[TRIGGER WARNING: This story involves descriptions of sexual grooming and abusive behavior.]

Editor’s note: Many Catholics view the Church’s sexual abuse crisis as primarily involving minors. But as experts and advocates — such as Awake Milwaukee — point out, a significant number of reports of priests engaging in abusive and grooming behavior involve adult victims. Such cases include those of Bishop Michael Bransfield in West Virginia and former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who were credibly accused of the sexual harassment, grooming, and abuse of adult seminarians. Other cases, such as the abuse scandals at Franciscan University of Steubenville, involve priests exploiting their pastoral authority to groom and abuse young adult women. Some priest abusers, such as Jeremy Leatherby of Sacramento, prey on married women. In such cases, coming forward can be difficult for a survivor due to shame and the added fear of harming their marriage.

When a parish priest engages in grooming behavior and sexual abuse towards his own parishioners, he exploits a relationship of trust and spiritual authority. Adult survivors of sexual and spiritual abuse experience trauma, feelings of shame, and spiritual and emotional wounds that are difficult to heal. They also have different challenges in being heard and believed by Church authorities.

This is one such story.

The following is Part 1 of a two-part series about Joan[*], a married, lifelong Catholic who was groomed and sexually manipulated by a newly-ordained priest at her parish in the Diocese of Reno. This story recounts that relationship, which involves an alleged sexual assault in March 2020, her decision to come forward, and her struggle to seek justice from Church leadership.

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In May of this year, the Diocese of Reno issued a statement announcing that the Reverend Patrick Klekas, would be returning to priestly ministry on July 1, 2023 and had been assigned to a local parish. The May 12, 2023 statement from Bishop Daniel Mueggenborg said that Fr. Klekas had been suspended in Fall 2022 after he acknowledged that he had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with an adult, married woman that began in 2020 while he served as associate pastor at St. Albert the Great Parish in Reno.

According to the bishop’s statement, Fr. Klekas, who was ordained in June 2019, was set to return to ministry on July 1, 2023, at St. Gall parish in Gardnerville after completing “counseling and discernment.” The decision was made on the recommendation of the parish’s Adult Misconduct Review Board.

A later memo from Bishop Mueggenborg, dated June 22, 2023, stated that Fr. Klekas’s reassignment had been postponed pending the results of a police investigation. Although the diocese was initially keen to stress that Fr. Klekas had been in a “consensual” relationship with an adult woman, the parishioner in question reported Klekas’s behavior to the police.

Then, on August 22, 2023, the diocese announced that Fr. Klekas would not be returning to priestly ministry.

In an exclusive interview with WPI, Klekas’s accuser said that she was not only the victim of sexual assault by Klekas but alleges that she and her husband were both subject to his coercive control and grooming behavior.

Mid to late 2019: The new priest

According to Joan[*], she and her husband, Tim[*], were initially keen to welcome Fr. Klekas to their community when he was assigned to St. Albert the Great Parish in July 2019. The couple have been involved in their church for decades and intended to be friendly with the new young priest.

Joan soon noticed, however, that Fr. Klekas’s behavior was unusual for a priest. Joan said that throughout the fall of 2019, Klekas began to ingratiate himself with Joan and Tim’s circle of friends and family.

Joan alleges that soon after his arrival, Fr. Klekas began hugging her after every Mass, enveloping her in his vestments even before they had been formally introduced. A cradle Catholic, Joan attended weekday Mass two or three times a week, as well as on Sundays and holy days of obligation. Every time she left Mass, she claims Klekas would take the opportunity to hug her.

As evidenced by the couple’s doorcam footage, Fr. Klekas began visiting the couple’s home to play guitar with Tim, a musician, on a regular basis beginning in January 2020. He also began texting Joan, inviting her out for lunch during the day.

When they were in each other’s company, Joan also claims that Fr. Klekas took every opportunity to touch her, such as stroking her on the arm, touching her leg when they were sitting next to each other, and trying to play footsie with her under the table even when other people were present.

