Beine_JamesA

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Rev. James A. Beine (aka Mar James)

Summary of Case: Beine was removed from ministry in 1977 due to allegations that he had sexually abused children. He went on to run a "youth hostel" from his home, and to work in St. Louis public schools as a counselor and teacher. He also claimed to be a bishop of the Old Catholic Church. He is known to have had a position as a priest/teacher 1979-1980 at a Catholic School in WV. Beine was convicted in 2002 of sexual misconduct involving a child by indecent exposure and was sent to prison. He was convicted in March 2003 of possession of child pornography. That conviction was overturned later that year. The indecent exposure conviction was overturned in April 2005, and Beine was released from prison. By then the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's office had received at least 36 complaints of child sexual abuse by Beine dating from his time in the priesthood. He was defrocked by the Vatican in March 2005. Beine moved to Las Vegas, NV after his release from prison. He has also gone by the name Mar James.

Ordained: 1967

Start	Stop	Assignment	Town/Accusations	State	Position	Notes
		St. Mary Magdalen	St. Louis	MO	Deacon
1964 St. Louis archbishop was Joseph Elmer Ritter (1946-1967)		St. Monica's	Creve Coeur • Beine was accused by a 53 year old man in a 2005 lawsuit of having sexually abused him when he was in sixth and seventh grades at this parish. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch August 26, 2005 )	MO	Deacon
1967 Ritter was replaced by John Joseph Carberry (1968-1979)	1970	St. Peter's	St. Charles • Accused in a 1994 lawsuit of having sexually abused two boys in 1967, while he was at St. Peter's. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch [Missouri] June 10, 1994)	MO	3/4	Parish had a school with 684-646 students.
1970	1972	St. Andrew's	Lemay • Accused in a 2005 lawsuit of having sexually abused an 11 year old boy in the early 1970s while at this parish. The accuser said that Beine took him and five other boys on a camping trip to Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park, where the abuse took place. (Post-Dispatch [St. Louis MO] June 27, 2005)	MO	2/3	Parish had a school with 473-412 students.
1972	1976	St. Francis De Sales	St. Louis	MO	2/3	Parish had a grade school with 570-375 students, and a high school until 1974 with 231-209 students.
1976	1977	"Retired"				Beine was removed from ministry in 1977 due to child sex abuse allegations (Post-Dispatch [St. Louis MO] April 12, 2003)
1979 Wheeling-Charleston Bishop was Joseph Howard Hodges (1962-1985)	1980	St. Joseph Central High School	Huntington	WV	Chairman, Theology Dept.	Although not indexed or listed as such in the Directories, Beine appears-still as a priest-in the 1980 St. Joseph's yearbook.
		New Haven High School	New Haven • Accused in a 2005 lawsuit of having sexually abused a male student of this school for about a year, beginning in 1978. (SNAPmidwest.org Aug. 27, 2005)	MO	counselor	Beine is said to have been allowed to work in nearly a dozen schools after leaving the priesthood. (snapnetwork.org 2002)
		Community of St. John Bosco/Sancto Joannes Bosco	Maryland Heights	MO		This was a non-profit that Beine started.
1994		St. John Center	Warren County (Incline Village)	MO		St. John Center was a youth hostel in Incline Village in Warren County MO, which Beine ran from his home. Beine claimed to be a bishop of the Old Catholic Church in North America. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch [Missouri] June 10, 1994)
1991	1994	Bryan Hill Elementary School	St. Louis	MO	counselor	This was a public school. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch June 11, 1994)
	2002	Patrick Henry Elementary School	St. Louis • Accused and convicted of exposing himself to three students from this school in 2000-2001. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch [Missouri] April 27, 2005)		counselor	Beine was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2002 for sexual misconduct involving a child by indecent exposure. Beine also went by the name Mar James. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch [Missouri] April 27, 2005)
2002	2005	Farmington Correctional Facility	St. Francois County • Convicted of possesion of child pornography in March 2003. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch [St. Louis MO] June 2, 2005)	MO	inmate	The child pornography conviction was overturned in Dec. 2003 by a federal appeals court, which said the investigators did not have the necessary warrant.
2005			Las Vegas	NV		The indecent exposure conviction was overturned in April 2005. By then the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's office had received at least 36 complaints of sexual abuse by Beine from when he was a priest. He was defrocked by the Vatican in March 2005 (Post-Dispatch [St. Louis MO] May 19, 2005), and released from prison in June 2005. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch [St. Louis MO] June 2, 2005) Beine relocated to Las Vegas. (Belleville News-Democrat, January 8, 2007) His teaching and counseling licenses were revoked in Missiouri in Oct. 2007. (News-Leader, October 13, 2007)

Source: Official Catholic Directory (New York: P.J. Kennedy and Sons, 1965-2009)

Priests in a Parish: We use the following convention to show a priest's place among the clergy of a parish: 1/2 means that he is the first priest listed in the Official Catholic Directory (usually the pastor) and that there is a total of two priests at the parish. The shorthand 3/4 means that the priest is listed third on a four-priest roster. See our sample page from the Directory.

Note: The Official Catholic Directory aims to report the whereabouts of Catholic priests in the United States on January 1 of the Directory's publication year. Our working assumption is that a priest listed in the Directory for a given year was at the same assignment for part of the previous year as well. However, Kennedy and Sons will sometimes accept updates well into the year of publication. Diocesan clergy records are rarely available to correct this information. The Directory is also sometimes misleading or wrong. We have tried to create an accurate assignment record, given the source materials and their limitations. Assignment records are a work in progress and we are always improving the records that we post. Please email us with new information and corrections.

This assignment record collates Beine's career history as it is represented in the Official Catholic Directory with allegations as reported in the media. We make no representation regarding the truth of the allegation we report, and we remind our readers that the U.S. legal system presumes that a person accused of or charged with a crime is innocent until proven guilty. Similarly, individuals who may be defendants in civil actions are presumed not to be liable for such claims unless a plaintiff proves otherwise. Admissions of guilt or liability are not typically a part of civil or private settlements. For more information, see our posting policy.

This assignment record was last updated on Aug. 13, 2010

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