Ohio priest steps down after calls for resignation over child porn hard drive controversy

CNA Staff, Jul 30, 2024 / 14:15 pm

A priest in Ohio has resigned from his parish after parishioners demanded his ouster due to his having destroyed a hard drive containing possible child porn. 

Father Barry Stechschulte announced his departure from St. Susanna Catholic Parish in Mason, Ohio, in a message on the church’s website this week.

“[It] has become evident to me, after much prayer and discernment, that, for the good of our parish and school, I should step down as pastor, effective immediately, to be reassigned elsewhere in the archdiocese [of Cincinnati],” the pastor wrote.

Earlier this month a bombshell media report revealed that Stechschulte had in 2012 destroyed a hard drive reportedly containing inappropriate pictures of children — and potentially child pornography — and then delayed reporting the incident to police. 

The pastor did not report the incident to police until 2018. In an apology to parishioners earlier this month the priest said he had wanted to protect other parishioners from seeing the contents of the hard drive.

Last week a group of nearly 500 members of St. Susanna calling themselves “Parents for Action” published a letter to Stechschulte in which they said his decision regarding the computer had “severely compromised the confidence many of us have in your leadership.”

“This is not merely about an isolated mistake, but about the broader implications for the safety and trust within our community,” they wrote. 

The letter “respectfully request[ed]” that the pastor resign, citing “love for our community and a desire to protect the well-being of our children and the integrity of our parish.” 

In his resignation announcement the priest said he was “grateful for the opportunity I have had to serve the St. Susanna community and work with all of you to build the kingdom of God.”

“It was a great joy to me. You remain in my thoughts and prayers. God bless you and your families,” he wrote. 

A spokeswoman with the Archdiocese of Cincinnati confirmed to CNA on Tuesday that Cincinnati Archbishop Dennis Schnurr had accepted Stechschulte’s resignation. 

The revelation about Stechschulte destroying the hard drive came within a report by local Cincinnati ABC affiliate WCPO, which earlier this month published an extensive exposé on a yearslong controversy involving Dayton-area priest Father Tony Cutcher.

Cutcher had left ministry in 2021 amid a scandal involving “hundreds of text messages he exchanged with a 14-year-old boy.”

Part of the report touched on the 2012 incident in which Stechschulte discovered “what looked like child pornography” on a computer at Holy Rosary Church in St. Marys, north of Dayton. Cutcher had previously served at that parish.

A deacon at the parish later told police he “took the hard drive out of the computer and destroyed it with a blow torch at the request of Stechschulte.”

In his apology earlier this month Stechschulte said he was “shocked and filled with disgust at what I saw” and that his “reaction in the moment was to ensure that no one else at the parish be exposed to it.”