BishopAccountability.org
| ||
Priest Sentenced for Sex Abuse Back in Ohio By Tom Morton Caspter Star-Tribune [Wyoming] August 1, 2005 A Catholic priest recently released from prison after serving time for molesting a child in Guernsey in the 1980s has returned to Ohio as he intended, his attorney said last week. Anthony Jablonowski, 68, was released from the Wyoming Honor Farm in Riverton two weeks ago after serving the lower end of a 15-month to seven-year prison sentence, his attorney Dallas Laird said. In April 2004, Jablonowski pleaded no contest to taking indecent, immodest or immoral liberties with a minor who was a 17-year-old boy in the 1980s. In February, he waived a scheduled parole hearing. In March, another man filed a civil lawsuit against Jablonowski alleging he sexually abused him as a teen. After his release two weeks ago, Jablonowski registered as a sex offender in Wyoming and in Ohio, Laird said. "The only thing that makes it noteworthy is that he's a priest," Laird said. However, that alone makes it serious according to a representative of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "We at SNAP feel it is a responsibility of all of us, including the Bishops, media, and law (enforcement) to let the public know that this man, Anthony Jablonowski, is a known sex offender," said Judy Jones, SNAP leader in Steubenville, Ohio. "We all need to protect our children," Jones said. Jablonowski was a priest at St. Anthony Catholic Church in Guernsey for about 10 years before moving to Ohio in 1991. When he registered as a sex offender in Ohio, he listed his new address in Waterford as the same one as the religious order he founded 14 years ago called the Carmelite Missionaries of Mary Immaculate, according to an article in the July 26 Marietta Times. However, Jablonowski is not allowed to have any association with the lay religious order -- which does not have official status with the church -- and he is not to present himself as a priest, according to statements by Bishop Daniel Conlon of the Steubenville Diocese. Jones of SNAP doesn't think this is good enough. She wrote a letter July 26 to Conlon and Bishop David Ricken of the Diocese of Cheyenne asking why Jablonowski is back in the Steubenville Diocese and what Conlon's plans are to inform people there, plans for defrocking him and plans for informing victims that he's back in Ohio. But the Diocese of Cheyenne can't do much because Jablonowski is in Ohio and not Wyoming, according to the diocesan chancellor -- administrator -- Carol Delois. "I don't know what comment to make," Delois said. "We understand Anthony Jablonowski was released from prison and is no longer associated with the Diocese of Cheyenne; he is associated with the Diocese of Steubenville." | ||