The Rev. Victor A. Frobas, a priest and convicted molester of teen-age boys,
spent his last days grumbling that the Roman Catholic Church should have done
more to make him stop.

A mother in west St. Louis County believes to this day that someone in the
church hierarchy should have known to keep Frobas away from children -
especially from her son.

And a man in Massachusetts, who said Frobas molested him 24 years ago, says
church officials had plenty of time to sound the alarm in St. Louis.

Frobas' story includes a trail of allegations that he sexually abused boys in
at least three states during the 1970s and 1980s, ending in Missouri with a
guilty plea and two years in prison. He died at age 55 in a Catholic nursing
home in Shrewsbury in 1993, pursued by suits and criminal charges from other
states.

His story is one that has become all too familiar as the Catholic Church
comes to grips with new disclosures of past sexual abuse - a problem priest
shuttled from parish to parish, city to city, with the reasons kept secret.

Frobas was ordained in 1966 in Wheeling, W.Va., for the Diocese of
Wheeling-Charleston. He came to St. Louis in 1983 for "treatment" - a term his
home diocese will not elaborate upon. After a while, he began serving as a
visiting priest on weekends at Holy Infant parish in Ballwin and St. Elizabeth
of Hungary in Crestwood.

On Aug. 2, 1988, he pleaded guilty in St. Louis County Circuit Court of
molesting two boys, then 13 and 15, from Holy Infant. He served 25 months in
prison and died of cancer and diabetes on July 11, 1993.

In the months before and after his death, criminal charges in Worcester,
Mass., and suits filed in Wheeling accused him of molesting boys during the
1970s - well before he came to St. Louis. It also turned out that Frobas had
been in Massachusetts back then for his first round of treatment.

So who in St. Louis knew about his tendency, and when?

Terry Edelmann, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, said Friday
the office did not have time to review the Frobas case because of the
disclosures last week of allegations about other priests. The Post-Dispatch
inquired about Frobas in writing on Thursday morning.

On Jan. 1, 1988, an article in the St. Louis Review that reported on Frobas'
indictment quoted then-auxiliary Bishop Edward J. O'Donnell, now bishop of
Lafayette, La., as saying the archdiocese never was told of anything about
Frobas "that would have prevented him from effective parish service." The
Review is the official archdiocesan newspaper.

But as he lay dying, Frobas complained to his lawyer that church officials
had moved him around from state to state without making much effort to cure him
of his sexual disorder, the lawyer said. William J. Shaw, then the county's
public defender, remembered the conversations because, he said, Frobas pondered
writing a book about himself as a warning to others.

"He was very angry at the church and believed it just shuffled him around to
cover up his problem all those years," Shaw said last week. "It was clear to me
he was a pedophile. But the church transferring him around, pretending all is
well, made for a very sad situation. Maybe we're seeing the end of this."

The woman from Holy Infant said her son, now 29, spent time with Frobas on
several occasions in 1985. Not until her family went to police two years later,
she said, did any church official admit to her that Frobas had molested before.

"That's when we were told that he had been a pedophile and had been sent here
for treatment," said the woman, 64. "Did our pastor know this and, if he did,
why would he have let Frobas have any contact with our children? They covered
it up, and that makes me mad."

She said she can't remember which priest told her about Frobas' past. Msgr.
Adolph Schilly, pastor of Holy Infant until 1984, died two years ago. Neither
Msgr. Jerome Buchheit, who replaced Schilly and now is retired, nor the Rev.
Robert Rosborough, former assistant at Holy Infant and now pastor of Sacred
Heart parish in Valley Park, could be reached for this article.

The woman said she did not want her family's name published. The names of her
son and the other victim are in the case file in the courthouse in Clayton but
never were made public because Frobas pleaded guilty rather than face trial.

The woman, now a widow, still attends Holy Infant. She said her son has left
the Catholic Church.

"He refuses to have anything to do with God," she said. "This is part of what
really hurts the parents. They can hide these priests and sweep these things
under the rug, but they don't think of the damage that has been done to these
boys.

"That's the hurt that eats away at me like a cancer," she said.



Problems in the parishes

David Clohessy, national director of a 3,500-member group called SNAP
(Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests), said Frobas' trail through
three states amounted to a standard practice back then and still occurs today.
Clohessy said he was sexually abused by a priest in his native Moberly, Mo.,
starting when he was 11 until he was 15.

"This was painfully common," said Clohessy, 45. "In recent years, bishops
have tried to define it as ancient history. It's more common that priests
simply are shifted within their diocese, but we have seen that, the smaller the
diocese, the more likely the solution will be to ship him elsewhere.

"When a new priest arrives in a parish, we all tend to trust him," he said.
"But, lacking any information from church leaders on backgrounds like this, the
trust can prove dangerous."

A clinical psychologist who has worked on the issue with the Archdiocese of
St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minn., said church officials often were too
optimistic about the prospects of reforming sex offenders. Gary Schoener, a
psychologist in Minneapolis, said now-retired Archbishop John Roach asked him
to assist because some offenders had been returned to parish work, only to
abuse again.

