Rev. James A. Beine (aka Mar James)
Summary of Case: Beine was removed from ministry in 1977 due to allegations that he had sexually abused children. He went on to run a "youth hostel" from his home, and to work in St. Louis public schools as a counselor and teacher. He also claimed to be a bishop of the Old Catholic Church. He is known to have had a position as a priest/teacher 1979-1980 at a Catholic School in WV. Beine was convicted in 2002 of sexual misconduct involving a child by indecent exposure and was sent to prison. He was convicted in March 2003 of possession of child pornography. That conviction was overturned later that year. The indecent exposure conviction was overturned in April 2005, and Beine was released from prison. By then the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's office had received at least 36 complaints of child sexual abuse by Beine dating from his time in the priesthood. He was defrocked by the Vatican in March 2005. Beine moved to Las Vegas, NV after his release from prison. He has also gone by the name Mar James.
Ordained: 1967
|
| Start | Stop | Assignment | Town/Accusations | State | Position | Notes |
| St. Mary Magdalen | St. Louis | MO | Deacon | |||
1964 St. Louis archbishop was Joseph Elmer Ritter (1946-1967) |
St. Monica's | Creve Coeur • Beine was accused by a 53 year old man in a 2005 lawsuit of having sexually abused him when he was in sixth and seventh grades at this parish. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch |
MO | Deacon | ||
1967 Ritter was replaced by John Joseph Carberry (1968-1979) |
1970 | St. Peter's | St. Charles • Accused in a 1994 lawsuit of having sexually abused two boys in 1967, while he was at St. Peter's. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch [Missouri] |
MO | 3/4 | Parish had a school with 684-646 students. |
| 1970 | 1972 | St. Andrew's | Lemay • Accused in a 2005 lawsuit of having sexually abused an 11 year old boy in the early 1970s while at this parish. The accuser said that Beine took him and five other boys on a camping trip to Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park, where the abuse took place. (Post-Dispatch [St. Louis MO] |
MO | 2/3 | Parish had a school with 473-412 students. |
| 1972 | 1976 | St. Francis De Sales | St. Louis | MO | 2/3 | Parish had a grade school with 570-375 students, and a high school until 1974 with 231-209 students. |
| 1976 | 1977 | "Retired" | Beine was removed from ministry in 1977 due to child sex abuse allegations (Post-Dispatch [St. Louis MO] April 12, 2003) |
|||
1979 Wheeling-Charleston Bishop was Joseph Howard Hodges (1962-1985) |
1980 | St. Joseph Central High School
|
Huntington | WV |  |
Although not indexed or listed as such in the Directories, Beine appears-still as a priest-in the 1980 St. Joseph's yearbook.
|
| New Haven High School | New Haven • Accused in a 2005 lawsuit of having sexually abused a male student of this school for about a year, beginning in 1978. (SNAPmidwest.org Aug. 27, 2005) |
MO | counselor | Beine is said to have been allowed to work in nearly a dozen schools after leaving the priesthood. (snapnetwork.org 2002) Lived at some point in Highland, IL. (Associated Press April 28, 2005) |
||
| Community of St. John Bosco/Sancto Joannes Bosco | Maryland Heights | MO | This was a non-profit that Beine started. | |||
| 1994 | St. John Center | Warren County (Incline Village) | MO | St. John Center was a youth hostel in Incline Village in Warren County MO, which Beine ran from his home. Beine claimed to be a bishop of the Old Catholic Church in North America. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch [Missouri] June 10, 1994) |
||
| 1991 | 1994 | Bryan Hill Elementary School | St. Louis | MO | counselor | This was a public school. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch June 11, 1994) |
| 2002 | Patrick Henry Elementary School | St. Louis • Accused and convicted of exposing himself to three students from this school in 2000-2001. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch [Missouri] |
counselor | Beine was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2002 for sexual misconduct involving a child by indecent exposure. Beine also went by the name Mar James. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch [Missouri] |
||
| 2002 | 2005 | Farmington Correctional Facility | St. Francois County • Convicted of possesion of child pornography in March 2003. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch [St. Louis MO] |
MO | inmate | The child pornography conviction was overturned in Dec. 2003 by a federal appeals court, which said the investigators did not have the necessary warrant. |
| 2005 | Las Vegas | NV | The indecent exposure conviction was overturned in April 2005. By then the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's office had received at least 36 complaints of sexual abuse by Beine from when he was a priest. He was defrocked by the Vatican in March 2005 (Post-Dispatch [St. Louis MO] Beine relocated to Las Vegas. (Belleville News-Democrat |
Source: Official Catholic Directory (New York: P.J. Kenedy and Sons, 1965-2009)
Priests in a Parish: We use the following
convention to show a priest's place among the clergy of a parish: 1/2 means
that he is the first priest listed in the Official Catholic Directory (usually
the pastor) and that there is a total of two priests at the parish. The shorthand
3/4 means that the priest is listed third on a four-priest roster. See our sample
page from the Directory.
Note: The Official Catholic Directory aims to report
the whereabouts of Catholic priests in the United States on January 1 of the
Directory's publication year. Our working assumption is that a priest
listed in the Directory for a given year was at the same assignment
for part of the previous year as well. However, Kenedy and Sons will sometimes
accept updates well into the year of publication. Diocesan clergy records are
rarely available to correct this information. The Directory is also
sometimes misleading or wrong. We have tried to create an accurate assignment
record, given the source materials and their limitations. Assignment records
are a work in progress and we are always improving the records that we post.
Please email us
with new information and corrections.
This assignment record collates Beine's career history as it is represented
in the Official Catholic Directory with allegations as reported in the
media. We make no representation regarding the truth of the allegation we report,
and we remind our readers that the U.S. legal system presumes that a person
accused of or charged with a crime is innocent until proven guilty. Similarly,
individuals who may be defendants in civil actions are presumed not to be liable
for such claims unless a plaintiff proves otherwise. Admissions of guilt or
liability are not typically a part of civil or private settlements. For more
information, see our posting
policy.
This assignment record was last updated on May 7, 2021.
