Summary: Paul St. Charles

At the request of the Nashville media, I am going to briefly summarize the issues that surround the accused pedophile priest, Paul St. Charles.  Despite being acknowledged by the Catholic church as an abuser, St. Charles still is held forth as an "vindicated" man. Ask the average Nashville Catholic about Father Paul St. Charles and you will get one or two different answers: 1.) Who is that? or, 2.) He's innocent, and the church has made a mistake.

This summary is divided into three parts:  1.) I will briefly give the facts with relavent links to current news media reporting.  2.) The tug of war between bishops will be outlined, and questions regarding this dichotomy in the Catholic church's claim of being united and supportive. 3.) The outrageous false reporting to the people that keeps children and teens in danger will be explained.  The fact that despite all the evidence to the contrary, people still believe Paul St. Charles is innocent.  

Paul St. Charles has been awarded by Bishop Choby as a "Golden Grad" of Father Ryan High School.

Part 1:  Facts in a nutshell:

• born and raised in Nashville
• attended Father Ryan High School in Nashville
  
• ordained.  Here is the entire assignment record of Paul St. Charles as it appears in the public record from the "Official Catholic Directory."  
  
• retired in 1987 and has lived for most of his retirement at 122 Tallwood Drive, Nashville, TN, 37211-2711 (see assignment record above.)
  
• during much of his retirement, he was substitute priest in many parishes and gave retreats to youth in many diocese of Nashville parishes.
• allegations against St. Charles surface in at least 2004 (probably earlier but diocese of Memphis reports nothing, exactly like its mother diocese, the diocese of Nashville)
  
• Bishop Steib with the advice of the diocesan review board in Memphis finds the allegations against Paul St. Charles to be "credible."  ("Credible" is Catholic church double-speak for "guilty" when they have no way of quelling the tide of truth about a priest.  This means that there was too much information against Paul St. Charles in their own records over the years, and they couldn't dismiss it without getting caught.)  They say is "more likely than not" to have abused. 
  
• Bishop Steib petitions the Vatican to defrock Paul St. Charles in November 2004.  To date, this has not been accomplished to my knowledge, four years after declaring Paul St. Charles credibly accused.  
  
• lawsuits begin to be filed.  Settlements begin.  
• lawsuits are still being filed . . . another one just a few weeks ago on September 12, 2008.
  

A compendium of links to the articles about this pedophile priest can be found of Bishopaccountability.org by clicking this link.

Another way to get the information on Paul St. Charles is to go to Bishopaccountability.org and search the website for the names of Bill Dries and James Dowd.  Both of these Memphis journalists have written numerous articles about this issue and the other pedophile priests in the Memphis diocese. (Be sure to put quotation marks around the names so that the search is narrowed somewhat.)

Here are some of the sources, but more complete results are at the link above:

• Bishop Suspends Priest Accused of Sex Abuse
  Paul St. Charles Was Cyo Leader
• Prosecutor Says Church Should Have Reported Sexual Abuse Cases
• Retired Memphis Priest Faces New Charges of Molestation
• Former Memphis Altar Boy Files Lawsuit
• Memphis Catholic Diocese Hit with Another Sex Suit
• Diocese Settles Sex Suits for More Than $300k
• Abuse Survivors Want Names of Molesting Priests
• Catholic Diocese Settles Lawsuits
•  Suit Accuses Retired Priest of Abuse
• Another Suit Filed against Diocese
  

Part 2:  Bishop Choby of the diocese of Nashville does not support the decision of the Bishop Terry Steib of the diocese of Memphis. 


Part 3:  The people support Paul St. Charles and think that he has not guilty despite mounting lawsuits and the diocese of Memphis asking  Rome to defrock St. Charles, permanently removing him from the priesthood.