Report says priest confessed sex abuse

Molestations began in 1960, according to court documents

By Andrew Wolfson and Gregory A. Hall

July 24, 2002 - The Rev. Louis E. Miller first molested a child in 1960 and confessed it soon after to a superior, according to a psychiatric report filed Monday in Jefferson Circuit Court.

The March 1990 psychiatric evaluation says that Miller continued to molest children as often as every other month over the next two decades and ''was moved from one position to another when these incidents have come to the authorities' attention.''

The report, which was prepared by a Cincinnati psychiatrist and sent to Archbishop Thomas C. Kelly, said ''Miller admits to periodically acting out sexual impulses in this manner his entire adult life,'' mostly involving boys 10 to 15.

Miller, 71, was indicted last month in Jefferson County on charges alleging he sexually abused 15 children, and in Oldham County last week on charges of indecent or immoral practices with eight children in the St. Aloysius parish in Pewee Valley. He has pleaded innocent in both counties.

Miller also is named in 63 of 155 lawsuits that have been filed since April against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville, alleging it knew of abuse allegations and covered it up.

The psychiatric report was among documents included in 541 pages of evidence filed yesterday by prosecutors.

The records -- some of which include interviews conducted by detectives over the past two months -- offer some new details about the criminal cases in which Miller is accused of abusing 13 boys and two girls in three Louisville parishes and one hospital from 1959 to 1982.

''This is a bombshell,'' said lawyer William McMurry, who represents most of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits against the archdiocese.

McMurry said he believes the psychiatric report supports the plaintiffs' claims that the archdiocese knew about Miller's problems all along and covered them up.

The archdiocese has contended it has no records of sexual abuse allegations against Miller before 1989. Kelly has said he never knowingly put children at risk in reassigning a priest.

Archdiocesan spokeswoman Cecelia Price reiterated in an interview last night that the diocese has no records from before 1989 showing phone calls or written complaints against Miller.

The documents filed Monday include summaries of recent police interviews with most of the alleged victims named in the criminal charges.

Martha Brotzge Weinert, now 52, told detectives that when she was a student at Holy Spirit Catholic School in the early 1960s, Miller forced her to fondle him as she was being fitted for a cheerleader outfit and on another occasion woke up to find him kneeling on her bed.

''Mrs. Weinert said from that night on, she slept with a statue of the Virgin Mary in her hand, ready to hit Father Miller with it if he tried anything again,'' Louisville Police Detective Rebecca Sanders of the Crimes Against Children Unit wrote in a report.

According to another police report, Timothy Baker, 53, who also went to Holy Spirit, recalled how after the last class on Friday afternoon, Miller would pick one student to stay after school. Then, Baker said, he would take that student to the back of class, close the blinds, lock the door and molest him in sessions that lasted as long as 30 minutes.

''He said Father Miller told him it was sex education,'' Sanders wrote. ''He said Father Miller told him not to tell anyone what they did.''

Sanders said Miller's sister-in-law, Kathryn Miller, told her that Miller recently dropped by her house to see if she had heard that he'd been accused of molesting her daughter, Mary Miller, in one of the suits against the archdiocese.

''She said he told her that if he had, he was really sorry, but he usually does that with boys,'' Sanders wrote in a report.

Sanders said Brian Reynolds, the archdiocese's chief administrative officer, told police in May that during the times of the archbishops who preceded Kelly -- John A. Floersh and Thomas J. McDonough -- sexual abuse was viewed as ''a moral lapse and not a criminal wrong.''

The psychiatric report from Dr. Richard W. Brush said that Miller said his first incident of abuse came in 1960, four years after his ordination. ''He 'confessed' this to a superior, was subsequently moved,'' the report said. It does not name the superior.

Miller, who was ordained in 1956, was associate pastor at Holy Spirit in 1960. The pastor was the Right Rev. John Vance and Floersh was archbishop.

Miller was moved from Holy Spirit in December 1961.

Brush's evaluation says that after his confession, Miller began psychiatric treatment for the first of several times. Brush said in the evaluation that Miller fondled children over the next two decades, although sometimes as infrequently as once a year.

The report to Kelly specifically mentions that in 1973, Miller was assigned to a parish in the ''Greater Louisville area'' but ''the same thing happened again'' and he was moved again in 1976.

The Courier-Journal, quoting deposition testimony from the principal of St. Aloysius School, has reported that Miller was removed from that parish around that time, after the parent of a student complained that Miller had molested his son.

Brush said in his evaluation that in 1986, Miller re-entered psychotherapy after being robbed at gunpoint, ''but his history of acting out was not pursued during the treatment.''

Brush said he asked Miller about his own sexual history and was told that Miller recalled that at the age of 4 or 5, when he'd go to the grocery store for his mother, two employees would enter into ''some kind of sexual play in the back of the store.'' Miller also told Brush that he was sexually accosted in a movie theater when he was about 14.

In his evaluation, the psychiatrist advised Archbishop Kelly that he ''is faced with a difficult placement decision, particularly since Father Miller has repeated this behavior in the past. If he is considered for assignment in a parish, a major point for thought should be whether or not to assign him to one where there is frequent contact with males between the ages of 10 and 15 or 16.''

Another professional who examined Miller, Robert G. Tureen, a psychologist, wrote in a January 1990 report that Miller's absence of guilt for what he had done showed ''this is not an individual who would be expected to respond to (or even seek) psychotherapeutic help, except under pressure from external sources.''

Kelly barred Miller from working with children in January 1990, and eventually assigned him to the Sacred Heart Village, a retirement and nursing home, to serve as chaplain.

Price said last night that Kelly made an assignment ''that at the time he felt was appropriate.''

Miller retired in March 2002 and was later removed from public ministry.