Former Missouri seminary student plans to sue bishop

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A former Missouri seminary student will allege in a lawsuit that he was molested by a former Florida bishop who resigned after admitting he inappropriately touched another student during the 1970s.

Jeffrey Anderson, a St. Paul, Minn. attorney, said Friday he represents a 47-year-old man who came forward after reading that former Bishop Anthony J. O'Connell had said there might be a second victim.

During a March 8 news conference to announce his resignation, the former bishop of the Diocese of Palm Beach said "there could be one other person of a somewhat similar situation in a somewhat similar time frame."

Anderson declined to identify the man but said the lawsuit would be filed Monday in Hannibal, Mo., against St. Thomas Aquinas Preparatory Seminary -- where O'Connell served as rector -- and the Jefferson City Diocese.

Mark Saucier, a spokesman for the Jefferson City diocese, did not immediately return a phone call Saturday. A spokesman for the Palm Beach diocese said O'Connell was in seclusion and could not be reached for comment.

O'Connell resigned after Christopher Dixon, a 40-year-old former seminary student, said the bishop touched him inappropriately in bed during counseling sessions in the late 1970s.

Anderson said the lawsuit will allege that O'Connell "sexualized" a counseling relationship at St. Thomas seminary about 20 years ago.