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	Priest Exonerated after Charges Proven to Be False By Roxanne King Denver Catholic Register July 14, 2010 http://www.archden.org/index.cfm/ID/4196 Last year a woman using the pseudonym “Jane Doe” accused Msgr. William Higgins of sexually abusing her in the 1960s. Msgr. Higgins was a well-respected priest of the Denver Archdiocese who died in 1967 at the age of 77. After extensive litigation, all charges against Msgr. Higgins were established to be false. On June 25 the claim was voluntarily dismissed. “When we received this complaint last year, we responded immediately,” explained archdiocesan spokeswoman Jeanette DeMelo. “We took the accusation seriously despite the fact that the priest died 42 years ago, and that the charges did not seem plausible. “We reached out to the alleged victim as we do in all such cases. We invited her to participate in our victim outreach panel and offered assistance to her, with the hope for healing,” said DeMelo. “Unfortunately, the woman rejected the archdiocese’s offer to help her through mediation and as a result the lawsuit moved forward.” “It was during the usual extensive investigation and formal discovery process of civil litigation that the plaintiff’s complaint was found to be false and the charges were proven groundless,” DeMelo said. “The plaintiff then dismissed all claims.” Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., addressed the matter in a statement posted to the Denver Archdiocese’s website, www.archden.org. “If Msgr. Higgins were alive today,” the archbishop notes, “he would be in good standing and able to minister in the archdiocese.” “False charges do inexcusable harm to a priest’s good name, his reputation earned over years of service to others, and to the lay Catholic faithful and other dedicated priests,” he continues. “We are saddened that such a charge was made, but want you all to know that you can esteem Msgr. Higgins and keep him in your prayers as a righteous man. “As the archdiocese works to assure all people in the archdiocese are safe, so too are we determined to defend the reputation of the many innocent good men and women who work in the archdiocese and give so much to others,” he added. Msgr. Higgins ministered in the archdiocese for more than 50 years, most of them at one parish. He was pastor of the now demolished St. Philomena’s for 45 years—from 1922 to 1967. A Dec. 10, 1986, Denver Catholic Register column about the late priest by one of his brother priests describes him this way: “Msgr. Higgins was a product of his time, a man of letters, something of an expert on Cardinal Newman, whom he quoted often for authority and example. … He strode through life with a flourish and is remembered in the minds of many as hurrying along, cope and cassock floating gracefully around him, a set determination to his face and step. “Perhaps his best quality was a generosity, unreserved, which he lavished on anyone in need. He gave away everything he had, counted nothing as his own. … The monsignor, lovingly called, died in simplicity, with nothing, in a bare room, the final emphasis of his style of life. … What more could be said of him than that he was a good man?”
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