UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org
Summary of Case: Jack Kennington was ordained for the Baltimore Province of the Redemptorist Order in 1959. He spent his first nearly two decades of priesthood in Brazil, in the states of Mato Grosso and Paraná. In 1979 he returned to Baltimore, residing at Sacred Heart parish until 1981, when he moved to the Catholic Information Center at Woodstock Theological Center – Georgetown University in Washington DC. In 1983 Kennington was assigned to Most Holy Redeemer parish in New York City, where he assisted until 1990. The Directories show a gap in his assignments 1990-1993. He appears to have been assigned during 1993-1994 to a parish in Opa Locka, Florida, under the name “John Kenning, C.S.s.R.” He reappears as Kennington in 1995 at the Redemptorists’ Mount Alphonsus Monastery in Esopus, New York. There he was assigned the task of archiving a research collection regarding the Shroud of Turin.
In 1989 a woman was told by her teenage daughter that Kennington had sexually abused her and her younger brother from 1984 to 1987, beginning when the two were ages 8 and 11. Kennington, who was a close family friend, had stepped in to help the newly divorced mother, including with childcare. The family were Most Holy Redeemer parishioners. The abuse was said to have occurred in the family’s apartment, on vacations in the Hamptons and during visits to the mother’s parents home in Florida. Kennington allegedly would play strip poker to the point of nakedness with the children, would molest one child while having the other watch, and would masturbate in the children’s presence while viewing pornography. Kennington admitted to playing strip poker with the children, but denied abusing them.
The brother filed suit in 1993 against the Redemptorists and the Archdiocese of New York. The sister was unable to sue due to New York’s statute of limitations. The suit was settled in 2001, after eight years, and included a confidentiality agreement.
Ordained: 1959
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