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	St. Louis-Area Hospital Chaplain Resigns over Child Sex Abuse Claim Associated Press April 30, 2002 A Roman Catholic hospital chaplain has resigned after the Illinois diocese that recommended him for the job revealed he was accused of sexually abusing a minor years earlier, the Archdiocese of St. Louis said Tuesday. The Rev. Jay Anthony Meis, a priest of the Diocese of Joliet, Ill., had been chaplain at St. Anthony's Medical Center in south St. Louis County from 1994 until resigning last Wednesday after the Joliet diocese revealed the sex-abuse claims against him in the 1980s. Without elaborating about that alleged misconduct, the St. Louis archdiocese said Meis has lived locally in a private home - not in a parish - and that "we have no information of any similar complaints" against him during his time in the archdiocese. Still, St. Anthony's and a St. Louis archdiocese spokesman said Tuesday that Joliet diocese gave favorable reviews of Meis in 1994, recommending him for a chaplain job at the hospital. Dating to 1994, "we had in our file a letter from the bishop of Joliet (Joseph Imesch) saying that Father Meis was a priest in good standing, and that there was nothing that would impede his ministry," St. Louis archdiocese spokesman Jim Orso said. In a statement Tuesday, St. Anthony's said Imesch in 1994 told the hospital that Meis had completed sexual-abuse treatment, and Imesch "gave his assurance that there would be no risk for Father Meis to serve in a hospital ministry." "During his tenure at St. Anthony's," the medical center said, "Father Meis dedicated himself to tending to the needs of the ill and terminally ill." Orso said St. Anthony's last Wednesday asked the St. Louis archdiocese "to review Father Meis any way they could." The St. Louis archdiocese contacted the Joliet diocese, which then talked with Meis before he resigned, Orso said. Last week, the Diocese of Joliet said it has agreed to give prosecutors records of all allegations of sexual abuse of minors by priests in the diocese. The records, including sealed court records, date from 1970 to 2002. Messages left Tuesday night with the Joliet diocese were not immediately returned. Meis, who over the years has taught high school, pastored and served as a nursing home chaplain, has had his home telephone number in the St. Louis suburb of Pacific changed to unlisted and could not be reached for comment.
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