Judge Dismisses Suit Against Maryville Priest

A Catholic priest who served at was accused of sexually abusing a child sometime in the 1950s and 1960s, Courthouse News Service reported.

A federal judge ruled the lawsuit against the Bishop of Chicago and the Holy See alleging the abuse was prevented by a statute from 1991 that barred anyone over the age of 30 from suing for childhood sexual abuse, Courthouse News Service said in its report.

That statute was repealed in 1994, but still applied to this case, the judge told Courthouse News Service.

The man who filed the complaint, Charles Anderson, 62, is an inmate at a prison in downstate Illinois. In the complaint, Anderson stated he was sodomized by Thomas Windham, a former priest at Maryville, when he was less than 10 years old, Courthouse News Service reported.

The first Roman Catholic official in the U.S. to be convicted of hiding sexual abuse by priests, Monsignor William J. Lynn, of Philadelphia, was sentenced to three to six years in prison last week, the New York Times reported.

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