Another priest of the Denver Roman Catholic Archdiocese has been implicated in the sexual abuse of children, starting in the 1950s on Colorado’s Eastern Plains and continuing to the 1970s in California, where he worked as a hospital chaplain.
Three Colorado men – a law enforcement officer, a retired lawyer and a mental-health executive – have told The Denver Post they were molested decades ago by the Rev. Leonard A. Abercrombie, who died in 1994.
In 1976, for reasons that are unclear, Abercrombie moved to Mission Hills, Calif., where he was a chaplain at a Veterans Administration hospital while remaining a priest in good standing with the Denver Archdiocese.
Abercrombie was accused twice in California of abusing minors, according to the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s 2004 “Report to the People of God,” which named priests accused of molesting minors over 74 years.
One of the Colorado men, disturbed in 2002 by the national clergy abuse scandal, contacted the Denver Archdiocese about Abercrombie. In a letter to the man, Archbishop Charles Chaput apologized for “all that you experienced due to the selfish and sinful actions of priests.”
Abercrombie, who was 73 when he died in California, apparently never faced criminal charges or a lawsuit.
The revelations about Abercrombie come as the Denver Archdiocese is under assault in the courts for its handling of another priest, the Rev. Harold Robert White.
Since late July, when The Denver Post reported one allegation against White, 18 people have come forward to claim that White, who is no longer a priest, sexually abused them as minors. Seven lawsuits have been filed accusing the archdiocese of moving White from parish to parish despite knowing he was a problem.
The archdiocese will not discuss White or Abercrombie in detail but emphasized it is committed to justice and healing.
Fran Maier, chancellor of the archdiocese, said Friday that Abercrombie’s 40-year record of service was not immediately available. He said although he did not know the circumstances of Abercrombie’s move out of Colorado, it is not unusual for priests to take out-of-state posts.
“In the case of people making allegations against Father Abercrombie, it’s something we take very seriously, we have a protocol for dealing with that, and we encourage them to come forward because we really want to assist them,” Maier said.
Growing up in Colorado Springs in the 1950s, John Patrick Michael Murphy spent summers at Camp St. Malo, a Catholic youth camp outside Rocky Mountain National Park.
He remembers Abercrombie, who worked at the camp, as a gifted preacher with a beautiful singing voice. Abercrombie, an only child whose father was a Yale graduate who worked in insurance, graduated from St. Thom as Seminary in Denver in 1953.
In 1953 or 1954, when Murphy was 7 or 8, he said, Abercrombie gathered boys at Camp St. Malo and talked about sex.
Murphy alleges Abercrombie molested him in a camper and while sleeping over at rectories in Hugo and Roggen.
“I never trusted badges or buttons or uniforms or titles after that,” said Murphy, 59. “I really started thinking for myself, which isn’t bad. But the worst thing is the loss of trust, especially those you’re intimate with.”
At the urging of his psychiatrist, Murphy wrote a letter to Pope John Paul II in 1993 seeking an apology to him and all victims of child sexual abuse by clergy.
The letter, which Murphy shared with the media, came on the eve of the pontiff’s visit to Colorado for World Youth Day, which included Camp St. Malo.
Murphy said he sent copies to then- Denver Archbishop J. Francis Stafford and Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony. That year, Abercrombie retired from his chaplaincy in California. He died a year later.
Murphy gained notoriety in 1996 for proposing a tax on religious organizations and other nonprofits, which was defeated at the polls.
Abercrombie also won the confidence of the Colburn family of Denver. He was around at funerals and holidays like a member of the family, said 46-year-old Roger Colburn of Strasburg.
Colburn said that in 1969 or 1970, Abercrombie invited him and his brother to camp in Granby. The priest took them for ice cream and back to his camper.
Colburn said Abercrombie gave the boys wine, poured beer into their spaghetti and ended up in bed with a drunk Roger Colburn, who was 10 or 11. Colburn said he woke up with his pants down and the heavyset priest on top of him. He said he was scared and claustrophobic.
Though quizzed by his father about whether anything strange had happened on the trip, Colburn said he never found the courage. He said he feared he wouldn’t be believed.
“You were taught to be seen and not heard,” Colburn said. “You didn’t ever question authority.”
He said the incident colors his life still. He won’t let his wife of 26 years put her arm across him because he gets a “somebody is holding me down” feeling.
Colburn – who asked that the law- enforcement agency where he works not be identified – said he has an attorney and plans to sue the Denver Archdiocese.
“I want them to come out with full disclosure,” Colburn said.
While serving in Keenesburg, Abercrombie also was a fixture in the Starks household, a large Irish Catholic family that produced priests for generations.
In the late 1950s or early 1960s, Roy Starks said, the priest invited him to mow the lawn and help out around the church. Starks alleges Abercrombie molested him during naps inside.
Starks said he never told anyone because the priest was so beloved by his family.
The most intense and prolonged contact in the Starks family allegedly involved Kevin Starks, who died a year and a half ago from a brain aneurysm.
His widow, Betsy Starks of Silver Spring, Md., said her husband confided in her that Abercrombie sexually abused him. She believes it played a role in his alcohol and drug problems.
She provided an Aug. 17, 1999, journal entry written by her husband that states “Father Abby” sexually abused him from the time he was 10 to when he was 13 or 15. He too described “naps” with the priest. He wrote of Abercrombie taking him to a bathhouse in Denver.
Roy Starks, 58, said the abuse filled him with tremendous shame and depression. He eventually underwent counseling and became a counselor himself. He is now director of rehabilitation services for the Mental Health Center of Denver.
“I don’t think it’s any kind of a death warrant,” Starks said of being molested. “The abuse I suffered is a piece of my life. But it has not been the overriding factor in my life.”
In 2002, motivated by stories of clergy abuse and coverup, Starks reported Abercrombie to the Denver Archdiocese. He met with the archdiocese’s conduct- response team, which fields sex-abuse complaints and makes recommendations to Chaput.
Starks asked for an apology and counseling paid for by the church. He got both.
“Recounting so many painful memories from your childhood and beyond required courage beyond measure,” Monsignor Thom as Fryar, vicar for clergy, wrote to Starks in 2002. “… Echoing my previous statements to you, what happened to you was terribly wrong and never, ever should have occurred. You have our most humble apology.”
Staff writer Eric Gorski can be reached at 303-820-1598 or egorski@denverpost.com.
