An American priest who was dismissed from the clergy by the Vatican
after being accused of sexually abusing as many as 30 teenagers in
Bangladesh is still in the country.
William Andrew Christensen, a
priest in the Society of Mary, or Marianists, was removed from the
priesthood in October 2010 after the Vatican judged allegations against
him to be credible.
In January 2011, ucanews.com published a
story quoting Catholic human rights activist Rosaline Costa, who
claimed that Christensen used the Institute of Integrated Rural
Development (IIRD), which he founded in Bogra district in 1987, as a
front to sexually abuse at least 30 Muslim teenagers in rural
Bangladesh.
He was accused of buying the silence of the youngsters, their parents and local political and community leaders.
Christensen
was accused of abusing a pupil at a school in St. Louis, Missouri,
before coming to Bangladesh but a lawsuit filed in 2002 collapsed when
the complainant died.
Christensen is now running the Poverty
Eradication Program, an NGO that he founded in 2012 in Bangladesh.
Interviewed at his office in Dhaka on June 11, he denied all allegations
of sexual abuse and claimed he had been a victim of Vatican injustice.
American priest dismissed for sex abuse still in Bangladesh - ucanews.com
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