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OMAHA
Witness in priest's case tells of receiving pressure
By Amy Lorentzen, Associated Press, 5/19/2002
OMAHA - A teacher at a Catholic school said the archbishop of Omaha asked
her to resign because she tipped off police to a priest's use of a church
computer to view child pornography on the Internet.
Archbishop Elden Curtiss acknowledged that he talked with Linda Hammond, a
teacher at Sacred Heart kindergarten in Norfolk, but did not say if he asked
her to resign. She did not resign.
Madison County attorney Joe Smith said he was looking into the claims. ''I'm
asking the police to do a little more investigating on it; then I'll make a
decision,'' Smith said Friday.
Hammond has been identified in court as a witness in the case against the
Rev. Robert Allgaier, a former Norfolk priest charged in February with
attempted possession of child pornography.
She said that Curtiss asked her to resign May 8 and that at least two other
people were witnesses. The conversation was made public Thursday in a report
by the Norfolk Daily News.
In a statement issued Friday, Curtiss said he did not know Hammond was a
witness in the case before their brief meeting.
The prosecutor has criticized the archbishop for not coming forward with the
evidence against Allgaier.
He said Curtiss knew for eight months that Allgaier had looked at
pornography before Hammond came forward.
''If it hadn't been for Linda Hammond, the police and people ... probably
would never have known'' about Allgaier, Smith said. ''So treating a person
like Mrs. Hammond rudely is significant.''
This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on 5/19/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
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