February 01, 2005

Maine diocese failed to tell Manatee schools

MANATEE (FL)
Bradenton Herald

RICHARD DYMOND
Herald Staff Writer

When allegations of sexual molestation surfaced against former seminary student Joseph Gilpin in 2003, officials of the Catholic Archdiocese of Portland in Maine made no effort to find him.

Instead, the diocese immediately turned his name over to the Maine attorney general's office in Augusta and to the Maine Department of Human Services and eventually began settlement negotiations, said diocese spokeswoman Sue Bernard.

Meanwhile, Gilpin continued with his 34-year career as a teacher and administrator in Manatee County schools until last Wednesday, the day the allegations were forwarded to the school district by a national advocacy group.

Gilpin resigned Friday from his assistant principal post at Haile Middle School amid allegations that he sexually molested two young boys when he was a Catholic seminarian in the late 1960s.

Posted by kshaw at February 1, 2005 06:31 AM