The 12th Indiana lawsuit against former Catholic priest Harry Monroe for sexual abuse of boys has been filed. This suit alleges that he abused the same teenage victim more than 50 times until the Archdiocese of Indianapolis transferred him.
The complaint was filed in Marion Superior Court in Indianapolis and alleged the abuse began in 1975 when the boy was 13. The abuse allegedly continued over four years while Monroe took subsequent postings at two other parishes in other parts of the city.
It ended when the archdiocese transferred Monroe to a parish in Terre Haute, about an hour west of Indianapolis, Noaker said.
Monroe plied the boy with alcohol and marijuana during some of their meetings, and the victim, now 43 and married and living in another state, has wrestled with chemical dependency and depression in adulthood, Noaker said.
The archdiocese does not comment on pending child abuse lawsuits in which it is a defendant, but urges victims of sexual misconduct by Monroe to contact the archdiocesan chancellor, Suzanne L. Yakimchick.
The previous 11 complaints allege Monroe sexually abused juvenile male parishioners in Indianapolis, Terre Haute and in Perry County, before being stripped of his ministry in 1984.
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