— BALTIMORE (Reuters) - A Roman Catholic priest who admitted to having sex with one teen-age boy was shot and wounded by a second alleged sex-abuse victim outside his Baltimore home, police said on Tuesday.
Dontee Stokes, 26, who was apparently aggravated by the U.S. Catholic Church's pedophilia scandal, confessed to shooting the Rev. Maurice Blackwell in the wrist and torso on Monday at about 6 p.m., according to Baltimore Police Department spokeswoman Ragina Averella.
Blackwell, who was put on a permanent leave of absence by the Archdiocese of Baltimore in 1998, was in serious but stable condition at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Stokes turned himself in hours after the shooting and was charged on Tuesday with attempted murder and first- and second-degree assault.
Police were unable to provide many details of the incident or the arrest. Local media reports quoted witnesses as saying Blackwell had been outside his home and talking to an acquaintance who had pulled up in a car when shots rang out.
Blackwell, 56, was pastor of Baltimore's St. Edward Roman Catholic Church from 1979 until October 1998, when he was placed on leave of absence after acknowledging an affair with a teenage boy that had taken place before his 1974 ordination.
Blackwell has been working as a drug treatment counselor in Washington, D.C.
Police said Stokes accused Blackwell of molesting him in 1993, prompting church officials to suspend the priest's ministry. But the suspension was only temporary.
The archdiocese said Blackwell underwent a psychological evaluation at a church-run treatment center in Connecticut and was allowed to return to his duties when police dropped the investigation on grounds of insufficient evidence.
A panel set up by Baltimore Cardinal William Keeler to review the archdiocese's handling of sex abuse cases later criticized the decision to allow Blackwell to return to the parish ministry.
Archdiocese spokesman Ray Kempisty said police had not contacted the church about the shooting.
Keeler was among the U.S. cardinals who met with Pope John Paul II for an unprecedented meeting on church pedophilia in April. The cardinals returned with a set of proposed standards that would remove priests from active ministry after one credible accusation. The proposal will be submitted to a meeting of U.S. bishops next month in Dallas.
The scandal has caused several Catholic dioceses to expel priests previously accused of child sex abuse.
"There are no priests on active ministry in the Baltimore Archdiocese who have credibly been accused of child sex abuse," said Kempisty, adding that archdiocese policy is to notify civil authorities of all accusations brought against clergy.
He said the Baltimore archdiocese has never compiled an overall figure for the number of local priests who have been credibly accused of sexual wrongdoing.