Rev. Stephen Wise Ordained: 1979 |
Start | Stop | Parish/Assignment | Town/Accusations | State | Position | Notes |
1979 Kansas City-St. Joseph bishop was John Joseph Sullivan (1977-1993) |
1981 | Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception | Kansas City • Wise was accused in a 2008 lawsuit of having molested a boy at the Cathedral in the late 1970s. Wise's accuser, a 37 year-old man in 2008, said Wise befriended his mother, who was divorced from the boy's father, and that Wise took on the role of "father figure". He said the abuse went on for about four years. |
MO | 2/3 | A 2011 lawsuit filed by a second accuser claimed the 2008 accuser approached a bishop and asked "if was okay if Fr. Wise touched" him, and that the bishop's response was, "be a good boy and quit running in the church." |
1981 | 1985 | Our Lady of the Presentation | Lee's Summit • In 2011 a 39 year-old man accused Wise in a lawsuit of sexually abusing him at this parish for two years, when the man was 10-12 years old. He said Wise recruited him to be an altar boy, and became a father figure. He said Wise orally and anally sodomized him. This accuser was serving prison time for an adult sex crime at the time of the lawsuit filing. |
MO | 2/2 | Our Lady of the Presentation had a school with 142-213 students. The Oct. 2011 lawsuit also accused the diocese of knowing Wise was molesting children, yet keeping him in ministry, moving him from parish to parish. |
1981 | 1985 | Truman Medical Center East | Kansas City | MO | This was a chaplaincy of Our Lady of the Presentation in Lee's Summit. | |
1985 | 1986 | St. Gregory Barbarigo | Maryville | MO | St. Gregory's had a school with 145 students. Wise is not indexed beyond the 1986 Directory. He left the priesthood in 1986 and later married. In Oct. 2011 the diocese said Wise was in the process of being laicized. |
Sources: Official Catholic Directory (New York: P.J. Kenedy and Sons, 1980-1986) • Statement of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City and St. Joseph, My Fox Kansas City, June 19, 2008
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