{"id":111,"date":"2009-10-13T06:23:45","date_gmt":"2009-10-13T06:23:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/con-man-posing-as-deacon-charged-with-abuse.html"},"modified":"2009-10-13T06:23:45","modified_gmt":"2009-10-13T06:23:45","slug":"con-man-posing-as-deacon-charged-with-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/con-man-posing-as-deacon-charged-with-abuse.html","title":{"rendered":"Con man posing as deacon charged with abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

An unusual abuse accusation<\/a> out of Minneapolis:<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

A man who alleges that he was sexually abused as a child by a con man posing as a Roman Catholic deacon went public Monday to challenge recent statements made about the case by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ben Magler, now 28, has filed suit claiming that as an elementary school student he was molested by a deacon at St. Agnes Parish in St. Paul to whom he had gone for counseling. The supposed deacon, Thomas Kemp, later was discovered to be a fraud.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Last Thursday, the victim-advocates group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) called a news conference to publicize the case. In response, the archdiocese said that Kemp never served as a deacon.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Magler said that statement is not true.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“I called him Deacon Tom,” he said, adding that he did so in front of church leaders who never corrected him. Magler also provided a photograph of a party at his home in which Kemp is wearing a clerical collar.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Archdiocese spokesman Dennis McGrath said Kemp might have been presenting himself as a deacon, but “that doesn’t change the fact that the faculties for a deacon, which have to be issued by the archbishop, were never issued. There is no question about that.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Continue reading at the link<\/a>. 
<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An unusual abuse accusation out of Minneapolis: A man who alleges that he was sexually abused as a child by a con man posing as a Roman Catholic deacon went public Monday to challenge recent statements made about the case by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Ben Magler, now 28, has filed suit claiming…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nCon man posing as deacon charged with abuse - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/con-man-posing-as-deacon-charged-with-abuse.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Con man posing as deacon charged with abuse - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An unusual abuse accusation out of Minneapolis: A man who alleges that he was sexually abused as a child by a con man posing as a Roman Catholic deacon went public Monday to challenge recent statements made about the case by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Ben Magler, now 28, has filed suit claiming…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/con-man-posing-as-deacon-charged-with-abuse.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-10-13T06:23:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Deacon Greg Kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Con man posing as deacon charged with abuse - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/con-man-posing-as-deacon-charged-with-abuse.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Con man posing as deacon charged with abuse - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"An unusual abuse accusation out of Minneapolis: A man who alleges that he was sexually abused as a child by a con man posing as a Roman Catholic deacon went public Monday to challenge recent statements made about the case by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}