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A Catholic priest, facing criminal charges and a lawsuit alleging that he sexually abused a teenage boy, is now charged with attempting to hire someone to kill the youth, authorities said Tuesday.
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The Rev. John M. Fiala, 52, of Dallas was arrested last week after he offered an undercover agent with the Texas Department of Public Safety $5,000 to kill the teen, according to department spokeswoman Lisa Block.
"This guy," Edwards County Sheriff Don Letsinger said, "is an evil man."
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The youth met Fiala in 2007, according to Rhodes. The attorney said the priest started "grooming him," buying him gifts including a computer and a car. In early 2008, when the boy was 16, under the guise of providing private catechism lessons, Fiala "gained access to him and began to sexually abuse him once or twice a month, including on church grounds," Rhodes said.


At the time, Fiala was administrator of Sacred Heart of Mary in Rocksprings, Texas, which is in Edwards County. The alleged abuse occurred in two counties -- Edwards and Howard -- and included the youth's rape at gunpoint, the attorney said.


Fiala allegedly threatened to kill the youth if he told anyone -- threats he repeated in daily text messages, Rhodes said, and Fiala also threatened to kill himself, telling the teen they would "go to heaven together."


The teen, after struggling with the abuse, told a school counselor, who notified authorities, Rhodes said. He filed suit in April against Fiala, as well as the archdioceses of San Antonio, Texas, and Omaha, Nebraska -- where Fiala was before Texas -- and Fiala's religious order, the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, the attorney said.


The suit claims that all three covered up Fiala's record of abuse. All three have denied doing so, according to the San Antonio, Texas, Express-News. When former San Antonio Archbishop Jose Gomez and the religious order learned of the police investigation into Fiala's relationship with the teen, he was removed from active ministry in October 2008, the newspaper reported.


In September, an Edwards County grand jury indicted Fiala on three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one count of aggravated sexual assault by threat, according to the Express-News. Fiala was arrested in Kansas by a fugitive task force and was extradited to Texas, where he posted bail on September 27, according to the newspaper. He then moved to Dallas County.


A grand jury in Howard County handed up an indictment last week on the two aggravated sexual assault charges, the Express-News said.


Meanwhile, "approximately a week ago, we got an anonymous phone call from someone saying, 'Look, I'm living in a building with this guy, and he's talking about killing this young man,' " Rhodes said. "Our response was, 'You need to call police.' "


Letsinger said he got a call November 11 from the neighbor. The man at first just told authorities they should "be looking at this guy," the sheriff said, but later said Fiala had offered him $5,000 to kill the teenager. The allegation surprised him, Letsinger said.

The Department of Public Safety and its Texas Ranger Division got involved, sending the undercover agent to speak with Fiala, Rhodes said. The conversation was caught on video and audiotape.

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THE Vatican has confirmed that Pope Benedict has approved a historic shift to allow condoms to avoid AIDS - while carefully painting it as no change at all.

In a typical Vatican clarification that left both conservatives and progressives convinced they were correct, a spokesman, Federico Lombardi, said that the Pope did mean to say that someone with AIDS should use condoms to prevent infection, whether ''man or woman or transsexual''.

But he said the Pope's ''reasoning certainly cannot be defined as a revolutionary shift'', that he still taught abstinence and fidelity as better than condoms, which were ''not a real or moral solution''.

The stunning U-turn on condoms - traditional Catholic teaching says it is always sinful to use condoms within marriage because it blocks the transmission of life - emerged in interviews with a German journalist published in a book this week. But because Pope Benedict used the example of a male prostitute, conservative Catholics denied that it applied outside homosexual sex. However, in Italian the example was of a female prostitute.

Father Lombardi said because of the confusion he asked the Pope to clarify. The Pope told him the critical point was for someone with AIDS to take ''into consideration the life of another with whom you have a relationship''.

He said several moral theologians had held similar positions - without saying they had been ruthlessly silenced - ''however it is true that until now we had not heard them expressed with such clarity from the mouth of a pope''.

On Monday, the Bishop of Paramatta, Anthony Fisher, a bioethics specialist, released a statement insisting that ''despite some misinterpretation in the international media, the Pope has not deviated from or altered in any way Catholic teaching on the wrongness of contraception''. The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, also released a statement endorsing Bishop Fisher.

Neither was available for comment yesterday, but conservatives were still unimpressed by the apparent clarification. The bioethicist Nicholas Tonti-Filippini, from the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, said the Pope maintained condoms were not the solution because of their failure rate.

''If you have AIDS it's irresponsible to have sex with anyone, full stop. It's not an act of love to put someone's life at risk.''

Dr Tonti-Filippini said there had been considerable discussion within the church about whether sex within marriage using a condom was still the ''marriage act''. If it was, then the use of condoms to prevent infection would be allowable.

''But others, including the Pope, have said that is not the marriage act. It's like mutual masturbation if you use a condom.''

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- emerged in interviews with a German journalist published in a book this week. But because Pope Benedict used the example of a male prostitute, conservative Catholics denied that it applied outside homosexual sex. However, in Italian the example was of a female prostitute.

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On language log, they noted that the original interview was conducted in German and referred to as a male prostitute.

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine why the Vatican would be sympathetic to and seek to aid male prostitutes first.

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