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CARL ANTHONY PELTZ
...
A PRIEST WHO WORKED IN MANCHESTER AND GLENCOE with fellow clerics Gerard Welsch, Robert Schwaig, Larry Damato and Edmund Griesedieck has passed away. He’s Fr. Carl F. Peltz who
was sued for allegedly forcing a 12 year-old boy to drink whiskey and
raping him on a Navy base in Iceland. The case was settled for $25k and
the priest kept working until 2009. Peltz also spent time at a treatment
center for sexually troubled clerics called the Vianney Renewal Center
in Dittmer.
Timeline:
Ordained 1977
STEUBENVILLE
DIOCESE
1978 Lore
City, OH Sts. Peter and Paul
Church Priests: David Reasbeck; Carl Peltz
Summer Mission: St. Andrew on the Lake,
Chapel, Seneca Lake, Ohio (May to Oct.)
1979 Steubenville,
OH
Holy Rosary, 200 Rosemont Ave. Priests:
Anthony J. Giannamore; Joseph Massucci; Carl Peltz
In res., E.A. Gilbert (retired) school:
270
1980 Lore
City Sts. Peter and Paul Priests:
George J. Adams; Carl F. (sic) Peltz
Summer Mission:
Senecaville, St. Andrew on the Lake
1981 no directory
available
1982-4 Marietta,
OH
St. Mary's Church Priests: Robert H. Punke; Carl F. Peltz
School: 286
1985 On duty outside
diocese U.S. Navy Chaplain--active duty
1986-7 same address:
854 Exec. Drive, Apt. 106,
Norfolk, VA
1988 on duty outside
diocese Northwest Catholic Communities,
P.O. Box 99, Ft. Shaw, MT, St. Ann Carl
A.(sic) Peltz
Mission: Cascade,
Sacred Heart (diocese of Great Falls--Billings)
1989 absent on leave no location given
1990 Amsterdam,
OH St. Joseph Church Priest:
Carl Franklin Peltz
1991 on duty outside
diocese Vianney
Renewal Center,
Dittmer, MO
1992 on duty outside
diocese Manchester,
MO, 567 St. Joseph
Lane
This address is rectory for St. Joseph Church Priests:
Gerard R. Welsch; Robert J. Schwaig; Deacon Larry Damato
School:
675 Peltz not
listed among priests in parish
1993-4 Manchester, MO St. Joseph
1995 same in residence, Carl F. Peltz
1996 Glencoe,
MO
St. Alban Roe Church
Priests: Rev. Msgr. Edmund O.
Griesedieck; Carl F. Peltz(STU)
1997 same name doesn't appear in parish
listing Steubenville
shows him in Glencoe
1998 St.
Joseph, MI St.
Joseph Church (KAL) in residence:
Carl F. Peltz '74(sic)
1999-2000 Parchment,
MI St. Ambrose Church(KAL) Carl F. Peltz'74(sic)(STU)
2001-2 same listed absent on leave from Steubenville, Parchment, MI
2003 same no longer listed in Steubenville
Diocese--incardinated to Kalamazoo
2004 Parchment,
MI St.
Ambrose; Delton, MI St. Ambrose
2005 Niles,
MI
St. Mary school 124
Present:
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Related documents:
http://www.catholicweekly.org/new-priest-assignments-for-diocese-of-kalamazoo/
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2012/01_02/2012_02_01_Patton_ExstAlban.htm
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/04/26/chaplain-side.htm
Postings by . Enter the name Peltz
--------------------------------------------------------------
Accusations against Priests in the Military
Associated
Press
October 8, 2003
More than 25 current or former Roman Catholic
priests serving as U.S. military chaplains have been accused of sexual abuse.
They include:
- Navy Cmdr. Brian Bjorklund, suspended in
July by the Detroit archdiocese because of a credible allegation he molested a
child in Michigan before he joined the Navy in 1988. Bjorklund did not return
repeated telephone calls to his home.
