Diocese responds to RICO lawsuit

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Catholic diocese in Kansas City on Friday denied that its bishop helped cover for sexual predator priests, calling the accusation "neither true nor credible."

A Massachusetts man identified only as John T. Doe sued the Vatican, a former bishop and four dioceses on Thursday, accusing them of maintaining a "web of predator priests" whose sexual misconduct spans three decades.

The suit names dioceses in Jefferson City, Mo., Knoxville, Tenn., and Palm Beach, Fla., and the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese, for allegedly not acting in the mid-1990s on the accuser's complaints about abuse by ex-bishop Anthony O'Connell. The man made the complaint while living in Kansas City, and says he reported O'Connell to that diocese, but received no help.

"We believe that these allegations are neither true nor credible," said a written statement issued by George M. Noonan, chancellor for the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese.

Noonan's statement said Bishop Raymond Boland is out of town, but told Noonan that "he has absolutely no recollection of any conversation with anyone claiming sexual abuse by Bishop O'Connell."