UNITED STATES
The Sunday Times
By Andrew Stern in Chicago
12jan06
A ROMAN Catholic bishop from Detroit said this morning he was sexually abused by a priest as a teenager, becoming the highest-ranking clergyman and the first prelate to declare himself a victim in the scandal tainting the church.
"I speak out of my own experience of being exploited as a teenager through inappropriate touching by a priest," Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton said in testimony for the Ohio state legislature.
Bishop Gumbleton said he supports efforts in Ohio and several other states to follow California's lead in suspending the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits that allege abuse by clergy and subsequent cover-ups by the church hierarchy.
The scandal first erupted in 2003 in Boston and has since involved virtually every US diocese.