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	Convicted Dfw Child Molester Is No Longer a Priest By Darren Barbee Fort Worth Star-Telegram September 11, 2011 http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/09/09/3353732/convicted-dfw-child-molester-is.html More than two years after a Texas jury convicted Thomas Teczar of molesting an 11-year-old Texas boy, and decades after his first accusers came forward, Teczar is a priest no more. Bishop Kevin Vann, leader of the Fort Worth Roman Catholic Diocese, announced Friday that he had learned that Pope Benedict XVI decreed that Teczar has been "dismissed from the clerical state." The action took place within the past several weeks, a Massachusetts church official said. "I guess my reaction would be, what took them so long?" said Tahira Khan Merritt, a Dallas attorney who represented six of Teczar's victims in Texas and was a special prosecutor in Teczar's criminal trial in Eastland County. The district attorney there has said Teczar abused eight children in Massachusetts over decades before coming to Texas. Teczar, 70, is appealing a 50-year prison sentence on three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one count of indecency with a child in the 1990s. Even if Teczar wins his appeal, "he can't use his position of authority to use the mantle of priesthood to groom and abuse a child again," Merritt said. Dave Lewcon, a Massachusetts businessman and one of Teczar's earlier victims, said it has taken him 34 years to get this moment. Like other victims, he heard about the order through news reports. "It's an emotional day because just a little collision course with various thoughts," he said. "It would have been nice if it had come from the church." Barbara Dorris of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said that the long-overdue move does little to protect children, since Teczar is behind bars. "Back when decisive action by Catholic officials might have made a difference, nothing was done," she said in a statement. "We hope that every single person who saw, suspected or suffered Teczar's crimes will come forward, get help, call police, expose his enablers and start to heal." The diocese said it has actively sought victims of abuse in Eastland County parishes and others where Teczar was assigned. In 1988, shortly before being welcomed as a Fort Worth priest, Teczar admitted to then-Bishop Joseph Delaney that he was "attracted to adolescents in every way, including sexually." Delaney accepted Teczar, even though he knew that he had been forced out of active ministry in Massachusetts after a boy accused him of sexual misconduct and that two other bishops had rejected the priest. After stints around Tarrant County, Teczar was sent without supervision to Eastland County, where he was the lover of men who were sexually abusing at least seven boys and two girls. The children were as young as 7 or 8. Teczar has said he knew the men were repeatedly abusing the children but did not report it to police. "I didn't know I had an obligation to do that," Teczar said in a Star-Telegram interview in 2005. One of the men's victims implicated Teczar, which resulted in the criminal charges against him. In January 1993, police had begun investigating the men and, when Teczar found out, he promptly told one of them to "get rid of" Polaroids the man had taken of his naked victims, Teczar said. "At the time, there were no charges against" the molesters, Teczar said. "I had no proof that the police were coming." The Fort Worth Diocese's first settlement, with two victims in 2005, was for $4.15 million. Another suit was settled in 2007. Delaney said in 2005 that the decision to settle the lawsuits was a financial one. The diocese admitted no wrongdoing in agreeing to the settlement. "It was going to cost us another couple of million dollars to go to court," he said. Darren Barbee, 817-390-7126 or dbarbee@star-telegram.com
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