SPRINGFIELD (MA)
The Republican
Dec. 11, 2019
By Anne-Gerard Flynn
A New Jersey-born priest — ordained in 2002 and removed from ministry a year ago — is facing three separate counts of indecent assault and battery of a child under 14 that allegedly occurred in Hampden County more than 35 years ago.
The Rev. Patrick J. Kuffner was arrested in his home state on charges of child sexual abuse Nov. 20 on a fugitive warrant from the Office of Hampden District Attorney Anthony D. Gulluni, and is being held without bail in Toms River, N.J., DA spokesman James Leydon confirmed Wednesday.
“While the alleged crimes date back to the early 1980s, more than 35 years ago, and involve an incident from before Fr. Kuffner was a priest or even a seminarian, the charges are nevertheless shocking and are being taken seriously by the Diocese of Metuchen,” said Anthony P. Kearns III, spokesperson and chancellor of the Diocese of Metuchen in a statement. “Once we learned of the allegations, we immediately reported them to the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office, which then conducted an initial investigation and subsequently referred the matter to the Hampden County Prosecutor’s Office in MA.”
The Diocese of Metuchen, where Kuffner was ordained and raised, had removed the 72-year-old from ministry in February 2018 after three people accused him of sexual abusing them as minors more than three decades ago when Kuffner was a layman teaching in the Catholic school system on Staten Island, N.Y.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.