San Francisco Jury Rules Against Church in Sex Suit

San Francisco, California -

San Francisco's Roman Catholic Archdiocese was aware of the sexual abuse of a teen-age boy by one of its priests in the 1970s, a jury decided on Friday in a verdict with implications for hundreds of similar lawsuits in California.

'This verdict resolved the issue of whether the Archdiocese of San Francisco knew or should have known,' said Larry Drivon, the lawyer for 47-year-old Dennis Kavanaugh, who sued the Archdiocese alleging one of its priests molested him repeatedly when he was a teen-ager.

San Francisco Archbishop William Levada said church officials were never aware of any abuse.

'I find it very troubling that while the Archdiocese certainly did not know of the molestation, a very subjective judgment can be made under the law, using today's sensibilities regarding what the Archdiocese 'should' have known more than 30 years ago,' Levada said in a statement.

Read the article at Reuters.com dated Mar 18, 2005

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