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	FW Diocese Replacing Officials in Abuse Cases Bishop Praises Pair Who Handled Issue; Married Priest Elevated By Brooks Egerton The Dallas Morning News March 11, 2006 http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/news/city/fortworth/stories/ DN-fwdiocese_11met.ART.North.Edition2.f53739a.html Fort Worth's new Catholic bishop, under pressure to release records about clergy-abuse allegations, is replacing two top officials who have long handled such matters. Bishop Kevin Vann is also taking the rare step of promoting into upper management a married priest, the Rev. E. James Hart. Father Hart – one of about 90 former Episcopal priests working as Catholic clerics in the United States – will assume the Rev. Robert Wilson's job as Fort Worth Diocese chancellor. And the Rev. Michael Olson will become vicar general, replacing the Rev. Joseph Schumacher. All of those involved were unavailable for comment Friday or did not respond to messages. But Bishop Vann, in a memo obtained by The Dallas Morning News, praised Monsignor Schumacher and Father Wilson. "They have given too much to all of us, especially in recent years, not only by their service, but by their example of being faithful servants of Jesus Christ," Bishop Vann wrote to his priests and to fellow bishops around Texas. Monsignor Schumacher and Father Wilson, while retiring from diocesan management, are expected to continue parish duties. The retirements take effect July 1. Monsignor Schumacher and Father Wilson are expected to figure prominently in church records that Tarrant County state District Judge Len Wade recently agreed to unseal. Church attorneys said Friday that they have not decided whether to appeal the ruling. The News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram persuaded the judge last month to reverse a previous sealing order, which he'd made during a lawsuit in which two men accused the Rev. Thomas Teczar of abusing them when they were boys. The men won a settlement totaling $4.15 million after alleging that the Fort Worth Diocese protected Father Teczar as part of a pattern of concealing clergy abuse. During the lawsuit, the diocese surrendered records on seven other accused priests to the men's attorney, Tahira Khan Merritt. She said Friday that she could not discuss their contents because Judge Wade has not yet released the documents. But she did say that "Chancellor Wilson and Vicar General Schumacher, because of their key positions in the diocesan hierarchy, were central in the decision to hire Father Thomas Teczar in 1988 as well as assisting him in leaving the state of Texas while he was under investigation by law enforcement." The two managers' late boss, Bishop Joseph Delaney, agreed to bring Father Teczar to the Fort Worth Diocese after the priest had been repeatedly accused of abuse in a Massachusetts diocese, suspended from ministry, treated for a sexual disorder and fined for contributing to a minor's delinquency. Father Teczar fled Eastland County, at the western edge of the Fort Worth Diocese, when a grand jury began investigating two of his friends on sexual abuse charges in the early 1990s. They were later sentenced to prison. Eastland County authorities plan to try Father Teczar on abuse charges in May. Monsignor Schumacher and Father Wilson have not been charged with helping him flee. When he ruled in the newspapers' favor, Judge Wade postponed a decision on records about the one cleric who was still in ministry. On Friday, he ordered the files on the Rev. Joseph Tu released. Since the judge's initial ruling, Father Tu has been suspended from duty in Houston. His religious order says it is investigating a new complaint of child abuse; the accuser in that case says her mother reported it to a church official in 1977, shortly after the priest allegedly fondled her in Arlington. Bishop Vann's memo also announced creation of a management position, vicar for priests. The Rev. Juan Rivero will assume that post, which is designed "to help support the ministry and life of our priests." Father Olson, the newly appointed vicar general, is a moral theologian who has been teaching at St. Mary's Seminary in Houston. Father Hart, the married priest, converted to Catholicism about a decade ago. He will leave his job as pastor of St. Peter the Apostle in Fort Worth to work full time as chancellor. Mary Gautier of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., called his promotion a rare example of upward mobility among ex-Episcopal priests. "It's pretty unusual for them to even become a pastor," she said. E-mail begerton@dallasnews.com
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