Catholic School Priest Fired, but No Charges Filed after Alleged Abuse

By Jonathan Andrews
CBS 46
May 25, 2016

http://www.cbs46.com/story/32066084/catholic-school-priest-fired-but-no-charges-filed-after-alleged-abuse

Parents of students at an Atlanta Catholic school are outraged after they say the school's headmaster failed to notify police of alleged abuse of a young girl.

Witnesses reported "inappropriate touching" of a fourth-grade girl by Father Thomas Aloysius Flynn, to police in April. But according to parents, the school didn’t.

Now, Holy Spirit Preparatory School, an exclusive Catholic prep school to nearly 600 students in northwest Atlanta, is doing damage control, as shocked parents respond to the alleged incident.

Alleged incident caught on cell phone video

Police Capt. Mike Lindstrom said, "We made the initial report to make sure we were documenting what's been reported to us and then our detectives followed up and interviewed any available witnesses, including the potential victim in the case."

That victim was watching a school play on April 27 at Holy Spirit Catholic School with alongside Father Flynn, 36.

In a police report obtained by CBS46, a witness described "what he felt was inappropriate touching" by the priest, who is also the school chaplain.

His wife agreed and the school immediately alerted school Head Master Kyle Pietrantonio and handed over their video of the incident they had captured on their cell phones. The couple declined to comment to CBS46.

Officials reacted quickly, but not completely, parents said

Emails show Pietrantonio told parents and staff how he followed protocol: reporting the incident to DFCS, the Georgia’s Division of Family and Child Services, and the Catholic Church,

He didn’t, as required by the Archdiocese, inform police.

An angry parent did, saying he was "little concerned that police weren't mentioned" in the Head Master's email.

CBS46 got the information from a parent who had notified us, so we went down and generated a police report and began an investigation at that point.

Five days after the incident, Lindstrom said the detectives went to the school and watched the video. In it, detectives noted that Father Flynn "is at times holding hands" with the girl "and they are very close to each other."

Then "it appears Father Flynn touches (her) stomach area" and moves his hand "closer to (her) upper body," as "he was going to hug her or push her closer to him.... to get close to the breast area." But the report says it cannot be made out if he touched her breast area.

The girl’s parents declined to comment, but her mother said she found it “a little weird” when the priest touched her daughter’s stomach.

No charges filed but priest fired

In his emails to parents, sent two days after the incident, the head master describes the priest's actions as "inappropriate boundary-crossing behavior", a term that puzzled CBS46 and the police, who were not able to bring up charges.

“It sounds pretty open, so there are a lot of interpretations for that,” Lindstrom said. “It's just words on paper and emails, and so forth, so we know that we have to try to develop some facts to substantiate what's been on the paper and if we are not able to do that then it's tough for us to make any kind of criminal charges against someone,”

Meanwhile, the girl's parents never did file a complaint; the mother later told police her daughter was not harmed.

Pietrantonio declined an on-camera interview but told staff and parents Holy Spirit fired Father Flynn, and told CBS46 "we acted quickly to make sure the students were protected."

Father Flynn is currently under investigation by his own Catholic order, the Legion of Christ, which is slowly emerging from an era of child sex abuse scandals that have tarnished the Catholic Church.