IOWA
Des Moines Register
By SHIRLEY RAGSDALE
REGISTER RELIGION EDITOR
January 6, 2006
The Vatican has defrocked a retired Iowa priest accused of sexually assaulting several Waterloo Columbus High School boys in the 1960s and '70s.
Dubuque Archbishop Jerome Hanus on Thursday announced that Pope Benedict XVI had removed William Schwartz from the clergy in November, and the process was finished in December.
Schwartz, 73, who is believed to be living in Arizona, is the second Iowa priest to be defrocked in the sex abuse scandal that has swept the U.S. Roman Catholic Church since 2000.
In 2004, Pope John Paul II removed James Janssen, 83, of Davenport from the priesthood. Fewer than 100 U.S. Roman Catholic priests have been defrocked in connection with child sexual abuse.