Longtime Catholic priest Rolando Garcia is accused of sexual abuse for the fourth time, prompting the Archdiocese of Miami to take a defensive stand while many parishioners condemn him.
Last week, Simmons, a decorated U.S. Army specialist who served in the Iraq war, accused Garcia in a lawsuit of sexually abusing him during the mid-1990s, starting when he was 16 years old.
For the first time in recent memory, Miami’s Catholic Church leaders reacted defensively to his negligence suit, the latest of more than 100 filed against the local archdiocese since the clergy-sex abuse scandal broke nationwide a decade ago.