What galled them further was the way O'Donnell left.

Despite a documented history of child molestation, he faced no criminal charges and hadn't even been defrocked.

He's now a psychologist in Bellevue, and owns a $614,000 home in the swank Yarrow Point community on Lake Washington.

The Diocese of Spokane is bracing for the backlash from his time here. Six people have come forward in the past four months with previously unknown claims of abuse, including one in the last week.

Diocese officials are charting previous insurance coverage, in anticipation of lawsuits.

In a series of candid interviews this week, Bishop William Skylstad and his staff acknowledged the Spokane Diocese knew of multiple instances of alleged molestation before O'Donnell was sent from active ministry to sexual deviancy treatment in 1976.

And Skylstad said he'd be "surprised" if predecessors didn't know of subsequent molestations documented in a court order in 1980, after treatment had supposedly cured O'Donnell.

O'Donnell was serving at Holy Rosary parish in Rosalia at the time, and was then moved to St. John Vianney in the Spokane Valley, his last before leaving the priesthood.

Then-Bishop Lawrence Welsh banned him from ministering or marrying in the fall of 1985, after parishioners became aware of O'Donnell's troubled history.

However, the diocese declined to push the lengthy process of defrocking O'Donnell, which would eventually require the approval of the Vatican.

"In 1985, he wasn't removed for bad behavior," said the Rev. John Steiner, who has fielded abuse complaints for Skylstad. "He was removed for notoriety."

In discussing O'Donnell, the bishop and his staff peeled back layers of confidentiality that have led to allegations of coverup elsewhere in the country.

A new charter adopted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to deal with sexually abusive priests has helped, said Skylstad, vice president of the conference.

"One of the things that the charter has clearly stipulated is that we're transparent with what has happened," said Skylstad. "It's much better to go the transparency route than not."

O'Donnell didn't return multiple messages left at his home or Bellevue psychology practice, Cascade Behavioral Medicine Clinic.

According to one diocese official, O'Donnell is in the process of retiring from practice.

O'Donnell's apparently successful professional life angers Donna Trowbridge of Spokane, a friend of the O'Donnell family.

"Priests only having their hands slapped is outrageous," she said. "He's doing well, going to trips to Reno and Las Vegas, and not paying any price for his actions."

'A pied piper'

All of the complaints against O'Donnell are from the mid-1970s, when Skylstad served with him at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in north Spokane. Skylstad said he's referred none of the cases to prosecutors because of the length of time elapsed.

The diocese previously believed that there were three new O'Donnell complaints, until the estimate was revised upward Friday.

Several reports have come from families of the alleged victims, but Skylstad has counseled at least one individual personally. None has requested compensation, but Skylstad said the diocese was ready to offer counseling.

In preparation for possible lawsuits, the diocese is preparing a chart of its various insurers during the time of the alleged abuse, said Vicar General Steven Dublinski, Skylstad's chief administrator. The diocese currently has a little less than $1 million in "morality" insurance from the Catholic Mutual Group of Omaha for priest misconduct.

The new complaints are credible because they fit O'Donnell's pattern of taking kids on boating trips to Lake Coeur d'Alene and approaching them sexually, Steiner said.

"He was a pied piper with kids," Steiner said. "You wonder why a 40-year-old would want to play basketball all the time with 11-year-olds."

Clean bill of health

O'Donnell, a Spokane native, was ordained in 1971 after serving in the U.S. Army Medical Service Corps during the Vietnam War.

He quickly earned a reputation as being excellent with kids. He served as the diocese's liaison with the Boy Scouts, according to the Official Catholic Directory.

In 1976, Skylstad said he talked with Welsh about allegations emerging from Assumption parish.

Welsh decided to send O'Donnell to get treatment with a Seattle doctor, whose name was unavailable from the diocese. The diocese paid for the treatment, said Steiner.

While undergoing 21/2 years of treatment and living at St. Paul's parish, O'Donnell earned a doctorate in psychology from the University of Washington.

O'Donnell returned with a "clean bill of health" from the doctor after undergoing therapy, said Steiner. Believing he'd been cured, Welsh put O'Donnell in Rosalia around 1980.

"That was a practice of the time," Skylstad said. "After going through a program, it was felt like someone could minister effectively and responsibly."

That now-discredited belief, said Skylstad, is what has gotten bishops in trouble around the country.

Tim Kosnoff, a Bellevue lawyer specializing in clergy abuse cases, said the Spokane Diocese should have known better, even then.

"Nobody but hacks in the field of psychiatry were saying these people can be safely put back into the field of ministry post-1975," said Kosnoff. "They're saying that now because they don't have anything else to say."

License suspended

In the late summer of 1980, just after being assigned to Rosalia, O'Donnell took two 13-year-old boys for an overnight trip to his boat at Lake Coeur d'Alene.

Over two days, O'Donnell repeatedly tried to undress and touch the boys' genitals, and suggested they swim nude, according to the findings of fact from the state psychology licensing board records.

After the trip, O'Donnell began seeing counselor Howard Hake for 16 months for "his sexual desires as they pertain to the adolescent male," according to the records.

Trowbridge and others believe Rosalia parishioners knew of his problem. Several members contacted this week declined to discuss O'Donnell's problems, but did say he was popular with schoolchildren.

While O'Donnell was still in Rosalia, the psychology licensing board, acting on a tip, found O'Donnell had violated its code of conduct during the 1980 outing. The board began its investigation in 1983 and O'Donnell's license was suspended in 1984 for one year. More serious punishment would have been likely if the boys had been his clients.

"It's unethical for any psychologist to have sex with even a consenting patient, let alone non-consenting adolescents," said Mary Weathers, who was then head of the Spokane County Psychology Association. "This was no-brainer stuff."

Skylstad said Welsh, who died in 1999, likely knew of the psychology board's action. But he said he hasn't consulted confidential files to determine what Welsh knew.

"I'm pretty familiar with this case," he said.

Despite the new abuse, Welsh moved O'Donnell to St. John Vianney in 1985. That wasn't a good idea, Steiner said.

"I told Welsh it was foolish to put O'Donnell in a parish with a school," he said.

Showering with boys

Parishioners quickly learned of O'Donnell's history, according to a letter sent to the psychology licensing board in 1994 by a female member of Vianney.

In the letter, the woman recounted how she learned in 1985 of O'Donnell's history through "a series of coincidences." The woman arranged a meeting between Welsh and two other couples concerned about O'Donnell, according to the letter.

The couples told Welsh of O'Donnell's behavior at Vianney -- fixing long-broken showers to bathe with boys, and inviting a developmentally disabled boy to a boating trip on Lake Coeur d'Alene.

Welsh told the group that O'Donnell had passed lie detector tests every six months, thereby justifying his appointment to Vianney, according to the letter.

The couples told Welsh they wanted O'Donnell removed; Welsh told the group that O'Donnell would only accept an appointment at a parish with a school.

O'Donnell was cut loose from Vianney and allowed to go work full-time in his private psychology practice in November 1985.

He remained there until a 1986 Spokesman-Review story detailed his history. That "notoriety" resulted in him being stripped of his ministerial credentials, Steiner said.

He soon went to Bellevue.

The Vianney parishioner, whose name was blacked out on the letter, found it appalling that O'Donnell was a practicing psychologist.

The state psychology board tried to check out the complaint, but couldn't find the woman, and closed its investigation, said Department of Health spokesman Tim Church.

There have been no subsequent complaints, he said.

"The news that Patrick O'Donnell ... is now practicing psychology in our state is disturbing to say the least," the St. John Vianney parishioner wrote[.]