Jesuit Priest, Former Teacher Charged with Child Porn

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Already on probation for child molestation, a Jesuit priest was charged in U.S. District Court Monday with child pornography offenses for allegedly videotaping hockey players in a changing room 15 years ago at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School, where he was a chemistry teacher.

Richard James Kurtz, 69, was charged with producing, possessing and transporting child pornography, the Detroit Free Press, WXYZ-TV, WWJ/CBS and other metro Detroit media report. Kurtz allegedly made the videotapes during the 1998-99 hockey season. Combined, the charges are punishable by up to 60 years in prison.

In 2012, Kurtz admitted in a plea deal that he molested a U-D Jesuit student to the Air Force Academy in Colorado in 2001. The school fired him after learning of the student’s allegations and reported him to Child Protection Services, but he wasn’t charged until a decade later. At the time he was fired from the school, where he had taught chemistry off and on for 25 years, he was also stripped of the right to perform public ministry, the Chicago-Detroit Province of the Society of Jesuits said in a statement.

Tell Us:

• In a homily given at a private Mass for six victims of church sexual abuse, Pope Francis apologized for the abuse and asked for forgiveness in what was one of the strongest signals to date that the Vatican empathizes with victims who say the cover-up is as bad as the abuse itself, according to a CNN report. Is this just lip service? Is the church doing enough to hold bishops accountable for looking the other way?

Though Kurtz didn’t get prison time, he is serving a 10-year-to-life term of supervised probation in confinement in Missouri, where he was arrested Monday on the new charges. He is awaiting extradition to Detroit.

The new charges stem from evidence turned over to the FBI by two Jesuit priests in Chicago, where Kurtz was living at the time of his 2011 arrest. They found evidence, both in Chicago and Kurtz’s Michigan home in Clarkston, linking him to the hockey team locker room.

A member of SNAP – Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests – said the allegations against Kurtz are “devious” and “sickening,” and could open old wounds among members of the 1989-99 hockey team.

“I can only imagine what they’re feeling,” Matt Jatczak told the Free Press. “They’re probably angry and shocked and upset. And hopefully they’re not scarred by what this man has done.”

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The Chicago-based online support network is asking anyone with information about Kurtz that might be helpful to federal investigators to come forward.

“Oftentimes victim and witnesses and whistleblowers assume that when a sex offender is charged, it’s a done deal,” SNAP director David Clohessy, who disclosed in 1990 he had been abused by a priest, told the Free Press.

“But in our experience, we’ve seen time and time again sex offender clerics hire top notch lawyers ... and get off completely,” he said.

An Archdiocese of Detroit spokesman said though the allegations against Kurtz are “very troubling,” Kurtz worked directly for the Jesuit religious order, which runs the school, and “was not our priest.”

The Chicago-Detroit Province of the Society of Jesuits issued a statement saying it has cooperated fully with the investigation and “remains committed to justice and healing for those involved.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Kurtz taught chemistry at U-D Jesuit from 1970-73, 1978-83 and September 1984-May 2001.