More abuse suits filed against former Waterloo priests

Waterloo, Iowa ---

Two more people, claiming to have been sexually abused by priests who served at Waterloo parishes in the 1960s and '70s, filed lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Dubuque this week.

One of the suits alleges the late former Dubuque Archbishop James J. Byrne moved at least one priest from parish to parish in the 1960s as abuse allegations surfaced against him, only to have that priest re-offend.

That suit, filed Tuesday in Delaware County by a plaintiff identified as Jane Doe II, alleges the late Rev. Patrick McElliott abused her at St. Patrick's Parish in Colesburg in 1964, when she was 18. That was after then-Archbishop Byrne had removed McElliott from St. John's Catholic Church in Waterloo in 1963 for similar incidents.

Two other women, Kathleen Wach Guertin and Deborah A. Gindhart, each have filed suits in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids within the past two months, alleging McElliott abused them when he was at St. John's in the early 1960s and they were students at the parish school. Both are former Waterloo residents now living out of state.

Read the article at WCFCourier.com Dated April 29, 2005

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