Florida Bishop Admits Abuse, Asks to Resign

A Roman Catholic bishop who admitted molesting a teenager 25 years ago submitted his resignation Friday.

“I am truly deeply sorry for the pain . . . and confusion I have caused,” said the Rev. Anthony J. O’Connell, bishop of the Diocese of Palm Beach. “I’ve been loved since I entered this diocese, far more than anyone should be loved.”

O’Connell, 63, admitted to the allegations leveled by Christopher Dixon, his former student at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Hannibal, Mo., where O’Connell was the rector. Dixon became a priest but left after several years.

Dixon, now 40, said the two touched inappropriately in bed after he sought O’Connell for counseling. Dixon said the abuse began in 1977, when he was 15, and continued to 1980.

Asked whether he had been involved with other youngsters, O’Connell said there could be “one other person of a somewhat similar situation, in a somewhat similar time frame.” He would not elaborate.

Diocese spokesman Sam Barbaro said the Vatican would make the final decision on O’Connell’s resignation.

No one was available to comment at the papal nuncio in Washington.

The nation’s latest and biggest sex-abuse scandal involving priests began in the Archdiocese of Boston, where Cardinal Bernard F. Law admitted that a former priest molested children for years but was shuttled from parish to parish anyway. More than 130 people have said the defrocked priest, John Geoghan, abused them.

Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, expressed “profound sorrow and regret” about O’Connell’s wrongdoing and apologized directly to Dixon.

O’Connell, who has been a priest for 38 years, was bishop of Knoxville, Tenn., before coming to Palm Beach in 1999.

O’Connell’s admission came soon after Florida’s bishops issued a statement calling sexual abuse “both criminal and sinful.”

Dixon said O’Connell’s decision was bittersweet.

“In some ways I feel good that the truth is out there and he’s admitted to it,” Dixon said. “The bad part is that I know a lot of people are going to be upset. But you know, I had to tell the story.”

The Jefferson City, Mo., diocese paid Dixon $125,000 in a 1996 settlement.