CAMDEN (NJ)
NJ.com
January 8, 2019
By Kelly Heyboer
A veteran Camden County priest has stepped down from ministry after a decades-old allegation of sexual abuse was rediscovered during a review of personnel files, church officials said.
The Rev. John Bohrer wrote a letter to parishioners at Saint Teresa of Calcutta Parish in Collingswood saying he was retiring as parish administrator Dec. 31 for health reasons — and due to an accusation of sexual abuse, the Diocese of Camden said in a statement.
The accusation, made in 2002, said Bohrer sexually abused an alleged victim while he worked at Saint Pius X Parish in Cherry Hill in the mid-1980s, diocese officials said.
The paperwork detailing the accusation resurfaced during an independent review of the Diocese of Camden’s personnel files as all five of New Jersey’s Catholic dioceses prepare to release the names later this year of all clergy credibly accused of sexual abuse in the past.
The Archdiocese of Newark received what it expected to be one of many subpoenas in the attorney general’s probe into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.
In Bohrer’s case, the accusations against him were reviewed in 2002 and he was allowed to return to the ministry seven years later.
“It was reported to the diocese in October 2002 and subsequently reported to law enforcement, even though the criminal statute of limitations had expired,” the diocese’s statement said. “Shortly thereafter, Father Bohrer was removed from ministry and the allegation was investigated by the diocese, and subsequently reviewed by the Vatican.”
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