Ex-O.C. Priest Is Removed

A Roman Catholic priest who was permitted to continue working at a Huntington Beach church in the mid-1990s despite a molestation settlement from an earlier post has been removed from his parish in Oregon.

Father Gus Krumm, a 48-year-old Franciscan priest, was dismissed as pastor at Ascension Catholic Church in Portland last week after informing church officials of “indiscretions which occurred in the early ‘70s and mid-’80s,” according to a statement by the Franciscan Friars of California.

In 1995, the Franciscan Friars paid an undisclosed amount to a former student at St. Anthony’s Seminary in Santa Barbara who alleged Krumm repeatedly molested him there during the early 1980s.

The settlement occurred after Krumm had been working for seven years as an associate pastor at Saints Simon & Jude Catholic Church in Huntington Beach.

The Diocese of Orange was informed of the settlement but declined to remove Krumm from his post.

Diocesan spokeswoman Maria Schinderle said the allegations were investigated at the time and found not to merit a dismissal.

The Franciscan Order reiterated that in a statement Monday:

“This allegation was investigated twice and proven to be unsubstantiated.”

Krumm left the Huntington Beach church in 1998 to become pastor at the Portland parish. Church officials in Oregon were informed of the allegations against Krumm at that time.

Another former seminary student at Santa Barbara recently made molestation allegations against Krumm from the same period, Franciscan officials said.

Officials from the Franciscan Order did not return phone calls.

Their statement does not indicate how Krumm confessed his “indiscretions” to church superiors, or what those indiscretions were.

It says only that they “had never been revealed before” Krumm disclosed them last Tuesday.

“I don’t know how they were discovered,” said Mary Jo Tully, chancellor for the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon.

“They told us there was the possibility of new allegations, and he was removed.”