Anglican Watch

Spotlight on abuse: Episcopal priest and scout leader David E. Cates

Episcopal Priest and Scout Leader David E. Cates
Episcopal Priest and Scout Leader David E. Cates
Episcopal Priest and Scout Leader David E. Cates

Episcopal priest and Boy Scout troop leader David E. Cates was arrested in January 1973 for sexual assault of four eight-year-old boys in his rectory swimming pool at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, North Highlands, Antelope, California. The Seabury-Western Seminary graduate pleaded guilty and was suspended from the priesthood for ten years during which he served as a psychiatrist in Alaska. The Boy Scouts of America removed him as a worker in April 1973 after his felony convictions and confinement at the Vacaville Prison for the Criminally Insane in California.

Cates’s license to officiate was restored in 1983 and he became rector of St. Matthias’ Episcopal Church, Asheville, North Carolina ( Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina) until his retirement in 1989. He served at St. Matthias’s Church in Asheville for the next twenty years until his death in 2009.

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