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  Police Seek Way to Track Ex-Priest
Will Meet with Order's Leaders

By George Pawlaczyk
Belleville News-Democrat
May 31, 2006

http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/local/14704856.htm

BELLEVILLE - Belleville Police Chief Dave Ruebhausen said Tuesday he will send a detective to meet with the head of a religious order about supervision of a 78-year-old defrocked priest who admitted molesting boys.

"This is a no-brainer," Ruebhausen said, adding that if anyone publicly admits to sexually abusing a child, "whether it be a priest, a policeman, a nurse, whatever, it doesn't matter. They need to be monitored."

While it was previously reported that the Rev. Real Bourque was required to sign a sheet before leaving his retirement home, the local head of the former priest's religious order, the Rev. Allen Maes, said Tuesday that he might have misspoken. He said Bourke is only required to inform a superior when he leaves.

Ruebhausen said he wants to know whether there are any other admitted child molesters living in Belleville like Bourque. Bourque told fellow clergy and a News-Democrat reporter that he sexually molested children decades ago.

Maes, head of the local religious order that houses Bourque, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, said he doesn't know whether other retired priests in his order have sexually abused minors. He said he did not know until recently about Bourque's past.

Bourque was never charged with a crime and is not a registered sex offender, but was treated in 1995 at a church-operated facility for sexual offenders.

"Now we have an admitted child molester who is not a registered sex offender," Ruebhausen said. "If he was a registered sex offender, there are restrictions. If he stood in the middle of a playground, there is not much we could do about it."

Bourque has said that he sexually abused boys in the late '70s and early '80s when he was assigned as a priest in Massachusetts and Maine. He spent several months in 1995 at a church treatment center in Maryland, church records show.

One of his victims had complained that year to church officials in Boston when he saw a television advertisement for Bourque's Catholic cable television show, "Let Your Light Shine." Bourque was taken off the air but was allowed to work at the television station located in Alabama.

In 2002, he was transferred to the retirement home in Belleville.

Former Belleville Bishop Wilton Gregory, now archbishop of Atlanta, has said had he known about Bourque's transfer to Belleville, he would have opposed it.

Current Belleville Bishop Edward Braxton has said he has no "direct authority" over a priest who is a member of a religious order. Braxton could not be reached.

Ruebhausen said he will send Detective Beth Binnion, who leads the department's registered sex offender unit, to speak with the oblates and other church leaders. Registered sex offenders must report to police and their current home address must be made public, but Bourque is not registered because he was never convicted of a sex crime.

"Anything to assuage the fear of the public," said Maes, the head of the local oblates, when told of Ruebhausen's intention to send a detective to him to talk about Bourque.

Ruebhausen had suggested that requiring a chaperone for Bourque when he leaves the retirement home on North 60th Street in Belleville might be a good idea. Maes agreed that a chaperone might work.

Maes was asked last week whether Bourque was required to sign out and inform a superior of his departures. He said Tuesday he only intended to indicate that Bourque had to inform a superior when he was leaving the home.

Bourque is currently assigned to comfort terminally ill oblate priests at local hospitals and nursing homes.

Contact reporter George Pawlaczyk at gpawlaczyk@bnd.com and 239-2625.

 
 

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