- Monsignor Robert
Reidy, accused in a lawsuit last year by two Youngstown, Ohio, brothers
of molesting them in the 1960s before he joined the Navy. Nancy Yuhasz,
chancellor of the Youngstown diocese, told reporters last year Reidy had
admitted the abuse. Youngstown Bishop Thomas Tobin later said Reidy denied the
allegations. Yuhasz said last month she could no longer comment on the matter
because of the lawsuit. Reidy did not return repeated telephone messages left at
his Niles, Ohio, home.
- Thomas Forry, sent to be an
Army chaplain in 1988 by the Boston Archdiocese despite his beating his
housekeeper and refusing some counseling. Church officials suspended Forry, who
had left the Army and returned to the Boston area, last year after he was
accused of molesting children.
- Carmelo "Mel" Baltazar,
a former Navy chaplain convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison for
molesting a boy in Idaho in 1985. A lawsuit filed this year accuses Baltazar of
molesting another boy while he was in the Navy stationed in San Diego. Baltazar,
who has been defrocked by the church, could not be located for comment.
-
Four Catholic Navy chaplains disciplined for sexual misconduct from 1994 through
1999. Their cases were mentioned in an internal Navy report obtained by The
Associated Press. The accusations included sodomy, downloading pornography on a
computer with someone being counseled, "homosexual acts/assault," sexual assault
and unspecified sexual misconduct. The report did not include the priests'
names.
- Barry E. Ryan, a former Air Force chaplain.
Church officials told an Alabama prosecutor this year that Ryan had been accused
of sexual misconduct while at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery. Ryan is no
longer a priest and this year left his job at a school in Stuart, Fla. He could
not be reached for comment.
- An Army chaplain suspended by the diocese
of Greensburg, Penn., last year. The diocese did not name the priest, who was
suspended because of a credible allegation of child molestation before he joined
the Army.
- Pat Nicholson, dismissed as a chaplain at
the Air Force Academy in 2000 after a female officer accused him of having a
long-term sexual relationship with her, beginning when she was a cadet. Another
woman has accused Nicholson of molesting her while he was a priest near
Montgomery, Ala., in the 1970s before he joined the Air Force. Nicholson has an
unlisted home telephone number in Long Beach, Calif., and could not be reached
for comment.
- Robert Milewski, a former Navy chaplain
convicted in a 2001 court-martial of touching an enlisted man inappropriately
during a massage. He was fined $48,000.
- Neal
Destefano, a former Navy chaplain who was sentenced to five years in
prison in 1994 after pleading guilty to drugging and molesting two Marines. He
was dismissed from the Navy and resigned from the Jesuit religious order. "It
was a tremendous failure of moral responsibility on my part as an officer and a
priest," he said.
- Robert Hrdlicka, who served nearly
six years in prison after pleading guilty at a 1993 court-martial to sexually
abusing four boys, ages 7 to 11, while serving as a Navy chaplain in Italy and
South Carolina. Hrdlicka was dismissed from the Navy and from the priesthood.
His St. Louis telephone number is unlisted.
- Owen J.
Melody, who in 1987 pleaded guilty in Virginia to aggravated sexual
battery against a 13-year-old girl while he was a Navy chaplain. A judge gave
him a 20-year suspended sentence, and he was dismissed from the Navy and the
priesthood. Melody now claims he is innocent. He is married to another Navy
chaplain, Capt. Julia Cadenhead, who helped the Navy institute a training
program called "Ethics First!"
- Alvin Campbell, a
former Army chaplain who pleaded guilty to molesting Illinois boys in 1985.
Campbell served about seven years in prison and died last year.
-
Carl Peltz, accused in a federal lawsuit of molesting a boy
while serving as a Navy chaplain at a base in Iceland in 1985. The Diocese of
Steubenville, Ohio, settled the lawsuit for $25,000. Peltz, now pastor of a
church in Parchment, Mich., told his parishioners he is innocent. A review by
the diocese of Kalamazoo, Mich., this year found no "credible evidence" to
support the allegation.
