WISCONSIN
Janesville Gazette
(Published Thursday, August 4, 2005 10:53:51 AM CDT)
By Mike DuPre'
Gazette Staff
A young man's allegations of sexual abuse were devastating, said the Catholic priest against whom the charges were made.
"It was very devastating to realize that your name, your person was now mired in the deplorable situation within the church of clergy sexual abuse. It's hard to put into words," the Rev. Gerald Vosen said Wednesday in Rock County Court.
Vosen is suing the 26-year-old Milwaukee man and his parents for allegedly making false and defamatory statements about him to the Diocese of Madison.
The man reported to diocese officials that Vosen repeatedly sexually assaulted him during 1990-'92 when he was 11 and 12 years old and in the fifth and sixth grades at St. John Vianney School in Janesville.
Vosen was then pastor of the parish.