Ex-priest strikes back, sues his accuser

He was laicized, but that doesn’t mean he’s been silenced.

Details, from the New York Daily News:

A once-prominent Bronx priest who was defrocked after a church tribunal found him guilty of sexually abusing a teen is suing his accuser for defamation.

Charles Kavanagh, who was once in charge of the archdiocese’s fund-raising arm, claimed in a federal suit filed Tuesday that he’s innocent.

Kavanagh, 73, was dismissed from the clergy after former seminary student Daniel Donohue said the priest took him to a Right to Life rally in Washington and molested him in a motel room.

“When he made this accusation in writing, Donohue knew it was false and he made it with malice,” Kavanagh says in the lawsuit.

“Any reasonable person would consider a false accusation of such conduct against a holy priest to be outrageous and highly offensive.”

Donohue, now 46, received a settlement from the New York Archidiocese, the lawsuit says.

The priest’s filing includes an affidavit from the former dean of Cathedral Preparatory Seminary, saying students weren’t allowed to go to the Right to Life rallies.

It also includes affidavits from two former students saying they were never taken to the rallies and didn’t know anyone who was.

And it notes minor inconsistencies in Donohue’s story, such as the time of day that the 1973 abuse allegedly happened.

There’s more at the link.