- Robert R. Peebles Jr., accused
of molesting a 15-year-old boy in 1984 at Fort Benning, Ga. Peebles admitted
molesting the boy, according to court documents and testimony, and was allowed
to resign from the Army instead of being prosecuted. Peebles, who is now a
lawyer for the Social Security Administration in New Orleans, did not return
telephone messages left at his home.
- Timothy Sugrue,
accused in a lawsuit of molesting a girl in 1978 at the now-closed Blytheville
Air Force Base in Arkansas. A jury awarded the woman $1.5 million, but she has
not collected because Sugrue took a vow of poverty. Sugrue resigned from the Air
Force after he learned he was being investigated, according to testimony. Sugrue
declined comment.
- An unknown number of military priests who have not
been named publicly. Bishop John J. Glynn, a former top official with the
military archdiocese, in 1993 told lawyers for Sugrue's victim that he knew of
accusations against Melody and six other Catholic military chaplains he did not
name.
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Parchment priest: 'I feel violated by this accusation'
KALAMAZOO GAZETTE; Sunday, May 19, 2002
BY CHRIS MEEHAN and ROSEMARY PARKER
It was Easter Sunday, and the Rev. Carl Peltz had reason to
feel good. He was celebrating his 51st birthday the next day, and he was going
on vacation. But as he left church, the
priest was met by an ABC television news crew asking about allegations that
Peltz had raped a 12-year-old boy in 1985.
A week later, Peltz stood before his congregation and
declared his innocence. "Somewhere
outside these walls, a man in his 20s for some reason believes I am the cause
of his troubles," Peltz told the people of St. Ambrose Catholic Church in
Parchment. "I'm angry. I'm hurt. I
feel violated by this accusation." Across
the country, sexual-abuse allegations against Catholic clergy that are years
and even decades old are being exposed, putting the American Catholic Church
under scrutiny.
For Peltz, it's a 1991 lawsuit filed against him and his
diocese, alleging he raped 12-year-old Chris Toher in 1985 when Peltz was
chaplain on a U.S. Navy base in Iceland.
Without addressing Peltz's innocence or guilt, the suit was settled for $25,000
in 1993 by the Diocese of Steubenville, Ohio, then Peltz's employer of record. Peltz and local church officials said he's
been unfairly singled out and wrongly accused. While they acknowledge Peltz had
a longtime drinking problem, they said he's been sober for the past 13 years
and that there's no evidence of sexual misconduct. Peltz and local church officials note that no
criminal charges were ever brought and the civil case was dismissed. They point
out that the lawsuit said the alleged attack occurred in the fall of 1985, when
Navy records show that Peltz was no longer in Iceland.
"The incident in question took
place at a time when I was nowhere near this boy," Peltz told his
congregation.
Joe Toher, father of Chris Toher, said he's been frustrated
in trying to find justice for his son. He said a mistake was made on the date
in the suit and that the attack occurred in the spring of 1985 before Peltz
left Iceland. "I was naive to think that a Catholic
priest wasn't capable of something like that," Joe Toher said. "The
damage that sexual abuse causes to a family is unbelievable."
Peltz's situation reflects the tensions and issues involved
in the unfolding church scandal. Some believe it reflects an ecclesiastical
process that has sought to hide rather than address accusations against clergy.
Dozens of interviews and a Kalamazoo
Gazette review of police, fire, military and other documents portray Peltz as a
respected but emotionally troubled priest in the late 1970s and 1980s. In addition to Chris Toher, another man who
knew Peltz as a teen-ager said the priest made an "inappropriate sexual
advance" that ended their friendship in the early 1980s. John Pachuta, now a school teacher near Seattle,
knew Peltz when he was a high school and college student in southeastern Ohio.
"Father Peltz had a lot of personal issues," said Pachuta, who did
not provide specifics on the sexual advance. "But he was caught in a
(Catholic church) system that couldn't give him the support that he
needed."
