Another One

A priest who allegedly molested a girl in Minnesota and then decamped to India is no big deal for the Vatican. They declined to pursue the case as recently as 2006:

According to the 2007 criminal complaint, which deals with an episode in the autumn of 2004, Father Jeyapaul told a teenage parishioner to accompany him to the rectory or else he “would kill her family.” There, Father Jeyapaul took off his collar and began touching himself and groped the girl, and forced her to perform oral sex, the complaint says.

“The defendant told the victim that it was a sin if the victim did not touch the defendant,” the complaint says.

The victim, who is now 20, first spoke with criminal investigators in October 2006. The correspondence between Vatican officials and Bishop Balke of Crookston were released as part of the victim’s civil lawsuit against the diocese.