MICHIGAN
The Daily Beast
Kelly Weill
A teen sex scandal forced him from his church. Now he’s opened a teen pregnancy counseling center.
The Gianna House, a Christian-run teen pregnancy center outside Detroit, offers a safe haven for pregnant teens. Unfortunately, its co-founder is barred from working with the Catholic church, after he allegedly abused a teen girl in his parish.
The Archdiocese of Detroit barred Reverend Kenneth Kaucheck from public ministry in 2009, after a woman accused him of molesting her as a teenager in the 1970s, when he acted as her counselor. But Kaucheck’s ban hasn’t prevented him from working with teenagers. His new role as co-founder of the Gianna House has him leading an organization that advertises safety and guidance for pregnant teens and new mothers.
The sexual abuse charges against Kaucheck went public in 2009, when an alleged victim made an official report to the Catholic church. The alleged abuse had occurred some 33 years earlier, she said, when Kaucheck was her counselor at the Guardian Angels Catholic Church outside Detroit. She was prompted to report the decades-old abuse after Kaucheck scheduled an appointment at the doctor’s office where she worked, the Detroit Free Press reported in 2009.
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