American paedophile priest of California convicted of sexual abuse now living in St. Helena 

Mark Kristy was accused of sexually touching the girl, who was younger than 14, and sexually exposing her sometime from 2001 through 2004,

By Edward Era Barbacena 

 The Catholic Diocese of Sacramento has added a name to a list of clergy members accused of sexual abuse that now includes a priest who previously served in Napa County but was convicted of molesting a girl while visiting Placer County.

Mark Kristy, who served with the religious order Discalced Carmelite Fathers based in Oakville is living in St. Helena, according to a California directory of sex offenders. Kristy pleaded no contest to sexually abusing a minor and received five years of probation in 2022, according to Placer County Superior Court records.

Officials of the Sacramento Diocese were informed of the allegations against Kristy in 2015.

Kristy was accused of sexually touching the girl, who was younger than 14, and sexually exposing her sometime from 2001 through 2004, according to the diocese.

On Feb. 16, 2022, Kristy pleaded no contest to one felony count of committing lewd or lascivious acts with a child younger than 14 in September 2004. On June 21, Kristy’s child sex abuse case in Placer County was transferred to Napa County, where he’s serving his probation.

As of Friday, the state Megan’s Law website listed Kristy’s address as 490 Meadowood Lane, northeast of the St. Helena town center.

A criminal complaint alleges that Kristy molested a girl whose parents attended a church near their Rocklin home, where the priest sometimes assisted. Over time, Kristy spent more time at the family’s home and stayed with the girl and her younger sister at sleepover-like encounters – either in the living room or in a backyard tent – where the abuse occurred starting when the girl was about 10, according to a June 2021 case summary from the Placer County District Attorney’s Office.

The girl’s father brought her allegations to church officials in December 2015, and Kristy was told of the allegations within a week, the summary states.

Kristy is identified in court records under the name Mark Gregory Kristy. The court ordered him to serve five years of probation, ending on March 16, 2027, as part of his sentence, court records show.

Diocese officials said Kristy, who was born in the U.S. and is now 71 years old, attended seminary at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley.

An August 2014 article published in the Catholic World Report indicated Kristy grew up in Southern California, where he was the drummer of Christian rock band in the 1970s, ordained as a priest in 1985, became a psychotherapist and worked at parishes in Tucson, Arizona and the Los Angeles archdiocese before moving to Oakville in Napa County.

Napa Valley Register stories from 2001 to 2010 give brief glimpses into Kristy’s years with the Oakville Carmelite community – from speaking at a memorial for 9/11 attack victims to leading Latin Mass in Rutherford to presiding over the annual Blessing of the Grapes during the 2010 harvest.

The Catholic World Report article also mentions Kristy still offered counseling to clients professionally, and Kristy in 2014 was living at the Oakville Carmelite House of Prayer within the Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa and celebrating mass at other locations in Northern California.

In late September 2022, officials at the Cathedral of St. Eugene in Santa Rosa posted a message on the parish’s website telling parishioners that Kristy was living within the Diocese of Santa Rosa without the diocese’s permission or approval.

“Under no circumstance is he to be allowed to exercise any form of ministry in or for the Diocese,” the online message said. “The faithful are advised that they are not to participate in any way with any priestly activities which he might illicitly offer.”

Although some media reports described Kristy as a former priest, his standing remained unclear Friday afternoon. Messages left with Discalced Carmelite Friars were not immediately returned.

On the Santa Rosa Diocese website, Kristy’s name was added a list of priests accused of sexual abuse in an update dated January, which described him as “out of ministry” but added that an “ecclesiastical process (was) still ongoing.”

The reason for the passage of more than a year between the advisory about Kristy and his addition to the list was not immediately known.

The Diocese of Sacramento initially released its list of accused clergy members in April 2019. Sex abuse victims and advocates at the time argued that releasing the list after a long delay put other potential victims at risk, ignored the current danger and fixated on past cases in which the statute of limitations had run out.

The list includes the dates and locations of their assignments in the diocese of Sacramento, which covers Catholic churches and outreach from Sacramento to the Oregon border, as well as the Lake Tahoe area.

In a letter posted online, Bishop Jaime Soto announced that the Diocese of Sacramento is facing insolvency following more than 200 lawsuits alleging the sexual abuse of minors as the result of state law extending the statute of limitations for such cases.

“I am committed to resolving all claims as fairly as possible,” Soto wrote in the February letter. “Given the number of claims that have been presented, however, resolving them may overwhelm the diocese’s finances available to satisfy such claims.”

A board member of the activist group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, attacked the announcements of Kristy’s probation and return to Napa County as too little and too late for both actual and potential victims of abuse.

“This is really a troubling, troubling situation,” said Dan McNevin, who is SNAP’s Oakland-area representative. “The bishops claim they are being transparent, that they’re pro-survivor, and that they take seriously child protection, but this is a failure by bishops on every level. … It’s a stunning lack of care for Catholic children in Santa Rosa, in Sacramento, any place where this guy worked.”

Even with Kristy’s no-contest plea and probation in the sex abuse case, serious questions remain about the priest’s whereabouts over several years, according to McNevin.

“Where has he been living since 2015? Where has he been working? How has he been making money? This case is nowhere near over,” he said Friday afternoon. “We shouldn’t have to dig for that stuff; the bishop should be telling us. We need a lot more information. It shouldn’t be the job of volunteer activists to chase down these details.”