Attorney sues U.S. diocese in latest abuse case

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (Reuters) - The U.S. lawyer accusing the Vatican of covering up priests' sex abuse outlined on Monday the case of a former Minnesota priest who allegedly told a teenage girl that not touching him was a sin.

"We are sad and we are alarmed. Sad because so many kids have been wounded and because top Vatican officials don't get it and remain in denial," said attorney Jeffrey Anderson.

Revelations of sexual abuse of children by priests and alleged cover-ups have surfaced almost daily in several countries over the past few weeks.

Last month Anderson filed a lawsuit involving a Wisconsin priest, now dead, who was accused of molesting as many as 200 boys at a school for the deaf from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Anderson presented documents from the Crookston, Minnesota, diocese and from local police that accuse Father Joseph Jeyapaul of molesting two teenage girls starting six years ago.

Anderson has filed suit against the Minnesota diocese and said he may expand it to the church in India, where Jeyapaul now works.

Jeyapaul told one alleged victim that "it was a sin if the victim did not touch (him)," according to a police report provided by Anderson.

A girl who was considering becoming a nun was threatened by Jeyapaul if she did not accept his advances, according to the documents. They say he arranged to be with his victims alone -- usually at his rectory.

Jeyapaul, 55, has returned to his native India and has no intention of coming back to answer the charges, according to diocese documents obtained by Anderson. He now works in the diocese of Ootacamund in India, in an office evaluating teachers.

Jeyapaul is charged in Roseau County, Minnesota, with two counts of criminal sexual conduct involving one of the girls.

The prosecutor in the case, Lisa Hanson, said she was seeking to have Jeyapaul extradited. He could face 30 years in prison on each count.

No one at the Crookston, Minnesota diocese could be reached for comment.

DIFFERENT ERA

In the case of the Wisconsin priest, the Milwaukee diocese sent letters about Rev. Lawrence Murphy to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- now Pope Benedict -- who at the time headed the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's enforcement arm. The priest appealed to Ratzinger to be left alone, and he was never defrocked.

One of Murphy's alleged victims said he went to the police, but he said detectives questioned and then released Murphy, who denied the accusations.

Hanson, the prosecutor, said authorities in decades past may have responded differently to such charges.

"There were an awful lot of people afraid to take on the Roman Catholic Church at that time," Hanson said.

The U.S. church and the Vatican have variously responded to the latest wave of abuse cases in Europe and the United States with apologies to victims, some acknowledgment that mistakes were made, and charges that the media were attempting to smear the pope.

Two victims of priest abuse said they were organizing a demonstration that they hoped would attract tens of thousands of protesters to Vatican Square on October 31 -- the anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation.

"Nobody can deny this problem anymore. It's getting to the point it's that large," said Olan Horne, 50, one of the protest organizers.

(Additional reporting and writing by Andrew Stern; Editing by Xavier Briand)