Ex-principal says priest given jobs despite sex claim
Archdiocese knew of allegation in '75, deposition claims
By Andrew Wolfson
July 14, 2002- A former Catholic school principal says in a deposition that the Archdiocese of Louisville knew about child sex-abuse allegations against the Rev. Louis Miller as early as 1975, but continued to assign him to parishes where he worked with children.
Miller was moved from St. Aloysius Catholic Church in the 1975-76 school year ''a couple of days'' after an eighth-grader reported that Miller had molested him, said Sister Mary Fulgence Logsdon, the school's former principal.
But Logsdon said she was never interviewed about the allegation before Miller was installed six months later as pastor at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic Church, where he is also accused of abusing students.
The deposition was one of two conducted in May and obtained last week by The Courier-Journal.
Logsdon said that to her knowledge, archdiocesan officials never talked to other parents or teachers to see if additional children complained they had been molested at St. Aloysius.
The current archdiocesan administration has said that it has no record of complaints against Miller during the 1960s or 1970s.
Logsdon said, however, that she was told by St. Aloysius' pastor, Monsignor Joseph Allgeier, that the archdiocese knew of the allegation there at the time.
In her deposition, Logsdon said she didn't warn the principal at St. Elizabeth about Miller, even though principals in the archdiocese met monthly. ''I didn't think it was my job to do that sort of thing,'' she said. ''I thought if he had had help and he was OK, who was I to dig up the trash?''
Attorney William McMurry asked Logsdon: ''If it was your decision to make, would you have sent him to another parish to be around children?''
Logsdon, who taught for 38 years at various Catholic schools and is now retired, replied: ''In my heart, I just thought, well, he must have gotten help.''
Jefferson Circuit Judge Denise Clayton in May authorized McMurry -- who represents most of the 63 plaintiffs who have sued the Archdiocese of Louisville charging that it knew about alleged abuse by Miller and did nothing -- to take the deposition of Logsdon, as well as Auxiliary Bishop Charles Maloney.
Ed Stopher, attorney for the archdiocese, attended both depositions, and raised frequent objections to McMurry's questions. Stopher did not question Logsdon or Maloney himself.
McMurry provided the newspaper with copies of the depositions on Friday, one day after Chief Jefferson Circuit Judge James Shake, in a ruling against the archdiocese, held that records in the cases should not be sealed. In all, the church is a defendant in more than 150 suits filed since April accusing 21 priests of sexual misconduct.
IN HIS MAY 28 deposition, Maloney, 89, partially disclaimed some of the comments attributed to him in a May 5 Courier-Journal story that said he remembered parents of Holy Spirit School students reporting to him in the early 1960s that Miller had done something wrong.
Maloney said in the deposition that he only remembers ''rumors'' of Miller's misconduct. He also said that if he set up a meeting between Holy Spirit parents and then-Archbishop John Floersh, he didn't know the topic.
In the deposition, Maloney acknowledged that his sister, Isabelle Maloney Diebold -- whose son Frank attended Holy Spirit -- asked him to intervene with the archbishop, but Maloney said he couldn't remember what she wanted.
Diebold's son, Frank Diebold, who attended Holy Spirit in 1959 and 1960, was one of the 15 people whom Miller was charged with molesting in a 42count indictment returned last month.
Maloney said he has a large family, with a dozen siblings, and he didn't remember that his nephew went to Holy Spirit.
Miller, who retired in March and was later removed from public ministry, has pleaded innocent to the criminal charges and otherwise declined to comment on the allegations.
Brian Reynolds, chief administrative officer for the archdiocese, declined to comment on the depositions other than to say he was surprised that McMurry had given copies of them to a reporter.
McMurry said he was disappointed that Maloney, in his deposition, didn't confirm what was attributed to him in the newspaper.
But McMurry said Logsdon's deposition ''clearly shows that the archdiocese was put on notice'' about allegations against Miller. He also suggested that she ''gave complete credibility to . . . John Thornberry's'' allegations.
Logsdon, who was principal at St. Aloysius from 1972 to 1977, said in her testimony that Thornberry was the only boy who ever told her about allegations against Miller. But she said she had ''no trouble believing him because he was a real fine fellow and wouldn't be making it up.''
JOHN PATRICK Thornberry, who is now 40 and one of the plaintiffs who has sued the archdiocese, said in an interview last month that Miller pulled him from class in late 1975, supposedly to run an errand. Instead, Thornberry alleges, the priest brought him to the rectory basement, pulled down his own pants, then put the boy's hand on his penis and forced him to masturbate the priest until he ejaculated.
McMurry said Logsdon's deposition shows she was so concerned about Thornberry's allegation that she called all her teachers on the night that Thornberry's father told her about it.
''I alerted the teachers and told them Father (Miller) had attacked one of the boys and that I didn't want a single child unattended as long as he was around,'' she said.
McMurry said that ''speaks volumes for the appropriate way to react'' to such allegations.
''It is a tragedy that the archbishop'' -- then Thomas McDonough -- ''didn't treat this conduct with equal fear and react by removing Miller from the priesthood,'' he said.
Logsdon said she reported Thornberry's allegation to the senior pastor, Allgeier, who told her the archdiocese already had heard about the allegation from Thornberry's father. She said Miller was removed ''in a couple of days.''
Logsdon said she didn't know that Kentucky law required the reporting of child abuse, but she said she thought she was morally obligated to make sure the pastor and archdiocese knew about the allegation.
After leaving St. Aloysius, Miller had no assignment for four months and then was given two temporary jobs at other parishes before being installed at St. Elizabeth and promoted soon after to pastor.
Logsdon said she didn't know about the appointment until she read about it in The Record, the archdiocese's newspaper.
''Did the archbishop contact you and interview you?'' McMurry asked.
''No.''
''Did anyone, on behalf of the archdiocese?'' McMurry asked.
''No.''
''Did the archdiocese conduct an investigation that included, to your knowledge, talking with parents of other school kids?''
''To the best of my knowledge, they didn't,'' she said.
LOGSDON ALSO SAID she knew nothing about Miller's background when he was moved to St. Aloysius in 1973. The archdiocese has said it has found no records accusing Miller of misconduct in other parishes, but some plaintiffs say that either they or their parents reported him at both Holy Spirit, where he served from 1957 to 1961 and St. Athanasius, where he was assistant pastor in 1961 and 1962.
Logsdon said Miller left St. Aloysius in 1976, although the archdiocese has said that he was removed in November 1975, which matches what Thornberry has said.
Miller served as pastor of St. Elizabeth for 13 years, until he was accused of molesting another boy in 1979 and barred by McDonough's successor, Thomas Kelly, from working with children.
In 1992 he was assigned to work at Sacred Heart Village, a retirement home, where Logsdon, the chairman of the pastoral department, was his boss.
''Did you talk to him about events back in 1976?'' McMurry asked.
''Oh, no no,'' she said.
Logsdon added that the elderly residents ''loved him'' and ''he was good to them. I have to say that. There was no indication whatsoever that he had this problem.''
Although children occasionally came to visit elderly relatives -- and some school classes came to perform -- they were never left alone with Miller, Logsdon said.
She said only she and the home's administrator knew about the past allegations against Miller, but she said they both monitored him closely.
Responding to McMurry's questions about whether Miller posed a danger at the retirement home, Logsdon said, ''I just thought it was an ideal place for him, because there were very few children ever there.''
