MISSOURI
Southeast Missourian
Friday, January 4, 2013
By Scott Moyers ~ Southeast Missourian
A Catholic priest who’s been dead for decades has been accused of sexually abusing a child at a Southeast Missouri parish he served in the mid-1960s, the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau has disclosed.
The complaint against the Rev. Walter G. Craig is “credible,” said spokeswoman Leslie Anne Eidson. But church leaders aren’t willing, she said, to provide specifics out of respect for the victim’s request for privacy.
“It is a matter of grave concern for the diocese,” Eidson said in a telephone interview from Springfield, Mo. “We felt we had a responsibility to make this information available to the public. But, of course, we want to honor his wish for complete anonymity.”
The diocese did acknowledge the incident is alleged to have taken place in the mid-1960s at Immaculate Conception Parish in New Madrid, Mo., where Craig was pastor from 1954 to 1966, Eidson said. Craig, who was born in 1899 and ordained in 1923, was pastor in other Southeast Missouri churches, including St. Ambrose in Chaffee, Immaculate Conception in Jackson and St. Lawrence in New Hamburg. Craig died in 1971 while at the New Hamburg parish. He was at St. Louis parishes twice during his nearly five decades in the priesthood, according to biographical information provided by the diocese.
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