Altar Boy

A lawsuit against the Catholic Church alleges that a priest molested a young boy 30 years ago at St. Killian Church in Mission Viejo. The accuser, named John Doe in the suit, says he was an altar boy in 1972, when Father Bertrand W. Horvath molested him. The suit, filed last week in Orange County Superior Court, alleges that church officials moved Horvath, a Franciscan priest, from "parish to parish, from diocese to diocese, from state to state, so as to make detection harder and ...

A former altar boy alleged in court papers filed Monday that he was molested at a Van Nuys church by Father Michael Stephen Baker, bringing to three the number of victims who say they were abused after the priest admitted engaging in sexual misconduct to Cardinal Roger M. Mahony. The lawsuit alleges that Baker abused at least a dozen young boys between 1975 and 1999.

A former altar boy has come forward to accuse Father Michael Pecharich--dismissed Monday by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange for what he contended was an isolated sexual abuse incident 19 years ago--of molesting him a quarter of a century ago. The alleged second victim, Jim Griley, 38, of Morro Bay, said he reported the incidents Tuesday to diocesan officials.

As a former altar boy who quit just when I was getting good at it, guilt is my partner. So I suffered over the many darts tossed my way after a column about the new cathedral on the mount at Temple and Grand in downtown Los Angeles. If you missed it, I walked from skid row to the new cathedral with a member of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker, whose disciples argue the $163-million project is a scandalous corruption of the mission of Jesus. On the contrary, fumed my critics.

A 35-year-old man who allegedly threatened to kill Cardinal Roger Mahony was barred by court order Monday from coming within 100 yards of the Los Angeles Roman Catholic prelate for the next three years, according to court officials. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard E. Denner granted an injunction against Michael Patrick Falls of Azusa, who allegedly threatened Mahony on March 11 as Falls was trying to gain entry to Charter Oak Hospital in Covina.

Most of the bands playing the Suburbia 2 Christian-alternative rock festival can look to the headlining Supertones and imagine taking a similar elevator ride toward the penthouse of success. The festival also will honor a band that helped lay the ground floor of O.C. Christian-alternative music, the Altar Boys. The punk-influenced band broke up at the end of 1992, after a 10-year run that produced five albums, plus two solo releases by front man Mike Stand.

Suspended Roman Catholic priest Rudolph Kos was sentenced Wednesday to the maximum of life in prison for sexually assaulting altar boys in hundreds of attacks that earlier produced a record monetary judgment against the Dallas diocese. Kos, 52, was convicted Saturday on three counts of aggravated sexual assault. In addition to the sentence of life imprisonment on each of those counts, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison on one count of indecency with a child.

Over the course of his life, Michael Dally transformed from a polite altar boy into a drug-using patron of prostitutes who psychologically abused and cheated on his wife, a childhood friend testified Thursday. John Avila told jurors in the murder trial of Dally's lover, Diana Haun, that he knew Dally since childhood but become estranged from the 37-year-old grocery clerk in recent years as Dally slid into a seedy world of drug use and crime.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas and a defrocked priest were ordered Thursday to pay $119 million to 10 men and the family of a suicide victim who were molested as altar boys, in what is believed to be the costliest sex abuse judgment ever levied against a church. The jury award ended an 11-week civil trial in which the church was accused of covering up the conduct of a pedophile priest, Father Rudolph "Rudy" Kos.

A Roman Catholic priest who had been accused of molesting Southern California boys over two decades committed suicide in Washington, D.C., police said Saturday. Father Ted Llanos, 50, killed himself Monday, police spokeswoman Haydee Carter said. She gave no details, citing department policies on suicides. Llanos was charged last year with sexually molesting five youths--most of them altar boys at the time--while he was assigned to five Southern California churches, beginning in 1973.