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	Priest Worked in India School after Sex Abuse Charges By Mira Oberman AFP April 6, 2010 http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gURCcodpIsFcNAMSU494F5KPkf3g CHICAGO — A priest accused of molesting two girls in the United States has spent the last five years working for Catholic schools in India, despite warnings from a US bishop, court documents showed. The information emerged as the Vatican is reeling from a series of large-scale child sex abuse scandals and reports that Pope Benedict XVI helped to protect predator priests as archbishop of Munich and later as the Vatican's chief morals enforcer. Bishop Victor Balke of Minnesota first reported the allegations to the Vatican and the priest's Indian bishop in 2005, according to a letter released by a lawyer representing the victim in a civil lawsuit. Balke asked the Vatican to intervene and warned that Father Joseph Jeyapaul could pose a "serious risk" to the women and girls of his Indian parish. But despite numerous entreaties, and efforts by a Minnesota prosecutor to have him extradited on charges of child rape, Jeyapaul remained in his position as a secretary of the Diocese of Ootacamund's Education Commission, court records showed. "The only ones who knew about him being a rapist, were the bishop, the Vatican and that's it," said Jeff Anderson, a Minnesota lawyer who represents Jeyapaul's victim. "They kept it a secret because they were concerned about the protection of their reputation and not about the children who are at grave peril," Anderson told AFP. "And as long as they keep secrets, they are complicit in these crimes." Jeyapaul -- who was temporarily assigned to the Diocese of Crookston in Minnesota in 2004 -- was accused of repeatedly molesting a 16-year-old girl in the rectory. The allegations did not surface, however, until Jeyapaul had already returned to India to visit his dying mother. Balke wrote in a December 2005 letter to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) that Jeyapaul did not heed his request to return to Minnesota "so that he can be made accountable for his actions." The CDF wrote back five months later to say it had contacted Jeyapaul's bishop with the request that his "priestly life be monitored so that he does not constitute a risk to minors and does not create scandal among the faithful," the court documents showed. Bishop A. Amalraj, head of the Ootacamund diocese in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu confirmed that Jeyapaul was still working in the education commission. "His job is to prepare lists for the appointment of teachers in schools run by the diocese but this does not put him in contact with women or children," Amalraj told AFP. The bishop said he had complied with the CDF directive to monitor the priest and had housed him at his own residence. "There are no complaints of any kind against him in India. But since there are these accusations against him, we thought it best to keep him in the bishop's house," Amalaraj said. The bishop said he felt the charges against Jeyapaul had been "blown out of proportion" but added that the priest should consider returning to the United States to clear his name. "Justice should be done. If the charges against him are proved, he will be punished," he said. Balke had traveled to Rome in November 2006 to present the CDF with Jeyapaul's file after a second girl came forward with allegations of sexual abuse. "It is difficult for me to quantify the harm that this man has done to the dignity of the priesthood," Balke wrote in a subsequent letter to Cardinal William Levada, who heads the CDF. Balke testified in December 2009 that he could not recall any response from the CDF, which is charged with addressing allegations of sexual abuse. "They did in this case what they always do which is nothing but impose secrecy and in this case allowed Jeyapaul to not only continue in ministry but to supervise kids," said Anderson, who has filed scores of claims on behalf of victims of child sex abuse by priests. "What we hope to accomplish is first that any priest and/or bishop that has raped kids or a bishop that has been complicit in it be put in jail and defrocked," he said.
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