholic diocese, at a time when church leaders have come under intense criticism for failing to dismiss priests who have sexually abused children.
The Washington Post report comes as Boston's Cardinal Bernard F. Law is in the midst of an unprecedented deposition during which he has been forced to defend his decisions to transfer a priest accused of sexually molesting children.
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