A former Orange County priest whose alleged molestations of a teenage boy led the Roman Catholic Church to pay a $5.2-million settlement has been hosting gatherings of young men in his home as part of an unpaid job as an advisor to college fraternities.
As recently as April 6, Michael Harris hosted a retreat for Sigma Pi pledges from Cal State Long Beach at his Oceanside house, according to the chapter president. A few weeks earlier, chapter leaders from Long Beach, Cal State Fullerton, San Diego State and UC Berkeley met there.
Harris spoke to presidents of Sigma Pi's 140 chapters in St. Louis in February, six months after the record settlement by the dioceses of Los Angeles and Orange County made national news. Harris has denied the allegations. Church officials settled the case "for their own business reasons," he said. He reluctantly agreed to leave the priesthood.
Harris did not return phone messages left at his office.
In 1994, when he resigned as principal of Santa Margarita Catholic High School in Rancho Santa Margarita, Harris told supporters in a letter that he was leaving because of stress. Afterward, however, the Diocese of Orange flew Harris to St. Luke's Institute in Maryland, a treatment center for priests.
Doctors there concluded Harris was sexually attracted to adolescent boys and that there was substance to the molestation allegations. "In one of the interviews, he did admit that he has been sexually aroused while hugging adolescent boys," according to a report made by the St. Luke's medical staff. The doctors recommended in-patient treatment, which Harris refused, and that he have no unsupervised contact with minors.
In August, the dioceses of Orange and Los Angeles disclosed that they had paid $5.2 million--at the time the largest publicly disclosed settlement of its kind--to a Laguna Hills man who had filed suit alleging that Harris molested him in 1991.
Orange County Superior Court Judge James P. Gray also ordered the church to issue public apologies to the Laguna Hills man and four others who said Harris had molested them. The judge said the victims' stories "made my skin crawl."
The district attorney's office determined there was not enough evidence to prosecute the former priest.
