A priest on the St. Ambrose University faculty has been accused of sexual misconduct in the early 1990s and the bishop of the Des Moines Catholic Diocese has placed the priest on administrative leave.
According to a news release from the Diocese, authorities in Scott, Polk and Pottawattamie Counties have been notified of the complaint. Reverend Robert Grant, who goes by the nickname Bud, taught at Council Bluffs St. Albert High School from 1988 to 1994. In that same year — 1994 — he began teaching at St. Ambrose in Davenport.
The bishop says church officials were notified of the complaint on February 27th and found it to have a “semblance of truth,” so an internal investigation began. Grant was placed on leave six days later, on March 4th.
Grant was ordained as a priest in 1984 and he served three parishes in Shelby County in the 1980s in Portsmouth, Panama, and Westphalia before the time of the alleged sexual misconduct. Since 2008, he has been a sacramental minister at St. Andrew Parish in Bluegrass.