Klekas — who typically wore his collar, even at social events — would sometimes try to massage Joan’s neck and shoulders in public. These interactions bothered and embarrassed Joan, who claims she felt uncomfortable and always tried to move away from Klekas when he attempted such contact.

Joan also says she was confused by Klekas’s behavior, as she was not sure if it was sexual in nature, since he was a priest.

Joan says that initially, she had wanted Klekas to befriend her adult sons, hoping it would be beneficial for their spiritual lives to be friends with a clergyman. When Klekas asked Joan to “hang out” or “meet up” with him, she assumed he also meant with one of her sons as well, and she would invite her son along to restaurants.

Joan said the presence of her son or other company did not stop Klekas from making inappropriate comments about Joan’s clothing and engaging in flirtatious behavior with her. Joan was embarrassed by his attention but again assumed it wasn’t romantic or sexual since other people were present.

Early 2020: The escalation

In February of 2020, Joan claims Klekas’s attention intensified, and he began texting her obsessively, sometimes sending hundreds of texts a day. In text messages seen by WPI, Joan did engage with Klekas in these text exchanges. She says that she did not want to seem rude.

Joan claims Klekas continued to make lascivious and flirtatious remarks directed at her in front of other people, many of whom she says later admitted to her that they were shocked by his remarks but didn’t feel it was their place to admonish the priest.

Tim began to resent Klekas’s frequent presence at their home. Joan also mentioned to Klekas around this point that he shouldn’t be asking her to go to lunch with him, as it would put them both in a “place that is not good for us.”

Klekas assured her that they were both just “hanging out” and that their relationship was platonic. Joan’s instincts told her otherwise, but Klekas belittled her concerns, allegedly saying, “We aren’t doing anything wrong. I like hanging out with you.”

Around the same time, Klekas made a vulgar gesture into the couple’s doorcam when he visited the couple’s house. His hand and tongue imitated oral sex on a woman, knowing that Joan would see it later. Klekas was still texting Joan hundreds of times a day.

Although Tim expressed his concerns about Klekas’s behavior to Joan, she was still convinced that he was just an immature young man and that he wasn’t sexually interested in her because he was a priest.

Klekas’s behavior continued; Joan claims that she refused to engage with texts that were bordering on sexual or teasing. She says he told her, “If I ever cross the line, let me know.” Eventually, Joan and her husband began to go to social events without inviting Klekas.

Joan was getting bored and frustrated with Klekas’s behavior, and she finally confronted Klekas when he tried to kiss her in her home, an interaction witnessed by her adult son. Still, she continued to believe that his intentions were not sexual. The next day, Joan talked with her son and told him she thought Klekas had crossed the line because of alcohol, and he probably wouldn’t do it again.

Joan then asked Klekas to go on a short walk and told him they should not hang out anymore. Again, Klekas assured her that their friendship was platonic. Joan felt backed into a corner.

Once again, Klekas minimized the gravity of his behavior and skillfully persuaded Joan that everything was as it should be.

In group situations, however, Joan said Klekas’s behavior was getting worse. On one occasion, Klekas gave her a lingering hug on the driveway of her house after she had carpooled home with Klekas, her husband, and two other couples. The whole spectacle was witnessed by their friends and captured on Joan’s home security camera. Joan’s friends later told her they had found the incident “mortifying.”

March 2020

This is when Joan first considered reporting Klekas but reasoned that it was better not to cause a scandal. Klekas was now firmly part of their friend group, and Joan didn’t want to be seen as the cause of drama.

Klekas was still texting Joan obsessively, sometimes between 100 and 200 times a day. In the days leading up to March 2020, Klekas texted Joan nearly all day, a behavior that Joan felt bordered on stalking. Joan engaged with Klekas’s texts — she says she did so because she did not want to seem unfriendly — but as this behavior continued, Joan says she became anxious about being alone with Klekas.

