Retired priest pleads guilty in child porn case

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- A retired priest previously convicted of sexual misconduct in Wisconsin will go to prison for at least five years after pleading guilty to child pornography charges, federal officials said Monday.

David Malsch, 66, was convicted of child enticement in 1993. In 2001, Malsch was sent to the Wounded Brothers Recon Facility, a home for troubled priests in the eastern Missouri town of Robertsville.
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Malsch was ordained in the Superior diocese in 1967 and spent his entire career there. The diocese covers Wisconsin's 16 northernmost counties.

Allegations of inappropriate behavior with a child against Malsch date to the early 1980s, when he was serving St. Patrick church in Superior. In 2002, Superior Bishop Raphael Fliss apologized publicly for the diocese's failure to more thoroughly investigate Malsch.

Malsch was removed from St. Patrick in 1984 and was sent for a psychological evaluation at a treatment facility, where he spent 111 days.

After a brief stay in Rhinelander, Wis., Malsch was sent to St. Mary's church in Tomahawk, Wis., in 1987 as an associate pastor. In 1991, the Lincoln County, Wis., Sheriff's Department began investigating allegations that Malsch had sexually assaulted a 14-year-old Tomahawk boy with learning disabilities at a motel. Investigators found a locked trunk filled with pornography in Malsch's home, and he was suspended from his duties as a priest.

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David Clohessy, national director of SNAP, said Wounded Brothers is too lax for someone with Malsch's record. "This is what happens when priests oversee other abusive priests in a church-run secretive environment," Clohessy complained. "This is why men like Malsch belong behind bars and not at a church-run retreat-style facility."

No spokeswoman for Wounded Brothers could be reached Monday. Mark Matousek, its director, described the place in 2002 interview as "a halfway house, mainly for people who have exhausted treatment options and are here for a safe residence."

Jamie Allman, a spokesman for the St. Louis Archdiocese, said Monday that Archbishop Raymond Burke met two weeks ago with Matousek and the Rev. Bertin Miller, who run Wounded Brothers. Burke expressed "general concerns about security and oversight at that facility," Allman said.

The fact that Malsch admitted receiving and sending child pornography from there "is enough to raise some red flags about how well he was being monitored," Allman said. That is particularly true in "light of the fact that the conviction that brought him here involved supplying pornographic tapes to minors," Allman said.

Allman noted that the facility is run by a Catholic religious order, the Franciscans, not by the archdiocese.

"This is a serious matter, and whether or not we have technical control over what happens there, this facility is in our archdiocese, and we want our feelings known," he said.