St. Louis grand jury investigating 24 priests

ST. LOUIS -- A state grand jury is investigating accusations of sexual abuse made against 24 Roman Catholic priests as it continues a probe that began with the arrest of a defrocked clergyman in March, Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce said Wednesday.

In addition to the 24, the grand jury has been unable to pursue complaints against 10 other priests, Joyce said, for reasons that include the death of some of them. Joyce released the brief update to the grand jury's work during a meeting Wednesday with the editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which first reported the news on its Web site.

Joyce declined to release any information about the 24 priests under investigation, including if they are serving in an active ministry.

"They are just allegations," Joyce stressed in an interview with The Associated Press. "There are no charges. Whether or not they pan out into charges or indictments remains to be seen."

Joyce's comments come as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops prepares to begin a critical meeting in Dallas to work on a national policy to rid the priesthood of abusers.

The spokesman for the Archdiocese of St. Louis was at the meeting and could not be immediately reached for comment.

While the grand jury has issued subpoenas for all of the information it has requested from the archdiocese, Joyce still complimented the church for its cooperation with the investigation.

"They have been totally cooperative in very promptly turning over what was requested by the grand jury," Joyce said.

All of the complaints under investigation followed a request Joyce made to the public in March, when she urged victims of sexual abuse to come forward and contact authorities. "When that happened, it was kind of like turning on a faucet," Joyce said. "We got tons of calls."

The plea came as her office charged a defrocked priest dismissed from the clergy in 1977 who had been recently employed by the St. Louis Public Schools as an elementary-school counselor. That man, James A. Beine, 60, is facing two counts of sexual misconduct involving a child.

In all, Joyce said her office received 70 separate complaints of sexual misconduct. But many of those complaints did not include enough information, such as the name of the accused, for the grand jury to begin an inquiry, Joyce said.

There were names of priests attached to 34 of the complaints, but the grand jury was unable to follow up on 10 of those 34, in some instances because the accused had died.

"The 24 remaining, we do have material we are reviewing and I can't tell you what is going to become of those," Joyce said. Beine is included in the 24, Joyce said.

Joyce said the majority of the 24 accusations under investigation happened so long ago the grand jury is facing both a cold evidentiary trail and legal issues with the statue of limitations.

"I don't want to give people a false impression, except to say that we are investigating these," Joyce said.