4 Priests From Fort Collins, Loveland Named in Sex Abuse Scandal

Four priests from Fort Collins and Loveland have been named in a sex abuse scandal involving 14 children in Northern Colorado.

A new report this week estimates that over 70 years, at least 166 children have been victimized by 43 Roman Catholic priests.

The most recent case in Northern Colorado happened from 1998 to 1999. Timothy Evans, pastor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Fort Collins, was charged with sexual abuse when the victim spoke up a few years later in 2004. At that time, Evans had already been removed from the church. According to the Coloradoan, he is currently serving three sentences, for three different abuse cases in the Colorado Department of Corrections.

Another pastor, John Holloway from St. John the Evangelist Church in Loveland, was accused of abusing six boys between 1962 and 1982. Unfortunately, Holiday died before the accusations came to light.

The Denver Archdiocese's said this about Holiday:

The abuse report named another northern Colorado pastor, Charles Brown at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Fort Collins. According to the report, Brown is accused of abusing a boy from 1962 to 1966. The abuse wasn't reported until 2005 and it took seven years for the church to inform the police.

Finally, the fourth priest named in the report is Harold Robert White, who has been called "the most prolific known clergy child sex abuser in Colorado history."

The report says he is believed to have abused at least 63 children starting from before he was ordained and continuing over a period of 21 years.

From the sex abuse report:

"The Denver Archdiocese knew from the outset of White’s career that he was a child sex abuser. When he had sexually abused enough children at a parish that scandal threatened to erupt, the Denver Archdiocese moved him to a new one geographically distant enough that White was not known there."

They go on to say his ministry was never restricted and the behavior was never voluntarily reported to the police. By the time he became an assistant pastor in Loveland, there were at least 15 reports of abuse. White was put into therapy, where the therapist said he should not be allowed to continue in the ministry. He was removed from the ministry in 1993, defrocked in 2004 and died in 2006.

Source: The Coloradoan and Colorado Attorney General's Office