Some local Catholics want a pastor in Mason, Ohio, to resign after the Scripps News Cincinnati investigative team reported last week that he ordered evidence of alleged child pornography be destroyed and waited six years to report it to police while he was pastor of a different church.
“I understand that the information in this report is distressing for many of you and may impact your trust in me as your pastor," Father Barry Stechschulte wrote in a July 12 letter to the St. Susanna community, where he is pastor and oversees a large school. "I instructed the hard drive be destroyed. I realize that not reporting it was a terrible mistake, which I regret."
While the investigative team report focused on former priest Tony Cutcher, it also revealed Stechschulte's role in delaying public knowledge of what he did.
Parishioners said Stechschulte asked for forgiveness during his sermon at Mass on July 14.
You can read the full letter below:
Yet many parishioners posted on the St. Susanna Facebook page about their deep hurt.
“We need to move forward with new leadership for our parish,” wrote one. Another wrote, “Turning a blind eye to the well-being of our children is an abomination, and … the culpability of parish administration can't be ignored and it's time to clean house.”
Many St. Susanna School parents sent Scripps News Cincinnati texts and emails, asking to stay anonymous because they feared retribution. They said the Archdiocese of Cincinnati is ignoring their emails and their concerns.
An archdiocese spokesperson said there are no plans at this time to change Stechschulte’s assignment as pastor of St. Susanna.
“In this situation I would not want someone in leadership over my children who would make a decision like this. Would I fear that the same decision would be made again? I would have that fear certainly,” said Teresa Dinwiddie-Herrmann, co-founder of Ohioans for Child Protection.
It happened at Holy Rosary Church in St. Mary’s, a rural area filled with cross-tipped churches. Cutcher was pastor there for several years.
When Stechschulte arrived as the new pastor in July 2012, he and Deacon Marty Brown told police they discovered what looked like child pornography while refurbishing an old desktop computer from a storage room, which had been used by Cutcher.
“Father Barry said that upon looking at the computer he found two file folders, one containing male homosexual pornography and the other file contained pictures of boys … he said he can only recall boys with no shirts on. I asked him if the kids were obviously underage with him saying ‘yes’ and that they were preteen, probably 8 to 10 years of age,” according to St. Mary’s 2018 police report.
“He did describe the boys as being in provocative poses. He again said he could not recall nudity or not, but it could have been,” Stechschulte told police, according to the report.
Police were never able to determine if anything illegal existed on that computer hard drive.
The deacon told police that he took the hard drive out of the computer and destroyed it with a blow torch at the request of Stechschulte, according to the police report.
“Father Barry said at the time, he did not realize the repercussions of not revealing what they had found. Father Barry again said that he should not have destroyed the evidence,” according to the police report.
Cutcher was never charged with a crime.
“Did (the archdiocese) try to find those children that were in the material? Did they try to reach out to families in the parish at the time to see if anything concerning had happened between Father Cutcher and children? It doesn’t sound like it,” Dinwiddie-Herrmann said.
Just over two years later, Montgomery County prosecutors investigated Cutcher in 2021 for sending hundreds of text messages to a 14-year-old boy while pastor of St. Peter in Huber Heights.
Cutcher resigned from active ministry in April 2021, following a scandal at the parish.
Meanwhile, Stechschulte moved from Holy Rosary to become pastor of a much larger church — St. Susanna. An archdiocese spokesperson declined to say if he was ever disciplined.
“It would not be unusual for him to still be in his position after all of this,” Dinwiddie-Herrmann said.
While she’s glad parishioners are voicing their opinions to the archdiocese, she’s not optimistic that it will bring change.
“To really make a change and protect children, I don’t think that’s going to be the answer. I think the answer is going to be looking to our lawmakers to put better laws in place,” Dinwiddie-Herrmann said.
READ THE FULL INVESTIGATION: An Interview with An Accused Priest: A scorched hard drive, texts with a boy and a missing report.
This story was originally published by Paula Christian at Scripps News Cincinnati.
