Bishop reveals :

Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton revealed Wednesday that he had been sexually molested by a priest when he was a teenager attending Detroit Sacred Heart Seminary’s onetime high school for boys. With his revelation, Gumbleton, 75, became the first Catholic bishop in the United States to acknowledge such abuse.

He also broke ranks with the nation’s Catholic leadership by calling for new laws that would allow victims’ lawyers and investigators to dig into past cases, now largely left off limits because too many years have passed.

Gumbleton said he was a high school freshman or sophomore at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Seminary High School in the mid-1940s when a priest took him and another teenager away to a cottage. . "It was very minor, but it was also something that was very inappropriate."

More from Beliefnet and our partners
Close Ad