Editorial: Bishop restores trust in priesthood

Editorial: Bishop restores trust in priesthood
By NEWS SENTINEL EDITORIAL BOARD Knox News

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Across East Tennessee this morning, Catholics are gathering to celebrate mass as the faithful have done for nearly 2,000 years.

They will accept the sacraments, which they believe constitute the body and blood of Christ. Those sacraments will have been blessed by a priest, a man who has dedicated his life to the church. A man trusted to lead the flock.

Many East Tennessee Catholics have had that trust shaken this year by the revelation that one of their long-time, beloved priests molested at least one boy during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The church has shielded predator priests for far too long. Bishop Richard Stika of the Diocese of Knoxville, however, acted swiftly to rid the priesthood of Father Bill Casey. His prompt actions should shame church leaders elsewhere who have tolerated such depravity and go a long way toward repairing damage Casey has inflicted on the laity's trust in its priests.

Casey's worldly fate now is in the hands of the criminal justice systems of three states. So far, secular justice has been a disappointment.

Casey, 76, served East Tennessee parishes, including St. John Neumann in Farragut, for 41 years. He was well liked and respected throughout the diocese.

No one, it seems, suspected that from 1975 to 1981, he was molesting an altar boy from a poor family in Kingsport, Tenn. Warren Tucker, 44, alleges the abuse began when he was 10 and occurred some 50 times over the next five years in North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee. According to Tucker, the abuse only ended when he moved away from St. Dominic Parish, where Casey was a priest.

Stika, who helped oversee investigations of sex abuse complaints as a pastor in St. Louis before coming to Knoxville last year, reviewed the files of every Diocese of Knoxville priest, including Casey. There were no records of abuse, he said.

Tucker came forward by giving a six-page statement to the sheriff's department in McDowell County, N.C., in September 2009. He approached the diocese in April, and Stika immediately started an investigation.

Stika said Casey admitted the allegations had credibility and that there might be other victims. Thus far, according to church officials, no one else has reported being abused by Casey in the diocese's 47 parishes.

Stika promptly barred Casey from acting as a priest and diocese officials said they would ask the Vatican to defrock him.

In the meantime, the legal system has labored to catch up.

Last month Casey pleaded guilty to molesting Tucker in McDowell County. His sentence - 24 months on probation, participation in a sex offender program and a $500 fine - falls woefully short of what justice demands.

Perhaps new charges - forcible sodomy and indecent liberties with a child - filed against Casey in Scott County, Va., will result in penalties more in keeping with the nature of the crimes. Sullivan County District Attorney General H. Greeley Wells Jr. is reviewing the laws at the time of incidents alleged to have happened in Tennessee and could seek an indictment later this month.

Stika took bold action befitting a man of the cloth that should restore a measure of trust in the priesthood. East Tennessee's Catholics have a leader worthy of their faith.