June 16, 2005

Trauma of abuse by priests lingers

LOUISVILLE (KY)
Lexington Herald-Leader

By Brett Barrouquere
ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOUISVILLE - Decades after being sexually abused by a priest in Central Kentucky, Kay Montgomery is still coping with the memories and emotional trauma.

"I don't think a victim ever forgets what a perpetrator does to them, robs them of their innocence," said Montgomery, a Lexington resident who heads the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

So, even with the death this week of former Catholic priest Earl Bierman and the pending settlement of a class-action lawsuit against the Diocese of Covington, Montgomery and others say victims still might be looking for closure.

Bierman, 73, was serving a 20-year sentence at the Kentucky State Reformatory in LaGrange when he died Monday. He pleaded guilty in 1993 to molesting six boys in the 1960s and 1970s and was suspended from the priesthood. He was awaiting a July 7 medical parole hearing when he died.

The criminal case and a civil suit against Bierman and the diocese were the earliest signs of what would develop into a large-scale sex abuse scandal against the Covington Diocese.

Posted by kshaw at June 16, 2005 07:50 AM