Chicago: The Vatican is cooperating with
American authorities seeking to extradite a priest, who is
currently in India and has been accused of molesting two
girls, lawyer for the Roman Catholic Hierarchy has said.
"The Holy See has cooperated with the requests of law
enforcement authorities seeking the extradition of Father
Jeyapaul to the United States, and in fact provided his exact
location in India to assist such efforts," a statement from
Vatican lawyer Jeffrey Lena said on the Jeyapaul Case.
Father Joseph Jeyapaul, who is currently in Tamil
Nadu, has been charged with two counts of criminal sexual
conduct stemming from accusations he assaulted a young, female
parishioner in the fall of 2004 at the Blessed Sacrament
Church in Greenbush, Minnesota, where he was working.
Each charge carries a sentence of up to 30 years.
Jeyapaul was temporarily assigned to the Diocese of
Crookston in Minnesota in 2004 and was accused of repeatedly
molesting a 16-year-old girl in the rectory.
According to the criminal complaint, the teenage girl
accused Jeyapaul of threatening to kill her family if she did
not come into the rectory, where he then forced her to perform
oral sex on him and groped her in the fall of 2004.
"The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
suggested in this matter that Father Jeyapaul agree to
laicisation, demonstrating that the Congregation believed that
the accusations were serious enough to merit dismissal from
the clerical state.
However, as a matter of longstanding canon law, such
decisions are made by the local bishop, who is deemed to be
generally in the best position to adjudicate the case relating
to the priest in question," the statement added.
Lena further said the decision regarding the canonical
penalties imposed upon Father Jeyapaul was made by the Bishop
of Ootacamund, whose diocese is located in the Nilgiris
district of Tamil Nadu in India.
Jeyapaul has spent the past five years working in
Catholic schools in India despite warnings from a US bishop,
court documents said.
According to a letter released by a lawyer
representing the victim in a civil lawsuit, Bishop Victor
Balke of Minnesota had first reported the allegations to the
Vatican and the priest`s Indian bishop in 2005 stating that
Jeyapaul could pose a "serious risk" to the women and girls of
his Indian parish.
However, despite numerous efforts by a Minnesota
prosecutor to have him extradited on charges of child rape,
Jeyapaul remained as a secretary of the diocese of
Ootacamund`s Education Commission.
"The only ones who knew about him being a rapist, were
the bishop, the Vatican and that`s it. They kept it a secret
because they were concerned about the protection of their
reputation and not about the children who are at grave peril,"
Minnesota lawyer Jeff Anderson, who is representing Jeyapaul`s
victim said.
Balke wrote in a December 2005 letter to the Vatican`s
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that Jeyapaul did
not heed his request to return to Minnesota "so that he can be
made accountable for his actions."
The Vatican morality and disciplinary watchdog wrote
back five months later to say it had contacted Jeyapaul`s
bishop with the request that his "priestly life be monitored
so that he does not constitute a risk to minors and does not
create scandal among the faithful," the court documents
showed.
Bishop A Amalraj, head of the Ootacamund diocese in
Tamil Nadu has said Jeyapaul is still working in the education
commission.
"His job is to prepare lists for the appointment of
teachers in schools run by the diocese but this does not put
him in contact with women or children," Amalraj said.
The bishop said he had complied with the Vatican
directive to monitor the priest and had housed him at his own
residence.
"There are no complaints of any kind against him in
India. But since there are these accusations against him, we
thought it best to keep him in the bishop`s house," Amalaraj
said.
The bishop however added that if the charges against
Jeyapaul are proved, he should be punished.
"Justice should be done. If the charges against him
are proved, he will be punished," he said.
PTI
