Anchorage Daily News

A Fairbanks priest based at the university parish was put on administrative leave Tuesday after being accused of sexually abusing a child in the early 1990s in a Western Alaska village, according to officials with the Fairbanks diocese.

The priest, Gerald Ornowski, and his religious order, the Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception, were named as defendants in a lawsuit filed last month in Nome.

The Fairbanks diocese, which is in bankruptcy court after being hit with numerous lawsuits alleging priest abuse, was not named a defendant but has supervised the priest over the years.

Ornowski has been in Alaska on and off since 1976 and is currently the campus priest at St. Mark's, the university parish in Fairbanks, said Robert Hannon, chancellor of the Fairbanks diocese.

Fairbanks Bishop Donald Kettler learned of the lawsuit this week and put the priest on leave, as specified by diocesan child protection policies.

Ornowski is currently at his religious order's headquarters in Stockbridge, Mass. He is recovering there after undergoing an unspecified medical treatment that was planned long before the lawsuit, diocesan officials said.

The allegations involve a girl in the village of Stebbins back in 1990 and 1991, said Ronnie Rosenberg, legal coordinator for the diocese.

Find Lisa Demer online at adn.com/contact/ldemer or call 257-4390.

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