Priest sex case settled

Covington, Kentucky -

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington has reached a settlement -- possibly its largest ever -- of a lawsuit involving a former priest at Blessed Sacrament Church in Fort Mitchell who allegedly sexually abused a teen-age girl in Owensboro.

The case affords a look into how the diocese handled sex abuse cases in the late 1960s, when James Edward Fritsch was a priest in the diocese.

Typically, the church responded with a pattern of internal reports of abuse, followed by transfers and secrecy. In some cases, including Fritsch's, those transfers were to other positions involving direct contact with children.

The plaintiff, Kay Montgomery, then a ninth-grader and now a Lexington homemaker, declined to say how much the diocese paid. She is now a vocal advocate for priest sex-abuse victims, many of whom have emerged in recent years in lawsuits ranging from single-plaintiff to class-action.

Read the article at The Kentucky Post dated 01-15-2005

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