Viewpoints

6. Legal actions in clergy sex abuse cases continue

Paul Berrell, former music minister of St. Eugene Church in Asheville, was sentenced in March to 28 years in prison on one federal charge of child pornography after he pleaded guilty. Berrell was arrested in 2009 and was fired from his position at the church shortly afterwards.

Father John Schneider, former pastor of St. Eugene Church, pleaded guilty in June to a misdemeanor in connection with Berrell's case. Father Schneider was fined, ordered to perform community service and placed on probation.

In addition, two civil lawsuits were filed against the Diocese of Charlotte by a North Carolina law firm representing three men who say they were abused as children by two priests and who claim that the diocese was negligent in its oversight.

The first lawsuit, filed in July, claims that the diocese concealed knowledge of alleged child molestation in the mid-1980s by Richard Blair Farwell, 63, a suspended priest who now lives in Florida.

The second lawsuit, filed in September, involves two men who contend they were abused by Father Joseph Kelleher – one at Our Lady of the Annunciation Church in Albemarle in 1977, the other in about 1980 at Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Charlotte.

Father Kelleher, now retired after more than 40 years in ministry, has been under criminal investigation in Albemarle and Charlotte since the diocese alerted authorities to an anonymous abuse allegation in 2010 and placed him on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigations. His case has yet to be heard in court.

Finally, unsealed court documents in Wilmington, Del., revealed an admission of sexual abuse by a priest who formerly served at St. Paul the Apostle Church in Greensboro. Father James O'Neill, OSFS, 71, was removed as pastor of St. Paul the Apostle Church in 2002 when an allegation of sexual misconduct was made by a Delaware man. The abuse allegation did not involve O'Neill's assignment in North Carolina.