David Butler of Parchment, Peltz's attorney, said
accusations by Toher and Pachuta are "bunk." Just last week, the priest undertook a lie
detector test that Butler said shows
Peltz "has never made any sexual advance against a minor." Butler
said that Peltz was willing to undergo another polygraph test if his accusers would
do so here by the same polygraph operator. "This (the accusations) is character
assassination," said Butler,
who adds Peltz was not party to the 1993 court settlement. "Father Peltz
has never been given his day in court. This whole thing is terribly unfair and besmirching
his reputation."
Peltz declined to comment for this story; the Kalamazoo
diocese agreed to provide written answers to questions submitted in writing.
The Steubenville diocese would not
provide details of Peltz's career and told its priests not to speak to
reporters about Peltz.
First signs of trouble
Peltz grew up near Steubenville,
a blue-collar, solidly Catholic community about 35 miles west of Pittsburgh.
There, in the Appalachian foothills, he attended Catholic schools as a child
and into college and seminary. After his ordination in 1977, he was assigned to
teach religion and English at Guernsey
Catholic High School
in Cambridge, Ohio,
in addition to a job as an associate pastor. Former Guernsey
staff and students say they regarded him as an idealistic clergyman
particularly adept at working with youths -- an impeccably dressed priest who
was strict but fair. He often treated Guernsey boys to
dinner and let them drive his Chrysler Cordoba, former students said. Mark Aleshire of Zanesville,
Ohio, a former Guernsey
student who occasionally went out to dinner with Peltz, recalls Peltz as
"an excellent religion teacher who taught me a good bit. He was a very
good and responsible priest. He was never out of line." "He was
really popular," said Steve Crum, a former Guernsey
student who now lives in Baltimore.
"Me and my friends all liked him."
But Peltz had difficulties at Guernsey,
according to documents released by the Steubenville
diocese for the Toher lawsuit. Peltz
left the teaching job after a semester, citing health concerns and the need for
a retreat. He went to a church in Steubenville
and then one in Cambridge, and
returned to Guernsey a year and a half later, in
September 1979, as dean of discipline and vice principal. It was a difficult time at Guernsey,
former staff members say. The diocese was debating whether to close the school.
The students were particularly rambunctious. Peltz found himself at odds with
staff, especially the nuns, according to letters he wrote at the time. He asked
to be transferred. "I am too physically exhausted and too emotionally
drained to adequately perform the tasks that should be mine as spiritual
director," Peltz wrote to the Steubenville
bishop in November 1979. "I have been informed that a local pastor has
counseled students of his parish not to come to me for direction because I
would be a detriment to their growth and development.'' He was seeing a psychiatrist, Peltz wrote, and
"my own physical, mental and spiritual health play a large part in my
decision. ... I should be removed from the educational system ... removed from
the cynicism of my fellow priests."
Peltz finished out the school year, then became pastor of a
church in Harrietsville, Ohio,
in September 1980. Within months he was seeking a new job. He met with the
rector at St. Joseph Preparatory Seminary in Vienna,
W.Va., to talk about a position there. "I
fully recognize Carl's strengths," the Rev. Robert Arkle, the rector, wrote
in a March 1981 letter copied to the Steubenville
bishop. But "I must voice my conviction, however, that high school
seminary work is not the form of apostolate for which Carl would be
well-suited. ... "My judgment is based on my knowledge of him and my
knowledge as well of the kind of priestly 'give and take,' the close living,
the in-built pressures of this kind of life, and consequent necessity of a
unique brand of camaraderie shared by all the priests who live and work here.
The plain fact is, Carl could have a terrible experience in this kind of
situation, and if so, there would be spill-over effects on other clergy and
students."
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Shooting in Marietta
Instead, Peltz moved that spring to St. Mary's Church in Marietta,
his fifth church in four years. Although he was almost an hour's drive from Cambridge,
he continued to stay in touch with Guernsey students,
and some visited him at the St. Mary Church rectory. But other students, he
said, wished him dead. And he blamed students for a shooting in the rectory and
accused them of threatening his life. It was May 26, 1982, and the head pastor at St. Mary was away.
