Still Running Off at the Keyboard

Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, of Detroit, arguing for more time for sex abuse victims to sue the Roman Catholic Church, said he was abused by a priest 60 years ago.

Gumbleton, 75, told The Washington Post in an interview published Wednesday that he was "inappropriately touched" by a priest in 1945 when he was a ninth grader at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit.

He is believed to be the first U.S. bishop to disclose that he was a victim of clergy sexual abuse and also the first to endorse proposals in several states, including Ohio, to remove time limits that have prevented many victims of sex abuse from suing the church.

"I don't want to exaggerate that I was terribly damaged," Gumbleton told the Post in a telephone interview. "It was not the kind of sexual abuse that many of the victims experience."