CALIFORNIA
Merced Sun-Star
By Andy Furillo — afurillo@sacbee.com
A priest who also is a high-ranking official in the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento testified today that he was not acting in the capacity of a “confessor” or “spiritual director” when he and a private investigator told the Rev. Uriel Ojeda two years ago that he was the subject of a sexual abuse investigation.
The priest, Timothy Nondorf, said none of the rituals even remotely suggesting the Catholic sacrament of confession were at play when he and the investigator visited Ojeda on Nov. 30, 2011, at Ojeda’s parish in Redding. The subject of the visit, Nondorf said, was to deliver a letter to Ojeda informing him that “a credible accusation” had been lodged against him and that he was going to be removed from the ministry.
Nondorf said that when he delivered the letter to Ojeda with the purpose of bringing him back to Sacramento to face charges, he was acting only in his role as an official representative of Bishop Jaime Soto in the investigation into allegations that Ojeda had engaged in sexual misconduct with a girl who was then 14.
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