Peltz was asleep when he said he heard voices in the rectory hall about 1:40 a.m. Peltz later told police he heard laughter and
someone say, "We're finally going to get him. He's going to die
tonight." A 9 mm bullet came
whizzing through Peltz's closed bedroom door. Peltz told police he fired back
with a tear gas gun he had gotten from his father. According to the police
report, police found vulgarities spray-painted all over the priest's office, on
his vestments and on photographs of Peltz in the room.
In incidents that police linked to the rectory shooting, a Marietta
investigator found his family car burned four days later and received a threatening
letter signed by "The Children of the Night." "We know of your desires
for the young ones," the note read in part. ".... You try to hide your
sordid lusts. But we hear your whimpers." Peltz told investigators he had
been "run out'' of Guernsey County and that in the two years after that he
had received threatening mail, had his car tires shot out and had been robbed
at gunpoint. He suggested the "Children of the Night" letter was
written by a Guernsey graduate, saying it resembled a
Nathaniel Hawthorne story Peltz had taught in 1977.
Peltz "had a way of doing things that the students
disliked," the Rev. John Price, former Guernsey principal,
told investigators. The police report
makes no mention of interviewing Guernsey students. Investigators
instead began to turn their attention toward Peltz. "Look in on Father
Peltz's background," said a page of the report dated June 4, 1982. That month, Peltz checked himself into a
psychiatric facility for eight days. He told police that he had gone to the
hospital after receiving a 3 a.m.
phone call from a man who said: "The Prince of Darkness will consume the
white satin in a fiery flame." The same page of that June 23 report noted:
"This officer has yet to confront Father Peltz with the ladies clothing he
has been purchasing. This officer would like to check into this aspect before
confronting Father Peltz.'' The final
page of the police report was filed July
9, 1982. It said a Guernsey
County investigator had spoken to a
number of "reliable citizens" who were Catholic and "did not
wish to become involved in this investigation. They advised that Father Peltz
has very strong homosexual tendencies."
Marietta
investigators who worked on the case, including Roger Phillis, a Marietta
police captain in 1982, told the Gazette that part of the report appears to be
missing, including the final summary of the case. Neither the car arson nor the
rectory shooting ever led to an arrest. Phillis said the Marietta
police chief in 1982, a staunch Catholic who is now deceased, stepped in and
took over the investigation. B.L. McKitrick, Marietta's
current police chief, said it's his understanding the Steubenville
diocese was "uncooperative" in the investigation. "It just died
at the request of the bishop," said McKitrick. "That's almost scary,
isn't it?'' Phillis said he "had a
feeling that something was wrong with this case, but I've never been sure what
it is. ... My sense is that things weren't exactly as presented."
Mike McCauley, one of the investigators in the case, agreed.
"It seems to me that this whole situation raises a lot of questions of
what he (Peltz) was into at that time," said McCauley, now a psychology
teacher at Marietta High
School. Butler,
Peltz's attorney, said Peltz was a victim in the Marietta
case and that it's unfair to cast aspersions against the priest. "I
suspect that Father likes women, but he has taken a vow of chastity," said
the attorney. As for the women's clothes, Peltz was not a "cross
dresser," Butler said. "I
suspect he probably was buying gifts.
" 'Personal problems' "I know he was experiencing
personal problems at this time," said John Pachuta, who met Peltz when he
was a student at Guernsey Catholic. They continued their friendship after
Pachuta enrolled at Marietta College.
"I attended his church and we got to be friends and he started to reach
out to me." It was during this period the priest made a sexual advance
that he rebuffed, said Pachuta, who said he didn't tell either church or police
officials. Pachuta only spoke about the alleged sexual advance recently when
contacted by a reporter who asked about his relationship with the priest.
