MIAMI (FL)
Miami Herald
BY DAVID OVALLE
dovalle@herald.com
A woman is suing the Archdiocese of Miami for $10 million, claiming she was molested as a teen more than three decades ago by a priest while at a church-run clinic she had visited for help with an unwanted pregnancy.
Filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court on Friday, the suit does not name a priest, a date or the location of the facility on Biscayne Boulevard where the incident happened about 1970.
A spokeswoman for the archdiocese, Mary Ross Agosta, said late Friday that the church has never operated such a facility.
''There are no facts to really respond to,'' Agosta said, adding that the church only began offering pregnancy counseling in the early 1980s.
The suit alleges that the teen, then 14, went to a clinic operated by the archdiocese for a pregnancy test and was sexually abused by a priest. A nurse walked in on the incident but walked out and didn't stop it, according to the suit.