Bishop suspends priest while he reviews case

By Ryan Brown
Altoona Mirror
February 28, 2015

http://www.altoonamirror.com/page/content.detail/id/605877/Bishop-suspends-priest-while-he-reviews-case.html?nav=742

The Altoona Mirror Bishop Mark L. Bartchak, head of the Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese, has suspended a Philipsburg priest amid a review of decades-old child sex abuse allegations, diocese officials announced Friday in a news release.

The Rev. Robert Kelly of SS. Peter and Paul parish in Philipsburg will be kept away from children and forbidden to serve as a priest until the diocese completes an internal investigation, spokesman Tony DeGol said. Kelly, 66 - who has served across the diocese, including in Altoona - was named in a 2003 lawsuit that alleged he'd abused an altar boy in the 1970s.

The diocese settled that case and several others a year later. Kelly remained the parish priest and continued to head the diocese's missions office until his recent suspension.

"This was an old case that the bishop re-evaluated," DeGol said Friday. "He just decided to re-evaluate it."