Joan alleges she was sexually assaulted by Klekas in March 2020.

After a Tuesday Mass, Joan, Klekas, and other members of the church community went out for lunch. Klekas drove Joan back to the church where she had left her car. On the way to the church, however, Klekas told Joan he had to stop at his home “for a bit,” Joan assumed this meant he needed to pick something up or run a quick errand.

This is where the alleged sexual assault took place. Over the rest of the day Klekas and Joan exchanged 99 text messages.

Late March 2020–Christmas 2022: The aftermath

Afterwards, Klekas’s communication with Joan became inconsistent. Joan said that whenever she tried to distance herself from him, however, he would start messaging her again, insisting they go for lunch.

The cat-and-mouse game continued over the course of 2020. Every time Joan tried to pull away from Klekas, he would lovebomb her with text messages. When she expressed her anger and hurt with Klekas, he would become charming and sweet, placating her with flattering messages and inviting her out to lunch before becoming distant again.

The pandemic pushed Joan into lockdown with her close-knit group of friends. A group that Klekas was now a part of. Her friends began to notice her psychological torment, but Klekas was unavoidable in group settings and Mass until May of the next year.

Tim became increasingly confused by her behavior and the detrimental effect it was having on their marriage, but he didn’t make the link to the presence of Klekas. He and their friends had become “desensitized” to the young priest’s immature and vulgar behavior over the course of the pandemic.

Tim thought the personal friendship between the couple and Klekas had merely fizzled out toward the end of 2020, when the priest stopped coming to their house as often and the pandemic meant they didn’t have to see him so regularly at social events.

In June 2021, Joan read an article in the New York Times entitled “Pope Widens Church Law to Target Sexual Abuse of Adults by Priests and Laity,” which detailed the changes in church law to explicitly criminalize the sexual exploitation of adults by clergy. Joan always felt what Klekas had done to her was “criminal,” but she couldn’t articulate why until she read the article.

After reading the article, Joan claims she realized that she had been the victim of a crime and called her best friend, crying, to tell her what had happened to her. Tim overheard the conversation, later describing it as a “very painful gift from God.”

Joan and her husband received counseling from another priest in the parish to help them cope.

People in Joan’s friend group admitted that they saw and heard things that were inappropriate, but no one thought Joan was in harm’s way because Klekas was a priest. Several of Joan’s friends later said they had also felt “groomed.”

Joan says she believes she was deliberately targeted by Klekas because she was married. Joan and her husband were homeowners with adult children and were well-established in their community. She suspects that Klekas had already calculated that this would make her less likely to speak out about the assault because she had “too much to lose.”

Tim feels that he too was groomed by Klekas, whom he felt befriended him only to be able to spend more time with Joan. In mid-2021, Joan sought therapy, and this time both her therapist and her husband encouraged her to report Klekas to the Bishop of Reno.

Joan’s therapist even offered to go with her to report Klekas to the Bishop of Reno, but Joan initially refused. Joan cut off all contact with Klekas for the next three months, but he would continue to text her every three weeks or so. Joan struggled with the psychological aftermath and eventually reconnected with Klekas to tell him how much damage he had inflicted on her life.

In the fall of 2021, Klekas and Joan met for lunch again. Klekas initially apologized several times to Joan, told her he was a changed man, and asked her how he could help her heal.

She said she was surprised when, somewhat audaciously, he also told her that while he had crossed an ethical line, she had “committed adultery,” as she was married but he wasn’t. He told her that while he had merely broken the rules, she had broken a commandment.

Joan felt particularly stung by his words since Fr. Klekas had previously admitted to her that he had committed adultery with another married woman in December 2018, shortly before he was ordained to the priesthood. Joan says she distinctly remembers Klekas bragging about this liaison, telling her: “I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t care.”

By December 2021, Joan thought she and Klekas had reached an understanding. Although she didn’t know it yet, she was struggling with the effects of PTSD. Her therapist recommended EMDR treatment.