Schoener said he believed that therapists spent too little time with victims
and too much with offenders, often becoming too sympathetic to the priests.

"When the recommendation letters come back, they are mealy-mouthed," Schoener
said. "What they don't say is, 'Pull the plug on this guy.' You don't take a
chronic alcoholic and turn him into a bartender. That doesn't make sense."



A trail of trouble

This is the tale of Frobas, as related in 10-year-old newspaper articles from
other cities, courthouse filings, statements from victims and comments by
church spokesmen in Wheeling, Worcester and St. Louis:

Frobas, a native of Philadelphia, served in West Virginia as a parish priest,
a counselor at a Catholic youth camp and teacher at the Catholic high school in
Wheeling. He allegedly molested a boy, a sophomore, at the school in 1977.

In that same year, Frobas moved to Massachusetts and became a resident of the
former House of Affirmation, which was a retreat center near Worcester for
priests with psychological disorders. He served as a visiting priest at St.
Rose of Lima parish in Northboro, Mass., and organized the altar boys.

He allegedly molested boys there in 1978 and 1979.

The suits and criminal charges alleging the offenses at Wheeling Catholic
High School and St. Rose in Northboro weren't filed until 1993 and 1994. Frobas
died before he could be prosecuted in Worcester, and the suits in Massachusetts
and West Virginia were settled and placed under seal in 1995 and 1996.

Michael Grammer, spokesman for the Wheeling diocese, said he could not find
any information in the files explaining why Frobas had gone to the House of
Affirmation. (Clohessy said the priest who abused him also had spent time
there.)

But Barry W. Houle, 40, of Northboro, said last week that diocesan officials
in Worcester had known of Frobas' tendencies since at least the fall of 1978.
After Frobas sexually molested him in the St. Rose rectory, Houle said, he
grabbed his clothes, fled and told his parents that night.

Houle said he and his parents spoke the next day to the Rev. Timothy J.
Harrington, then auxiliary bishop of Worcester and, a few days later, to the
director of the House of Affirmation.

"I told them exactly what Frobas had done to me," Houle said. "Harrington
said, 'You don't have to go to the authorities.' He promised that he would deal
with the matter. I never was an altar boy again. I found out much later that
Frobas stayed several more months and molested more boys."

Houle said he received money in a settlement but is barred from disclosing
how much. Harrington is deceased. Raymond L. Deslisle, spokesman for the
Worcester diocese, said he couldn't find out when officials there learned of
the allegations of abuse.

Frobas' whereabouts from 1979 to 1983 could not be determined for this
article. Grammer said the Wheeling diocese placed Frobas on "sick leave" and
sent him here, to Dittmer, but declined to reveal the reason for the leave.

"Our bishop considers the matter closed, Grammer said."

The 1988 article in the St. Louis Review said Frobas had gone to St.
Michael's Center in Sunset Hills. The Servants of the Paraclete, a Catholic
religious order, runs the center and treats priests and brothers who suffer
from alcoholism, depression and other disorders.

The Paracletes also run the St. Jean Vianney Renewal Center in Dittmer in
Jefferson County, the current residence of six priests and brothers who were
convicted of sex-related offenses across the country.

The Review said Frobas completed his treatment at St. Michael's and began
working part-time at local parishes. The Rev. Peter Lechner of Sunset Hills,
servant general of the Paracletes, said he could not discuss particular cases
or confirm whether any priest ever has been at one of its centers.

Lechner said he believed the medical and counseling professions are better
now than in the 1980s at predicting the likelihood that someone would offend
again.

The mother said she remembered Frobas as a dynamic preacher. Her first hint
of trouble was when Frobas came by their home one day and asked if her son
could go with him on an errand.

"My son said, 'I don't want to go. Mom, don't make me go,'" she said. "Abuse
never came into my mind. That didn't come up until later, when the other boy
spoke to his parents, and they talked to us."

The indictment accused Frobas of sexually molesting the two boys at the St.
Elizabeth rectory, where he had a room, and at a motel on South Lindbergh
Boulevard. He received a four-year sentence.

At the court hearing, Frobas said, "I guess I'm glad all this is happening,
because it's been a nightmare state for me, having done what I've done. . . . I
am guilty."

Something else also bothers the mother and Houle in Massachusetts.

The woman said her family received a letter on July 14, 1992, from the late
Rev. John L. May, then St. Louis archbishop. It expressed condolences, asserted
that the archdiocese was not responsible for Frobas' conduct - and referred to
him as "the late Fr. Victor Frobas."

The woman said she didn't know until last week that Frobas didn't die until
1993. Houle said diocesan officials in Worcester also told him prior to Frobas'
death that he already was deceased.

"When I found out I was lied to, I got his death certificate from Missouri,"
said Houle. "I still have it. I want to be sure."

William C. Lhotka, John M. McGuire and Dawn Fallik of the Post-Dispatch
contributed to this report.




Reporter Tim O'Neil:
E-mail: toneil@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8132

RETURN TO TOP