Pachuta declined to discuss the specifics of the sexual overtures. "I'm in a tough spot. He was a friend and
good to me," Pachuta said. "On the other hand, he was having personal
problems."
In Marietta, as
in Peltz's other ministries, there were people who praised his abilities. In
1983, he was honored by the Knights of Columbus as State Chaplain of the Year. "He was a very, very dear friend to all
of us," said Janet Stump, who attended Mass in St. Mary's Church in Marietta
and at other churches where Peltz served. "He was a very caring and giving
person.''
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Stint in Iceland
In late 1983, Peltz applied to become a military chaplain,
and the diocese provided a letter of recommendation saying Peltz was
"spiritually, morally, intellectually, and emotionally'' qualified. Peltz
entered the Navy in the fall of 1984 and in January 1985 was sent to the U.S.
Naval Air Station in Keflavik, Iceland.
There, Peltz became friends with Joe
Toher, his wife and three children, say Toher and Peltz's attorney. Toher, an
executive officer on the base, played guitar during Mass. Chris, 12, the older
son, was an altar boy. Peltz frequently came over for dinner. Toher and Peltz
would often drink together and visit. One night while they were drinking, Toher
said in an affidavit submitted for the 1991 court case, "Father Carl Peltz
told me that he had previously been accused of sodomizing a boy in Ohio."
Toher didn't question the comment at the time, he told the Gazette, because
Peltz had presented it as an absurd accusation.
There is no truth to this statement nor any record of such
an accusation being made against Peltz, say Kalamazoo
church officials. Other times, Joe Toher
said, the priest talked about the nuns in Ohio
hating him and once began yelling obscenities in front of Toher about the
Carmelite nuns who lived near the Navy base. "These things sounded
bizarre, but I didn't pay much attention to them at the time," said Toher,
now a defense contractor who lives near Dallas.
One afternoon, Chris Toher said, he was visiting Peltz at his office to interview
him for a school project when the priest gave him two glasses of Scotch
whiskey, raped him and threatened to kill him if the 12-year-old told anybody. Chris
Toher, now a 29-year-old who lives near Grand Haven, didn't tell anyone of the
alleged attack for years. Others said Peltz grew increasingly troubled as the
months wore on in Iceland.
"Gradually but markedly, (Peltz's) attitude changed. We
couldn't figure out why his personality was switching," said Joe Lapiana,
a shop engineer on the base and friend of the Tohers who recalled the priest's
outburst about the nuns. Lapiana, who
now lives on Martha's Vineyard, Mass.,
and Joe Toher say they were both at Mass on a Sunday in May 1985 when the
priest began to say things that didn't make sense and collapsed on the altar. The
next day, the base captain called Lapiana and Joe Toher into his office. The
captain, who is now deceased, wanted Peltz "off the island," said Lapiana,
and Peltz was sent back to the United States.
Joe Toher escorted Peltz back to Norfolk,
Va. Toher remembers the first words the priest spoke to him aboard the
chartered plane: "I really (expletive) up, didn't I, Joe?" 'Committed
and involved' While Joe Toher and Lapiana paint one picture, Navy records
reflect another. Peter Mast, commanding officer of the Navy's Security Group
Activity, based in New York City,
wrote a letter in April 1985 complimenting Peltz for his hard work in Iceland.
"In many cases, I have sent my
sailors to Father Peltz with critical personal problems," Mast wrote.
"In each case, he has returned happier, more productive sailors."
Kalamazoo church
officials said Peltz left Iceland
largely because he disliked the geographic isolation and that any erratic
behavior stemmed from that stress. "He wanted to move on to a more
fruitful ministry," said Edward Carey, chancellor of the Kalamazoo
diocese. "My understanding is he hit the ground running when he returned
from Iceland."
Capt. J.F. McCarton, commanding officer of a ship on which Peltz served, wrote
in a May 1986 letter that Peltz "has proven himself a committed and involved
Navy chaplain."
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Lawsuit filed
In 1987, Peltz was granted early release from active duty in
the Navy. From there, he went to a church in Montana.
