https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/local/2023/01/30/lawsuit-bishop-richard-stika-said-alleged-rape-victim-was-a-predator/69823218007/

Stika's comments are a pattern of trying to intimidate the victim, lawsuit asserts

Tyler Whetstone

Knoxville News Sentinel

Key points:

• The latest version of a lawsuit against the Knoxville diocese says Bishop Richard Stika is trying to flip the narrative on an alleged sexual assault.
• The newest allegations came to light when the diocese successfully fought to strip the alleged victim of a pseudonym in his lawsuit.
• Sex abuse victim advocates say the church is trying to intimidate victims.

ishop Richard Stika told a roomful of priests in 2021 that a man who said he was raped by a seminarian had the whole story backward. In Stika's account, the man is a predator who sexually abused the seminarian, according to new details included in a lawsuit by the alleged victim.

The lawsuit asserts the diocese tried to discredit the man, a former church employee, and did not properly investigate his sexual abuse allegations.

Stika, leader of the Catholic Diocese of Knoxville, made the comments at a May 2021 meeting at the Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, the lawsuits asserts, relying on the account of someone who attended the meeting.

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https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/local/2023/01/30/lawsuit-bishop-richard-stika-said-alleged-rape-victim-was-a-predator/69823218007/

For Immediate Release:

Susan Vance

SNAP of Tennessee (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests)

865-748-3518