COVER-UP IN MISSOURI
NEWS: US NEWS
Warning signs ignored
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (ChurchMilitant.com) - A parent is coming forward with new evidence corroborating allegations of sex abuse against a recently retired Missouri priest.
Elizabeth Mangler is recounting interactions she had with Fr. Gary Carr, a priest of the Springfield-Cape Girardeau diocese. She had previously documented these encounters in attempts to warn Catholic officials of Carr's behavior. She told the Springfield News-Leader that Church officials, however, had deliberately turned a blind eye to all the warning signs.
"Our priest knew, the next priest knew, the bishop knew, the next bishop knew," said Mangler. "They knew this was going on."
The diocese claims it received its first complaint about Carr in October 2019. Then, in April 2020, four more men came forward with accusations of abuse from the 1980s and 1990s.
The Springfield newspaper reported on the story in April. When Mangler saw the coverage, she gathered up all of her documents and contacted the newspaper.
Carr began his career in Joplin, Missouri in 1981. Within two years, the priest had to take a leave of absence for health reasons. It was the first of six health-related leaves the priest required in his initial 25 years of service.
During this period, when he wasn't on leave, Carr served small, rural parishes in the Ozarks. He was assigned to St. Lawrence Catholic School in Monett, Missouri in 2001, where Mangler first met him.
Mangler, a parent volunteer for the school, said it wasn't long before she and other parents noticed Carr behaving questionably. She reports that during an elementary school Mardi Gras party, Carr "paraded around" in a "makeshift diaper." On another occasion, he was "wrestling shirtless with a group of fifth-grade boys."
In one incident, a student ran away from Carr and escaped into the school's computer lab shouting, "He's a pedophile, get him away from me." Mangler also reports that Carr was banned from a boy's home in Verona, Missouri after he dropped off donated clothes.
Mangler documented all these incidents and saved them in her computer files "in case" anyone ever came forward accusing Carr. During that period, her notes record that she wrote to or met with five Church officials — the St. Lawrence Catholic School board president, the diocesan superintendent, a monsignor, her own parish priest and the St. Lawrence parish priest.
According to Mangler, in the three years Carr was at the school, Church officials never took any action against the priest.
Carr left St. Lawrence School on a health-related leave of absence in 2004. He resurfaced in 2008 in St. Louis just as Abp. Raymond Burke was leaving for his new appointment at the Vatican.
Before Burke left St. Louis, he entrusted the historic St. Francis de Sales Church to the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, a Roman Catholic priestly community of pontifical rite dedicated to the Latin Mass.
It was to this church that Bp. James Johnston assigned the troubled priest. Within five months, Johnston put Carr on administrative leave. He was only allowed to celebrate Mass privately and was not allowed to present himself as a priest or be around minors. He remained under those restrictions for the next 11 years, until his retirement at age 66 in 2019.
Based on diocese-provided information about Carr's pastoral appointments, accusers from the 1980s are likely from either Joplin or Springfield. Deceased cardinal Bernard Law presided over the diocese until 1984 when he was appointed archbishop of Boston.
Law was made famous in early 2002 for covering up years of sexual abuse at the hands of dozens of priests. His primary modus operandi was to move abusive priests from parish to parish. The cover-up set off a global crisis in the Church.
Mangler wants people to know she and others in Monett tried to stop Carr.
"We did follow the best chain of command the Catholic Church has to offer," she said.
Posts
