MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times
Sam Louwagie, slouwagie@stcloudtimes.com
January 13, 2016
WAITE PARK — A deceased priest with the Diocese of St. Cloud has been accused of sexually abusing a teenage girl more than 50 years ago.
Othmar Hohmann was a monk of St. John’s Abbey, and served as a pastor at St. Boniface Church in Cold Spring, Immaculate Conception Church in New Munich, and the Church of St. Joseph in St. Joseph. He retired to St. John’s Abbey in 1975, and died in 1980.
According to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Stearns County, Hohmann had “unpermitted sexual contact” with a girl on multiple occasions between 1961 and 1966, while he was a pastor at the Church of St. Joseph. The girl was approximately 11-16 years old during that time. The Diocese of St. Cloud, St. John’s Abbey and St. Joseph Parish are named as defendants in the suit.
Hohmann moved between parishes 12 times before that time, serving in the Bahamas, North Dakota, Utah and Colorado in addition to Minnesota. Mike Bryant, attorney at Bradshaw & Bryant, said clergy moving around that often has historically indicated patterns of abuse.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.