Fr. Joel M. Wiggs
Monsignor. Parish priest, community volunteer, “very active” with the Boys Scouts. Died in 2001. Sexual abuse of boys by Wiggs was reported to the Diocese in 2002, 2013 and 2019. The Diocese kept it quiet. In 2023 a 56-year-old man stated publicly that Wiggs became involved with him and other boys when he was age 8, giving them gifts, taking them to racquetball and to a lake to waterski, sometimes overnight. The man said Wiggs would get naked with boys in a hot tub, massage them with baby oil and show them pornographic movies. When he was in seventh grade, he said Wiggs raped him with his finger, so he distanced himself from the priest. He said his brother, who died at age 50 in 2021, was also abused and had a “troubled” life. Accused in a 9/2024 lawsuit of sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy in 1967 while assigned to Sacred Heart in Humbolt, TN.
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