The pastor of a Roman Catholic parish in Mason, Ohio, has stepped down after a petition calling for him to resign garnered more than 500 signatures. Fr. Barry Stechschulte of St. Susanna was recently implicated in the cover-up of the possible child sex crimes of another priest in 2012.
In 2012, Stechschulte was serving at Holy Rosary in St. Marys, Ohio, when he discovered “inappropriate content, possibly child porn” on a computer that belonged to another priest, according to WLWT5. The priest to whom the computer belonged was Tony Cutcher, Stechschulte’s predecessor.
Stechschulte allegedly instructed a deacon to “destroy” the computer. The deacon reportedly carried out the request with a “blow torch.”
Stechschulte did not report the material to the police until 2018, after he had moved on from Holy Rosary and was serving at a different parish. Police conducted an investigation in 2018 but ultimately filed no criminal charges against Cutcher. Investigators indicated that the destruction of the hard drive complicated the investigation.
Cutcher was removed from ministry by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati in 2018 after he was accused of sending inappropriate texts to a boy.
According to his Facebook profile, Stechschulte served Holy Rosary from 2012 to 2014 before moving to St. Patrick Catholic Church in Glynnwood, Ohio, in 2014. He came to St. Susanna in 2020.
Members of St. Susanna only recently became aware of Stechschulte’s 2012 actions, for which Stechschulte has apologized.
“I wish I could redo my initial decision from 2012. I am deeply sorry for the distress this has caused all of you,” Stechschulte said in a letter to the congregation.
However, a public outcry soon turned into a widely circulated petition for Stechschulte to step down.
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“The decision you made to destroy evidence instead of reporting it to the proper authorities has severely compromised the confidence many of us have in your leadership,” the petition stated. “We believe that for the unity and peace of our parish to be restored, a change in leadership is necessary…we respectfully request your resignation from your position at St. Susanna.”
