Priest vacates ministry

Nattick, Massachusetts-- A former West Warwick priest who pleaded guilty to charges that he raped a teenage boy in the 1970s has been removed from his religious order at his own request.

James D. Campbell, 59, was sentenced to serve 90 days in prison in January on charges of rape, assault and battery, furnishing alcohol to a minor and committing an unnatural and lascivious act after he admitted in Worcester Superior Court that he raped two male teenagers.

Advertisement
Campbell, who served as assistant pastor at St. Joseph Church in West Warwick from 1975 to 1978, committed the acts in Uxbridge, Mass. Both victims’ families attended the parish at the time of the incident.

Rev. Raymond Diesbourg -- a member of the governing council of Campbell’s former religious order, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Aurora, Ill. -- said yesterday that Roman Catholic Church officials in Rome granted the former priest his request for "laicization," or removal from the priesthood, last month.

Read the article at Kent County Daily Times dated 03/22/05

Search the web for this article