UNITED STATES/PHILIPPINES
BishopAccountability.org
Summary of Case: John W. Lennon was ordained for the Maryknoll order in 1955. After a year of studies in New York, the Philippines, Massachusetts and Ireland, he settled into ministry in the Philippines. There for over a decade, Lennon pastored several parishes, directed high schools, was a college president and served as superintendent of schools for the Tagum diocese. He was also a U.S. Military chaplain. Lennon returned to the United States in the late 1960s, teaching pastoral ministry for a short time at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, followed by a brief stint as associate pastor of St. Anthony’s in New York’s Bronx borough. In 1970 Lennon was assigned to New York’s Cardinal Hayes High School where he he served as a teacher, administrator and moderator of athletics. He appears to have left the Maryknolls in approximately 1975. In 1981 he left Hayes to pastor St. Gregory’s parish in Manhattan, remaining there until 1989 when he became pastor of St. John the Baptist in Yonkers.
In April 2002 Lennon was suspended from ministry after an accusation emerged that he had molested a Hayes High School student in the mid-1970s. His accuser said that he was on the school’s hockey team when Lennon was in charge of athletics, and that the abuse occurred during weekend trips. Lennon denied the accusation.
In April 2008 it was reported that Lennon had been “quietly” laicized by the Vatican. He died in December 2012.
Born: January 20, 1928
Ordained: June 11, 1955
Educated: Maryknoll Jr. Seminary, Maryknoll Jr. College, Maryknoll Major Seminary
Laicized: 2008
Died: December 16, 2012
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