INDIANAPOLIS--Three men have field lawsuits saying the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lafayette covered up sexual abuse by a priest at Brebeuf High School in Indianapolis and Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in the 1970s and 1980s.
Court documents identify the victims as John Does 1,2, and 3. They also say they were either 12 or 13 years old at the time and said they met Father James Grear at Mount Carmel.
According to the Indystar, one of them says he was assaulted in the Mount Carmel gym during a youth rally. He says when he told a bishop in his home parish, he was told not to report it and ask for God’s forgiveness. The other two men say Grear, while Dean of Students at Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School, took them on trips, gave them gifts and molested them in his apartment across the street from the high school.
The diocese also knew Grear had been abusing children and assigned him to Mount Carmel and Brebeuf anyway without warning parents and others, the lawsuit claims.
Two of the lawsuits were filed in Marion County in November and one in Hamilton County in September. They all name Grear, the Diocese of Lafayette and Our Lady of Mount Carmel as defendants, but none of them name Brebeuf.
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