CINCINNATI (OH)
Cincinnati Enquirer
BY DAN HORN | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk admitted Monday that church officials made a mistake by hiring a felon to help check the backgrounds of church employees.
"I deeply regret the serious lapse in judgment," Pilarczyk said in a letter sent Monday to priests. He said the archdiocese never should have hired Alex Henties, who had a theft conviction, to supervise the background-check program. Henties, now in prison on theft-related charges, was fired last year.
Church officials previously said they hired Henties because they thought he deserved a second chance.
Pilarczyk's letter came just days after church officials suspended with pay Vince Frasher, the archdiocese's personnel director, pending the outcome of an investigation into Henties' claims that Frasher abused him when he was a child.