ST. LOUIS (MO)
Kansas City Star
Associated Press
ST. LOUIS - Members of a victims' advocacy group are fuming after church officials posted a half-million dollar bond for a Roman Catholic priest convicted last week of sodomizing a teenage boy in the 1970s.
The bond was paid on Thursday, the same day jurors recommended a 20-year prison sentence for the Rev. Thomas Graham, 71.
Graham was ordered Tuesday to surrender his passport and continue to stay at a local retirement home for priests. Circuit Judge Angela Turner Quigless also barred him from unsupervised contact with minors and attending or celebrating Mass.
"I find it hard to understand how the diocese can take the money that people donate every Sunday ... and use it to post bond for someone who has been convicted of a crime," said Barbara Dorris, the victim outreach coordinator for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.