BishopAccountability.org
	No Warning about Priest, Records Show The Associated Press, carried in The Kentucky Post March 6, 2006 http://news.kypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060306/NEWS02/603060383/1014 LEXINGTON - Former Covington Bishop Richard H. Ackerman was warned that a Lexington priest was a pedophile who preyed on boys, but the bishop did nothing to warn parishioners that they had a predator in their midst, according to court records that were unsealed last week. The internal court records, hidden from view for decades, were made public Friday. The Lexington Herald-Leader and one of the Rev. John B. Modica's alleged victims, Sam Greywolf of Lexington, had asked Fayette County Circuit Judge Mary Noble to unseal the records. The diocese said it would no longer object to unsealing them. Modica, who is now retired and lives in Northern Kentucky, declined to comment. Ackerman died in 1992. The Covington diocese, which included Lexington until 1988, has agreed to settle a separate class-action lawsuit for up to $85 million with sexual abuse victims. More than 350 people are seeking restitution. The diocese settled many other claims previously. Greywolf, 48, filed suit with a large group of other victims in 2002. He was the only one who did not reach a settlement with the diocese. Greywolf's lawyer welcomed the diocese's decision. "This is what they should have done to begin with," attorney Chuck Arnold told the Lexington newspaper. Modica was assistant pastor at Mary Queen of the Holy Rosary from 1974 to 1978. In court papers, Greywolf says Modica gave him wine and marijuana and then raped him in the fall of 1974. The court records show that the church was warned repeatedly about Modica. In a letter to Ackerman dated June 17, 1975, Mary Queen of the Holy Rosary pastor Leonard Nienaber wrote: "Last Tuesday Father Modica did something' with a 12 year old boy. The mother cannot get the boy to tell everything yet. An older boy in the family may get him to talk. This older boy was a bit vehement with me because (another priest) had attacked him a few years ago. It seems to me that I heard that Fr. Modica had trouble with boys in Maysville and was another reason for leaving." Nienaber, who himself was later convicted on 10 counts of child sex abuse, assured Ackerman that Modica's misconduct was being kept "quiet and will cause no public scandal." In a letter dated Dec. 13, 1978, Nienaber warned that Modica had smuggled marijuana eight times to one inmate at the Kentucky State Reformatory in La Grange and was writing "homosexual letters" to another convict. Plus, an altar boy had complained about Modica's alleged sexual advances. "I had a difficult time with those parents who insisted that I have (Modica) removed," Nienaber wrote. Diocesan officials finally sent Modica to Jemez Springs, N.M., in January 1979 "to get treatment for sexual misconduct" - but only after he was caught smuggling marijuana into the state penitentiary. In a letter, Ackerman asked the judge handling Modica's case to allow the priest to travel to New Mexico for treatment because "it is not possible to find any place in Kentucky which would offer the rehabilitation that this unhappy priest requires." The facility helps priests "who, for one reason or another, have failed in their ministry," Ackerman wrote. He did not tell the judge that children had been victimized or that Modica was being sent there to receive treatment for alleged sexual misconduct. Despite Modica's history, Ackerman gave him high marks in a Jan. 23, 1979, letter to another church official. Conceding that Modica at times exhibits "extremely bad judgment," Ackerman added, "Father Modica has been a good priest and enjoys the esteem of the clergy of our Diocese."
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.