Part One of the Dallas Morning News' series on the international shell game the Catholic church has been playing with pedophiliac priests.
About a dozen children circle around the Rev. Frank Klep after Mass on one sun-kissed Sunday. They chirp his name, trying to catch his eye as he begins handing out foil-wrapped candy. He calls them by name, too, beams and hugs some of them.
Few, if any, locals are aware that the friendly priest is a convicted child molester who has admitted abusing one boy and is wanted on more charges back in Australia. In 1998, his religious order placed him here in the South Pacific. Australian police can't touch him now because their country has no extradition treaty with Samoa.
Neither he nor the church feels an obligation to tell anyone about all that.
"I'd prefer to just leave it," Father Klep said recently. "If I felt I was still at risk to their children, then I'd think differently. But I don't think I am at risk anymore."
His order, the Salesians of Don Bosco, has long moved priests accused of sexual abuse from country to country away from law enforcement and victims. Indeed, it is how many others in the Catholic Church have dealt with the problem, an 18-month, worldwide Dallas Morning News investigation has found.
Posted by floridacracker at June 20, 2004 02:38 PMAnd doubly sad that a priest has no worry what will happen to his soul. Australia can't get him, but the God he purports to worship sure as hell will.
Posted by: James at June 20, 2004 06:03 PMI don't think these guys choose that job for God. They're choosing for the access to children. Like how arsonists like to become firemen so they can be near the flames.
When the fire department gets their number though, they kick them out. They sure don't transfer them to another fire department.