COVINGTON (KY)
Lex 18
Covington (AP) The former No. 2 official with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington has been cleared of an allegation of sexual abuse, but has not received a new work assignment.
Diocese spokesman Tim Fitzgerald said a new assignment for the Rev. Gerald Reinersman is still under consideration. An ad hoc committee that Bishop Roger Foys formed to investigate the sexual abuse charge found no reason why Reinersman couldn't return to active ministry.
Reinersman wrote in a statement published in the diocese newspaper, The Messenger, that he was always confident a full and fair investigation would clear him.
"Thanks be to God, that day has finally come," he wrote.
Foys placed Reinersman on administrative leave in May, after a Lexington man accused him of repeated sexual abuse in 1979 at Mary Queen of the Holy Rosary parish in Lexington.
The man said he was 7 or 8 at the time, and had repressed all memory of the abuse until several years ago. He was apparently involved in a lawsuit against the diocese. According to the committee's statement, both he and Reinersman gave videotaped depositions to attorneys in January.
Posted by kshaw at February 23, 2005 07:13 AM