(SC Times) A New York man is suing St. John’s Abbey and the Order of St. Benedict, accusing former Abbot Timothy Kelly of sexually abusing him in 1966 when the man was an altar boy and when Kelly was associate pastor at St. Anselm’s Church in the Bronx.
Details about the lawsuit are expected to be announced Tuesday at a news conference in St. Paul, according to a news release this afternoon from attorney Jeff Anderson’s office.
Kelly was the ninth abbot of St. John’s Abbey and served in that capacity from 1992-2000. He then served as president of the American-Cassinese Congregation of Benedictine men from 2001-2010. Kelly was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in April 2010 and died in October. The news release announcing the news conference indicates that two former monks at St. John’s Abbey will be at the news conference to talk about Kelly. One of them, Patrick Wall, has been critical of the way the abbey has handled sexual abuse claims. Kelly was the founder of the Interfaith Sexual Trauma Institute, which was created to address the issue of clergy sex abuse. Despite that, Wall claims that Kelly was unreceptive to the concerns of victims and the culture of clergy sexual abuse, according to the news release.
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Former altar boy accuses Abbot Timothy Kelly of abuse
June 6, 2011
David Unze
St. Cloud Times
