KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star
By KEVIN MURPHY The Kansas City Star
An area man filed a lawsuit Wednesday alleging that former priest Thomas Reardon sexually abused him as a minor — the seventh such lawsuit against Reardon since early 2004.
The man, identified only as John Doe 47, said Reardon molested him in 1980 when he was 16 in the rectory of St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church in Kansas City, North.
The suit, filed in Jackson County Circuit Court, also contends that the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph knew of Reardon’s improprieties with children as early as 1969, covered up his activities, and in 1989 found pornography in his quarters at St. Regis Catholic Church. Reardon stopped functioning as a priest that year and resigned in 1990, the diocese said.
Neither Reardon nor his lawyer could be reached for comment Wednesday. Through his previous lawyer, he denied allegations of sexual abuse.
Robert Murphy, vicar general of the diocese, said in a statement that he had not received the suit and could not respond. Later, diocesan spokeswoman Rebecca Summers, after looking at the lawsuit, said she “had no specific knowledge” of the allegations. The diocese was named as a defendant.