Jesuits react to abuse charges

SEATTLE -- Jesuit universities in Washington state--Seattle University and Gonzaga University in Spokane--have been in the news recently because of claims of sexual abuse at those institutions.

Jesuit Fr. Anton T. Harris resigned Oct. 12 as Seattle University's vice president for mission and ministry after local news media reported that he was accused of sexually harassing a 25-year-old Jesuit seminarian in the mid-1990s. He has not been accused of any misconduct with a minor. Harris, who was the second-highest Jesuit official at the university, is to stay on the staff for the remainder of the academic year, working on special projects.

In September, the Jesuits disclosed that Jesuit Fr. John Leary, who died in 1993, had been accused of abusing minors and young men while he was president of Gonzaga University from 1961 to 1969.

A lawsuit pending in Seattle claims that Jesuit Fr. Michael Toulouse, who died in 1976, sexually abused at least one minor in Spokane in 1950, when he was teaching at Gonzaga High School, and subsequently abused others after he was transferred to Seattle University.

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