MASON, Ohio — Two months after the pastor of St. Susanna in Mason resigned following a WCPO 9 I-Team investigation, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati has reassigned him to several rural churches north of Dayton.
Father Barry Stechschulte announced in a message to St. Susanna parishioners July 29 that he was stepping down. This after more than 500 people signed a petition calling for his resignation following a WCPO 9 I-Team report that showed he ordered the destruction of alleged child pornography and waited six years to report it to police while at a different parish.
Stechschulte will now minister to a cluster of churches in the northwest section of the archdiocese near his hometown of Minster and not far from his former church, Holy Rosary in St. Mary’s, where he admitted ordering a deacon to destroy a hard drive.
The archdiocese posted Stechschulte’s new assignment on its website: effective Oct. 14, he will be appointed parochial vicar of a family of parishes which includes Holy Trinity, Coldwater; Mary Help of Christians, Ft. Recovery; St. Anthony, St. Anthony; St. Joseph, St. Joseph; St. Mary, Philothea; St. Paul, Sharpsburg; and St. Peter, St. Peter.
These are some of the same churches where Stechschulte served as parochial vicar during his first assignment with the archdiocese in 2009, according to a post on his Facebook page.
A spokesperson for the archdiocese did not answer a question from WCPO about why Stechschulte was receiving a new assignment.
"All children and all Catholic children should be protected in all of our communities, whether urban or rural," said Teresa Dinwiddie-Herrmann, co-founder of Ohioans for Child Protection,
"When the archbishop knowingly places a cleric that violated the child protection decree at a parish; it appears as though he proclaims to offenders, enablers and parents that child protection is largely a performative endeavor," Dinwiddie-Herrmann said. "How long will Catholic parents allow this cycle of enabling, abuse and cover up to continue?"
While the I-Team report focused on former priest Tony Cutcher, it also revealed Stechschulte's role in delaying public knowledge of what he did.
It happened at Holy Rosary Church in St. Mary’s, a rural area filled with cross-tipped churches. Cutcher was pastor there for several years.
When Stechschulte arrived as the new pastor in July 2012, he and Deacon Marty Brown told police they discovered what looked like child pornography while refurbishing an old desktop computer that Cutcher had used from a storage room.
“Father Barry said that upon looking at the computer he found two file folders, one containing male homosexual pornography, and the other file contained pictures of boys … he said he can only recall boys with no shirts on. I asked him if the kids were obviously underage with him saying ‘yes’ and that they were preteen, probably 8 to 10 years of age,” according to St. Mary’s 2018 police report.
“He did describe the boys as being in provocative poses. He again said he could not recall nudity or not, but it could have been,” Stechschulte told police, according to the report.
Police were never able to determine if anything illegal existed on that computer hard drive.
The deacon told police that he took the hard drive out of the computer and destroyed it with a blow torch at the request of Stechschulte, according to the police report.
“Father Barry said at the time, he did not realize the repercussions of not revealing what they had found. Father Barry again said that he should not have destroyed the evidence,” according to the police report.
Cutcher was never charged with a crime.
“Did (the archdiocese) try to find those children that were in the material? Did they try to reach out to families in the parish at the time to see if anything concerning had happened between Father Cutcher and children? It doesn’t sound like it,” Dinwiddie-Herrmann said in a July interview.
Just over two years later, Montgomery County prosecutors investigated Cutcher in 2021 for sending hundreds of texts messages to a 14-year-old boy while pastor of St. Peter in Huber Heights.
Cutcher resigned from active ministry in April 2021, following a scandal at the parish.
Meanwhile, Stechschulte moved from Holy Rosary to become pastor of a much larger church — St. Susanna, where he also oversaw a school.
“I understand that the information in this report is distressing for many of you and may impact your trust in me as your pastor… I instructed the hard drive be destroyed. I realize that not reporting it was a terrible mistake, which I regret,” Fr. Barry Stechschulte wrote in a July 12 letter to the St. Susanna community, days after the WCPO report.
Yet many parishioners posted on the St. Susanna Facebook page about their deep hurt.
“We need to move forward with new leadership for our parish,” wrote one, while another wrote, “Turning a blind eye to the well-being of our children is an abomination, and … the culpability of parish administration can't be ignored and it's time to clean house.”
After accepting Stechschulte's resignation, Archbishop Dennis Schnurr appointed Father Jeff Kemper as temporary administrator of St. Susanna.
As of Nov. 1, Reverend Bernard J. Weldishofer will become pastor of St. Susanna, according to the archdiocese's website.
