Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, August 12, 1994                   TAG: 9408120087
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

BISHOP'S SON ACCUSES PRIEST OF SEXUAL ABUSE

The son of the Episcopal bishop of Washington is accusing a priest of sexually abusing him for 12 years while offering assurances that ``God will forgive you.''

With his father and mother standing behind him at a news conference Thursday, Jeffrey Haines said he was raised to trust the church but ``I have been betrayed.''

He said his memory of the molestation, which he said continued until he was 20, returned only last year, while he was undergoing therapy. He will be 35 next month.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Asheville, N.C., against J. Faulton Hodge, an Episcopal priest who is retired after serving churches in Rutherfordton and St. Mary's in Ashe County, N.C.

``I have never sexually molested anyone,'' said Hodge, in a statement issued by his lawyer. ``It is indeed a sad day for the Episcopal Church when one bishop's son sues two other bishops, a priest and his own church for monetary gain.''

Haines' suit names the current and former bishops of the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina and the diocese itself on grounds that they knew or should have known that Hodge ``was a severe danger to persons who are his potential prey.''

His father, Bishop Ronald Haines, said, ``The church does not always practice what it preaches.''

The younger Haines asks $10,000 damages on each of 13 counts, but his lawyer said the amounts were listed only to satisfy state legal requirements and actual damages would be up to a jury.

``The fact that I was a young child meant nothing to him,'' Haines told reporters. ``He merely sought to fulfill his sexual desires. Faulton Hodge robbed me of my childhood.''

Haines said he tried to settle the matter privately, but the church and its leaders ``have offered me nothing except lip service and are hiding behind legal technicalities.''

His lawyer, Denis Ventriglia, said no hypnosis was involved in the therapy.

The lawsuit said Haines did not make his charges earlier because he ``lacked sufficient capacity to make or communicate important decisions regarding his legal rights.''

A similar suit, also naming Hodge, was filed this month in Asheville by Jesse D. Hickman.

``There are approximately 700,000 lawyers in the United States, but mysteriously these two plaintiffs, one from Ohio, the other living in New York, have chosen the same Washington, D.C., lawyer to represent them,'' Hodge said.

Without elaborating, he called the two suits ``a coordinated effort by certain church political forces to engage in a vendetta and witch hunt.''

``Sexual abuse or exploitation by church leaders, whether clergy or lay, is a betrayal of trust with profound consequences,'' Bishop Haines said. ``Our son was made to feel ashamed and guilty before God by an adult whom he admired.''