The lawsuit filed Wednesday in Oakland, California accused Father Stephen Kiesle of acts of sexual abuse between 1972 and 2001, and alleged that Catholic Church officials knew of the crimes but did not stop them.
Pedophile priest scandals and allegations of high-level cover-ups that swept Australia and the United States in 2004 have surged again since last year and rocked the Catholic Church in Europe and the United States.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... dlGsxSDhnwThe Catholic bishops in the United States of America and the Holy See have long facilitated the sexual molestation of children by engaging in the harboring and protection of known child molesting priests," read a copy of the latest lawsuit obtained by AFP.
"The bishops and Catholic hierarchs have done so to prevent the priests from being prosecuted and to avoid scandal," the lawsuit read.
It said church figures "have subjected Catholic families and children in these communities to known pedophiles, counting on the devotion and reverence in the communities to keep any further abuse by the priests secret."
The plaintiffs, six women and one man, said they were abused by Kiesle throughout childhood and adolescence, although one alleged victim, Teresa Rosson, 48, said she suffered abuse at the hand of the cleric until about a decade ago.
The lawsuit is the latest of several to embroil the US Roman Catholic church, which has been repeatedly accused of closing its eyes to the sexual and physical abuse of children by priests and church officials.
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