Support Group Reports About 40 Calls Accusing Local Priests

By Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post
February 21, 1995

About 40 people have telephoned a national advocacy group to say that they too were molested by one of the four local priests who were charged last week with sexually abusing a total of five men in incidents as early as the 1970s, the group's director said yesterday.

Eleven of the calls were anonymous and could not be investigated, said Thomas Economus, executive director of Survivors of Clergy Sexual Abuse Linkup, which is based in Chicago.

He said that he was in the process of questioning the callers who did give their names and that he is encouraging them to take their allegations to the police and the archdiocese in Washington.

Most of those claiming to be victims came forward after the widely publicized ouster of the four priests, who the archdiocese said admitted to church officials last month that they had molested an altar boy in Lanham in the 1970s.

The Revs. Thomas Schaefer, 69; Alphonsus S. Smith, 70; Edward T. Pritchard, 50; and Edward B. Hartel, 58, had served in a total of 24 parishes in Maryland and the District, starting in the mid-1950s.

Last week, all four were arrested and charged with sexually abusing the altar boy, who is now 34 and lives near Baltimore. Schaefer also was charged with molesting two other youths in the 1960s and 1970s. Smith was charged with abusing a fourth youngster, and Pritchard was charged with abusing a fifth.

All the priests were released without bond. Their cases will be sent to grand juries.

Yesterday, Economus, who was in Washington for meetings with local and national Catholic officials, said his organization had as yet received no additional allegations against Hartel.

Most of the callers named Smith or Schaefer, he said. He said he could not recall whether any had named Pritchard.

A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Washington said that, as of last week, church officials had spoken to "fewer than 10" people who say one of the four arrested priests abused them.

The church is continuing to investigate, she said.

"The Archdiocese of Washington is firmly committed to removing from active ministry any priest who is a known threat to young people," said the spokeswoman, Dawn Weyrich Ceol.

She encouraged victims to come forward.

Economus said he also has received calls from a few people who said they had been sexually abused by four other priests from the Washington Archdiocese.

Three of the priests were removed from active duty years ago for undisclosed reasons, according to Roman Catholic Church directories. It could not be learned last night whether the fourth priest was retired, on leave or on active duty.

Ceol said the archdiocese had not received any recent allegations concerning any priests other than the four who were arrested last week.

If new allegations about other members of the clergy are substantiated, she said, the archdiocese will dismiss the priests and announce why.