SOUTH CAROLINA
The Associated Press
October 23, 2018
A 76-year-old former Catholic priest who already has served jail time for molesting boys in Maryland was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison in South Carolina for raping boys from a middle school four decades ago.
Wayland Yoder Brown wore his priest collar while attacking the boys, then prayed the rosary with them, Solicitor Duffie Stone said.
“He not only violated the trust of children, but violated their faith. He used the Catholic faith against them,” Stone said in a news conference after Brown’s guilty plea.
Brown already served five years of a 10-year sentence in Maryland for sexually abusing two other boys. Pope John Paul II dismissed him from the priesthood after that 2004 conviction.
Brown’s guilty plea comes as the Roman Catholic Church in the United States is under increased scrutiny for its handling of sex abuse cases. A Pennsylvania grand jury report in August found about 300 Catholic priests had abused more than 1,000 children statewide since the 1940s. Federal investigators are taking a closer look at those cases to see if church leaders covered up for abusive priests.
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