Newsflash – Where information ignites

bsxonair

Catholic priest resigns after destroying possible evidence of child pornography

GillbergJuly 30, 2024

Catholic priest resigns after destroying possible evidence of child pornography

The pastor of St. Susanna Parish in Mason resigned Monday after admitting that while working for another church years earlier, he ordered the destruction of material related to an investigation into possible child pornography.

The Rev. Barry Stechschulte apologized to parishioners more than two weeks ago for his role in the matter, saying at the time that he remained committed to “maintaining a safe environment here at St. Susanna, a large Catholic parish that also has a school.” But on Monday, after hundreds of parishioners signed a petition calling for his removal as pastor, Stechschulte announced on the parish’s website that he was resigning.

“The last few weeks have been difficult for all of us at St. Susanna,” wrote Stechschulte. “After much prayer and reflection, it has become clear to me that for the good of our community and school, I should resign from my position as pastor with immediate effect.”

His decision to leave St Susanna’s follows several weeks of uproar over Stechschulte’s admission that he ordered the destruction of a computer hard drive in 2012 after learning that it contained sexually explicit images of adults and – in a separate file – images of boys.

According to a police report, the material was discovered on an old computer used by his predecessor, the Reverend Tony Cutcher, at Holy Rosary Church in St. Marys, Ohio. When Stechschulte was made aware of the discovery, the report said, he ordered a church deacon to destroy the material.

The deacon told police that he burned the hard drive with a blowtorch.

In his July 12 apology letter to St. Susanna’s parishioners, Stechschulte wrote that he was so “shocked and disgusted” by what he saw that his immediate reaction was to make sure no one else was exposed to the material on the hard drive.

“So I ordered that the hard drive be destroyed,” said Stechschulte. “I realize that not reporting this was a terrible mistake and I regret that.”

Six years later, in September 2018, Stechschulte reported the find to police and admitted he had destroyed possible evidence. The police report described the 2018 investigation as a “child pornography case,” but after interviewing Stechschulte, Cutcher and others, investigators did not file charges.

According to the report, the images in question were discovered when an old computer was being refurbished. Witnesses interviewed by police reported finding sexually explicit images of adult men in one file and images of boys in another file. However, it is unclear whether the images of boys were of a sexual nature.

The police report and Stechschulte’s role in destroying the material were published by WCPO-Channel 9 earlier this month. Neither Cutcher nor representatives of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, which oversees both St. Susanna and Holy Rosary parishes, could be reached for comment late Monday.

Stechschulte, who also could not be reached Monday, said in his July 12 apology letter that he regretted his decision to destroy the hard drive and wait six years before calling police. “I wish I could reverse my original decision in 2012,” he wrote. “I am deeply sorry for the pain this has caused you all.”

In a statement on St. Susanna’s Facebook page, archdiocesan officials said that while Stechschulte did not call police in 2012, he alerted archdiocesan officials about three weeks after the material was discovered in November 2012. Church officials said they immediately referred the case to the Auglaize County District Attorney’s Office, which did not file charges.

Although Cutcher was not charged with a crime, the archdiocese fired him in 2018 after he was accused of sending inappropriate text messages to a young boy. Because of that allegation, Cutcher resigned as pastor of St. Peter’s Church in Huber Heights, north of Dayton, in February 2021, archdiocese officials told the Enquirer at the time.

They said local authorities had investigated the allegation and “found no evidence of illegal activity on the part of Father Cutcher.”

The 2018 texting charge against Cutcher came around the same time that church officials fired another priest, the Rev. Geoff Drew, for texting a boy at St. Ignatius Parish. Drew, now in prison, later pleaded guilty to raping a Catholic school student years earlier.

At the time, parishioners complained that the archdiocese had failed to communicate previous concerns about Drew’s conduct to them before allowing him to join their parish. Similar concerns about the conduct of church officials have been raised by parishioners at St. Susanna in recent weeks, culminating in the petition calling for Stechschulte’s dismissal.

In his post on the parish website on Monday, Stechschulte did not say whether he had received a new parish assignment, but only that he would be “transferred to another location in the archdiocese” after leaving St. Susanna.