KENTUCKY
BishopAccountability.org
Summary of Case: Freddie Byrd was ordained a priest of the Owensboro KY diocese in 1988. He worked in a number of parishes and, beginning in 1997, pastored several. He was a faculty member in the late 1980s at Owensboro Catholic High School, and at St. Meinrad Seminary in IN during the 1990s. In 2008 a 23-year-old man shot and killed himself outside of Blessed Mother parish, where Byrd was pastor. The man left a suicide note in which he said he experienced “pain and torment” because of sexual abuse in the Catholic church. He mentioned Byrd, and said of him, “I forgive you.” He did not name Byrd as an abuser. In June 2016 Byrd was suspended from ministry due to allegations that he had sexually abused a 17-year-old boy in 1983, prior to ordination.
Ordained: 1988
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