MASON, Ohio — Father Barry Stechschulte resigned as pastor of St. Susanna in Mason more than two months ago, and today he started his new assignment at several rural churches north of Dayton.
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His reassignment comes after our news partners WCPO-9 TV did an I-Team investigation into the destruction of alleged child pornography on a parish computer that belonged to a different priest years before.
Meanwhile, Deacon Marty Brown, who told police that he took the hard drive out of the computer and destroyed it with a blow torch at the request of Stechschulte, has been placed on a leave of absence from active ministry. Brown resigned as facilities director at St. Patrick and Holy Rosary parishes in August.
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“I cannot comment further as this is a personnel matter,” said Archdiocese of Cincinnati spokesperson Mike Schafer, who confirmed the leave of absence.
Stechschulte announced in a message to St. Susana parishioners on July 29 that he was stepping down, WCPO-9 TV reported.
His decision to step down came after more than 500 people signed a petition calling for his resignation after it was revealed that he ordered the destruction of alleged child porn and waited six years to report it to police while at a different parish.
He now ministers 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 Brown to destroy a hard drive.
He has been 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.
“The parents of St. Susanna asked that Father Barry step down and a few parents from Holy Rosary asked the same of their deacon, believing they had broken the Child Protection Decree, and their trust,” according to a statement from Ohioans for Child Protection co-founders Rebecca Surendorff and Teresa Dinwiddie-Hermann obtained by WCPO-9 TV.
“Our archbishop has allowed Father Barry to continue to be entrusted with the moral guidance of another parish, while the deacon has stepped down. But when will our archbishop be held accountable for his failures as the leader while these recent cases and others like Father Drew, Father Barry, Father Cutcher, Seminarian Witt, and more, all occurred under his leadership,” they wrote.
According to WCPO-9 TV’s I-Team report, when Stechschulte arrived as the new pastor of Holy Rosary Church in St. Mary’s in July 2021, he and Brown told police they discovered what looked like child pornography while refurbishing an old desktop the former pastor Tony 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 obtained by WCPO-9 TV.
“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.
Brown said he took the hard drive out of the computer and destroyed it with a blow torch at the request of Stechchulte.
“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. In 2021 Montgomery County prosecutors investigated Cutcher after he was accused of “texting a minor in a manner that was inconsistent with the requirement of the Decree on Child Protection,” while pastor at St. Peter in Huber Heights, according to an previous News Center 7 report.
Cutcher resigned from active ministry in April 2021 while Stechchulte moved from Holy Rosary to become pastor of St. Susansa, a much larger church, 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.
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