CHICAGO (IL)
NBC 5l
POSTED: 5:58 pm CST November 3, 2005
UPDATED: 9:48 pm CST November 3, 2005
CHICAGO -- A Chicago priest is accused of fathering a child who now lives in Canada, and a support group for abuse survivors is demanding that the priest pay child support.
NBC5's Natalie Martinez reported that the baby "has the smile of a angel," but that the boy is essentially fatherless.
He and his mother, who Martinez referred to as Jane Doe, live in Canada, where she and the baby's father met. The new mother spoke to NBC5 by phone on Thursday. She said that her former lover, a friar at the Holy Spirit House of Studies in Hyde Park, is ignoring his child.
"I had outreached to him through e-mail, asking for health information, asking him where he was, asking him what role he was going to play in his child's life, letting him know my financial situation was dire, that I needed his help, and I was ignored," Doe told Martinez.
Friar Jason Martin, a vocation director at the House of Studies, apparently left the priesthood for a family and marriage to the baby's mother in 2003. But, Martinez said, a change of heart prompted him to break off the engagement just days before Doe found out she was pregnant.
Doe said that since then, it's been a nightmare.
Posted by kshaw at November 4, 2005 01:18 AM