In the spring of 2022, Joan heard rumors of another relationship Klekas was conducting, again with a married woman, Lynn[*], a long-term employee of the parish. Klekas denied this rumor when Joan confronted him.

When Klekas was moved to another parish in July 2022 as part of a routine reassignment, Joan felt an enormous wave of relief.

Around this time, Joan also found out there had already been an investigation into Klekas’s relationship with Lynn. Joan soon suspected that the toxic relationship Klekas had instigated with her was not a one-off, and if she did not report him, he might prey on other women.

The investigation into Klekas’s affair with Lynn had dropped away, and Joan believes this is because Lynn protected Klekas and herself, just as Joan had been inclined to do to minimize any scandal for her own and her family’s sake.

In mid-July 2022, Joan finally realized she had to tell the diocese what had transpired between her and Klekas. Now that Klekas was no longer in the parish, she found the strength to report him. She broke down on the phone with another priest when recounting the alleged assault.

The priest immediately recognized that Joan had been groomed and reported Klekas to Bishop Mueggenborg.

Although she dreaded it, Joan met with Bishop Mueggenborg in late September 2022. Bishop Mueggenborg then met with Klekas on September 27, and he told Klekas he was forbidden from contacting Joan ever again.

Joan says that Klekas, however, called her from the parking lot of the diocesan offices immediately after the meeting to tell her this.

On October 17 and November 28, 2022, Joan submitted statements to the diocese. Fr. Klekas’s faculties were effectively suspended on December 1 out of an “abundance of caution.” The diocese would pay for more therapy, including couples counseling for both her and her husband.

But despite the initial relief of finally telling the diocese of her toxic relationship with Klekas, a new phase in her ordeal was only just beginning.

She learned that the emeritus bishop of Reno, Bishop Randolph Calvo, who retired in July 2021 and was replaced by Bishop Mueggenborg, knew of Fr. Klekas’s first instance of sexual misconduct towards the end of his time in seminary but ordained him anyway.

When Joan learned that Klekas’s pattern of behavior was already known to the diocese she was devastated.

In a recording seen by WPI, Fr. Chuck Durante, another priest of the Diocese of Reno, admitted to Joan that Fr. Klekas’s other alleged sexual encounters — with Lynn and the married woman he slept with while still in seminary — had already been reported to the diocese, and that Bishop Mueggenborg knew of both cases. According to an October 20, 2023 email from Reno’s Vicar General, Fr. Chuck Durante, “the Diocese has no direct knowledge of the alleged relationship. At the last inquiry, both parties adamantly denied that they had a sexual relationship.” He also noted that Lynn’s husband “declined to cooperate with our investigation and chose not to respond to the investigator’s multiple phone messages.”

Joan felt violated and betrayed by the diocese, and she claims she spiraled into an incredibly dark psychological abyss again as she realized everything she had gone through was preventable. She was also unsure if Klekas’s relationships with the two other women were mutual or if the other women had been subject to Klekas’s grooming as well.

At Christmas Eve Mass in 2022, Joan was seated with her family in St. Albert the Great Church. Joan claims Lynn came up and sat behind her and her family. Speaking directly to Joan, Lynn then said: “A good man is alone tonight because of you.”

Joan said Lynn then began the most extraordinary public tirade, accusing Joan of getting Klekas fired, of ruining his life, of being an adulteress, and of telling her she didn’t belong in any church in full earshot of the entire congregation. The spectacle seemed designed to inflict as much humiliation on Joan as possible.

Joan stood up and told Lynn to be quiet and leave. Eventually, Lynn went to the piano to begin playing for mass. Lynn’s near-decade-long association with the church was terminated soon thereafter.

Click here for Part 2.

[Editor’s Note (October 20, 2023): This article has been updated to include a statement received this morning via email from Fr. Chuck Durante, Vicar General of the Diocese of Reno.]

Note:

[*] Names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved.

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Image: Adobe Stock. By Ivan Kmit.