BOONE — New allegations of child sexual abuse have been reported against two former pastors of St. Elizabeth Church.
The alleged victim, now 40 years old, said he was abused when he was a teenager in the early 1990s, according to a police report filed March 5 with the Boone Police Department. According to a report by WSOC-TV Channel 9, the man said then Jesuit Father H. Cornell Bradley molested him once when he was an altar boy, and that the subsequent pastor, then Father Damion Lynch, assaulted him twice – once on a trip to Carowinds and once near Appalachian State University’s Catholic Campus Ministry.
David Hains, spokesman for the Diocese of Charlotte, said the diocese was unaware until now of these allegations involving Bradley and Lynch.
BRADLEY
H. Cornell Bradley, a former Jesuit priest, served at St. Elizabeth Church from 1989 to 1993. He also served at St. Therese Church in Mooresville from 1988 to 1989 and again in 1998.
According to a report released by the Jesuit order last December, Bradley had “multiple allegations of sexual abuse” against him while serving in Ocean City, Md., and Washington, D.C., in the 1970s and 1980s.
He was removed from ministry in 2006 and left the Jesuits a year later.
His current whereabouts are unknown.
LYNCH
Damion Jacques Lynch served as parochial vicar at St. Elizabeth Parish starting in 1991 when he was ordained and became pastor after Bradley left in 1993. He also served as campus minister at nearby Appalachian State University.
Credible reports against Lynch of repeated sexual abuse of twin brothers from 1991 to 1995, when they were in their early teens, were revealed in a 1998 civil lawsuit against the Charlotte diocese.
According to a March 13, 1998, Catholic News & Herald article, then Bishop William Curlin learned about the abuse allegations in 1995 when "Fr. Lynch himself reported to Bishop Curlin regarding an indiscretion.”
Lynch was placed on administrative leave and ordered to undergo psychological testing.
Court records show that in 1996, the diocese settled the lawsuit with the boy’s family, paying $77,489 for counseling services, using diocesan funds and insurance money. The settlement was not publicly disclosed until 1998.
According to the 1998 Catholic News & Herald article, Lynch was “cleared by his therapist” to return to ministry and was assigned in 1997 as parochial vicar of Our Lady of Consolation Church in Charlotte.
In 1998 the family whose son had been abused filed a second civil lawsuit in Watauga County Superior Court against the diocese, Bishop Curlin and Lynch when they learned of similar alleged abuse of the victim’s twin brother.
Lynch requested a leave of absence and Curlin removed his priestly faculties in 1998.
The diocese settled the second lawsuit for an undisclosed amount in 1999.
Lynch was never charged with a crime in either case.
At some point Lynch left the diocese, and according to the independent website bishopaccountability.org, he was last known living in Virginia and working as a registered nurse in Washington, D.C., in 2017.
The new allegations of abuse made March 5 will likely be investigated by civil authorities, and separately by the diocese, to determine if they are credible, Hains said.
— Patricia L. Guilfoyle, editor
Pictured: Former priests H. Cornell Bradley (far left) and Damion Lynch (far right) are pictured in this April 9, 1993, file photo. (Catholic News Herald archives)