Former Port Angeles priests make up one third of sex abuse allegations

The Rev. James McGreal and the Rev. Paul Conn, Roman Catholic priests who once served in Port Angeles, were responsible for more than one-third of the 153 sexual abuse allegations reported to the Seattle Roman Catholic Archdiocese between 1950 and last year.

The archdiocese released that and other statistics as its part of a national, church-sanctioned study conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and released Friday.

McGreal served at Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Port Angeles in 1986-87.

Conn also served as a priest at Queen of Angels in the late 1980s.

The Seattle Archdiocese paid $7.87 million in September 2003 to settle 15 sexual-abuse cases involving McGreal, although he was never charged with a crime.

Court records say McGreal told his therapist that he had molested hundreds of young boys in 10 parishes, including Port Angeles, and in two hospitals over a 40-year period.

In 1988, Conn pleaded guilty to molesting at least six altar boys at Queen of Angels and was sentenced to four years in prison.

Those two are the only Roman Catholic Church officials on the North Olympic Peninsula to be connected to sexual abuse charges.

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