"He didn't seem to be a good
fit," said the Rev. J.H. Peterson, vicar general of the Diocese of Great
Falls, Mont. Around 1989, Peltz finally conquered a longtime drinking problem,
the priest's attorney said. In summer 1990, Chris Toher told his therapist and
his parents that he had been raped by Peltz years earlier. Peltz's attorney
said it's his understanding that Chris Toher's recollection came as a
"result of the repressed-memory phenomenon," and that there is no physical
or medical evidence to prove the memory true. But Chris Toher said he had been
dealing with the memory all along and decided to speak about the rape when he
heard other teens talk about similar events. Joe Toher believes his son. But,
he said, he was frustrated in filing criminal charges -- Iceland authorities
referred him to the Navy, and naval officials said there was nothing they could
do because Peltz was no longer in the military.
Officials in the Diocese of Steubenville, still listed as
Peltz's official employer, were more sympathetic, at least initially, according
to Joe Toher's notes from 1990, which he provided to the Gazette. Monsignor
Roger Foys, then chancellor of the Steubenville
diocese, "told me that Father Peltz had been a problem since his
ordination, that Father Peltz had had alcohol problems for some time" and
suggested the 1982 shooting in Marietta
was "self-inflicted," Toher said in an affidavit for the lawsuit. Foys could not be reached for comment.
After the Tohers sued Peltz and the diocese in 1991, the
diocese argued it shouldn't be held liable for Peltz's actions on a naval base.
A federal judge agreed, and dismissed the lawsuit. The Tohers appealed, and the
diocese settled for $25,000 in 1993.
Peltz, who was put on leave as soon as the Tohers made their
accusations, was not given a new assignment after the lawsuit was settled,
officials at the Steubenville diocese said. He moved to St.
Louis, where he helped out at different churches and wrote
books on meditation and prayer. In 1998, the Diocese of Kalamazoo offered him a
job at St. Joseph's Catholic Church
near Benton Harbor,
and he was named pastor of St. Ambrose in 1999. "Our diocese made full disclosure to the
Diocese of Kalamazoo, and I emphasize full disclosure," said Monsignor
Gerald E. Calovini, director of communications for the Steubenville
diocese.
Kalamazoo church
officials said they went through Peltz's personnel file and psychiatric
evaluations and were convinced any problems he had were behind him. "In the quest to discover the truth, I've
been sent to a number of institutions," Peltz told his congregation last
month. "All concluded that I never had the proclivity toward violence nor
an attraction to children that would let me act out in such a brutal way to a
child." Carey, chancellor of the
local diocese, said the diocese "has taken a lot of time" in its own
investigation of Peltz's background. "I think we've got it right," he
said. "I'm not sure we'll get any more by keeping this alive. Any more
information on this doesn't do anything but harm Father."
'Brutally honest'
Peltz celebrated the 25th anniversary of his ordination this
month. "He has done a tremendous amount of good through his liturgies and
outreach efforts," Carey said. Butler,
the priest's attorney, said the publicity surrounding this case, especially in
light of sexual-abuse allegations flooding the church at large, has been
"terribly hard" on Peltz. "He has a parish to care for, and his
duties have been undermined by the inquiry into something that has never been
substantiated," Butler said. The
priest's parishioners describe him as an "insightful" and "very intelligent"
priest who is "brutally honest" about his own failings, and one who
works exceptionally well with youths. "Father Peltz is one of the more
outspoken priests, one of the best we have ever had in the Diocese of
Kalamazoo, and many of us feel that way," said Bob Stoops, who has worked
closely with Peltz, including on the St. Ambrose parish council. St. Ambrose
parishioner Linda Buck said she supports Peltz "more than 100 percent."
"He's always been a very honest,
very open individual ... in acknowledging he is an ordinary person," Buck
said. "He is a person who struggles with his Christianity and beliefs in
God like all of us do. I really hope and pray the congregation will keep that
attitude."
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