WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette
By Kathleen A. Shaw TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
kshaw@telegram.com
Two Texas men have accused the Catholic Diocese of Worcester and the Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas, of conspiring to help the Rev. Thomas H. Teczar slip in and out of two states to avoid arrest on criminal charges of sexually abusing underage boys.
The pair filed suit in Tarrant County District Court in Fort Worth alleging that Rev. Teczar, who was a priest in the Worcester diocese, sexually abused them while he was serving parishes in Ranger, Texas.
The dioceses of Worcester and Fort Worth have submitted a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the suit. They argue that the suits were filed after the statute of limitations had expired. A hearing on that motion is scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday in the Fort Worth court.
Rev. Teczar, who now lives in Dudley, denied the allegations and said he does not know the man identified in court documents as John Doe II.
“I never met him. I never even talked to him. I never touched him,” he said in a telephone interview yesterday. Rev. Teczar, who previously refused to publicly discuss accusations against him, is representing himself in the suit.
He said he has read the material submitted in the case and that when taken line by line, the lawsuit is “pathetic.”
He said he knows the man identified as John Doe I “only from the gas station” in Ranger, a small town in northern Texas where the sexual abuse is alleged to have occurred.