Not the joke of the day.

Tim Byars (tbyars@earthlink.net)
Sun, 3 Mar 1996 13:04:00 -0800

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An Ohio family suing the Catholic Church says
their retarded son who died of AIDS got the disease from members of
a religious order who raped him while he lived at a church-funded
home, a magazine reports.
The church denies that it's responsible for the man's death. But
in a story being published in Monday's editions of U.S. News &
World Report, Columbus Bishop James Griffin said if the church
loses the case it might have to withdraw support from social
agencies and hospitals because it could be held liable for any
problems at the facilities.
The family of Joey Busam, who died in January at age 44, said
brothers who operated the Good Shepherd Manor in rural Wakefield,
Ohio, raped and sodomized Busam over a number of years. The home
for adult retarded men was run by the Little Brothers of the Good
Shepherd, a Catholic-sanctioned religious order that received money
from the Columbus diocese to operate the facility.
Busam had the mind of a 6-year-old. He had lived in the home
since he was 16, his mother said.
``It was a very trusting relationship we had with the brothers,
all of them,'' Mrs. Busam told the magazine. ``I trusted them
fully.''
According to court records and testimony of former residents,
brothers at Good Shepherd Manor held drunken parties in a special
``playroom'' and roamed the facility at night, molesting some of
the men.
In interviews with a psychiatrist and relatives before he died,
Busam said he had sexual contact with two brothers, Paul Hayden and
Guy Dale Shaffer.
Hayden had pleaded guilty to attempted sexual battery charges in
a sex abuse scandal at the home during the mid 1980s, the magazine
said. The matter was not related to Busam.
Hayden, who lives at the order's residence in Albuquerque, N.M.,
declined to discuss the Busam allegations. ``I don't feel up to the
this,'' he told U.S. News. In court pleadings he denied have sex
with Busam.
The order says Hayden does not have the AIDS virus. Shaffer, who
died in 1989, tested HIV-negative, the order told U.S. News.
Lawyers for the Little Brothers suggested that Busam may have
been infected by an employee who worked at Good Shepherd Manor
after the brothers left. The employee died of AIDS in 1989.
The Columbus diocese said that under church law it did not have
control over daily operations of Good Shepherd Manor and only gave
``charitable'' and ``spiritual'' support to the brothers.
The telephone at the diocese office was not answered Saturday.
--
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There are no incurable ills      |  There are no believable Gods
 There are no unkillable thrills |   There are no unreachable goals
  There are no unbeatable odds   |    There are no unsaveable souls
                                    . . Osbourne
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