LOUISVILLE - Nine of the priests accused of sexual misconduct in pending lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese are dead, and people close to them as well as church officials say that makes those cases particularly difficult.

        Since April the archdiocese has been sued by 184 people; the suits allege that church officials covered up sexual abuse by 24 priests, two religious brothers, two teachers and a church volunteer.

        It's traumatic to hear of the accusations when the priests can't defend themselves, relatives and supporters say. Church officials point out the problems with evaluating claims without knowing the priest's side of the story.

        “There are many victims in this ongoing saga,” said Alice Wickman, whose uncle, the Rev. Thomas P. Casper, is accused in one lawsuit.

        “There are the innocent children who were betrayed by those they trusted,” she said in a letter to The Courier-Journal. “And there are the innocent, but accused, who can never defend themselves or completely recover from the tarnish of false accusations. And there are the families of both.”

        Abbie Creed said the accusations against her brother-in-law, the Rev. C. Patrick Creed, are painful given her positive memories of his work.

        “He was very highly thought of by his peers as well as his parishioners,” she said in a letter to the newspaper. “I felt obligated to respond on his behalf.”

        Plaintiffs contend they have suffered damage that has outlived the priests they are accusing.

        “It's not about them anymore,” said Janice Marks of Oldham County, one of three women accusing the Rev. John Elder, who died in 1983, of abusing them between 1959 and 1973. “It's about me needing to heal myself. It doesn't matter if he's alive or dead.”

        Attorney William McMurry, who represents most of the plaintiffs, said he understands the claims are “shocking” to the deceased priests' families. But is that to say that because “they are dead and cannot defend themselves that it simply didn't happen? That's what juries are for,” he said.

        Thirty-four people are accusing the Rev. Arthur L. Wood, who died in 1983, of molesting them in the 1960s and 1970s; four other priests are the targets of only single accusers. One accuser is himself an imprisoned sex-abuse convict; he claims the Rev. Joseph Neeson abused him when the priest was nearly 90.

        After Father Wood, two Conventual Franciscans are the targets of the most accusations - Daniel Emerine, who died in 1986 and is named in six lawsuits alleging abuse in the 1950s and 1960s, and Kevin Cole, who died in 1990 and is accused by five plaintiffs of abuse from 1962 to 1970.

        “We're responsible for what that previous generation (of clerics) did,” said Brother Bob Baxter, spokesman for the Province of Our Lady of Consolation, based in Mount St. Francis, Ind. “It's awful hard because a lot of these people are deceased. You only have one side of the story and you wonder what happened.”

        Two women accuse the Rev. Herman Lammers, a longtime director of Catholic Charities who died in 1986 at age 79, of molesting them as girls at an orphanage where he was chaplain between 1955 and 1963. The archdiocese says it has received no other complaints about Father Lammers.

        Several children who lived at the St. Thomas-St. Vincent Home in Anchorage have spoken in Father Lammers' defense. “We all cried” after hearing of the suit, said Karen Snyder of Pewee Valley. “The man had every opportunity in the world to have done anything he wanted to me and my sisters,” she said. “Never, ever” did anything bad happen.

        The plaintiffs' lawyer, Victor Tackett Jr., did not return a call.

        Two other deceased priests are accused by one plaintiff.

        John C. Mills of New Albany, Ind., alleges that when he was an altar boy at the Cathedral of the Assumption in downtown Louisville in the early 1960s, he was molested by the pastor, the Rev. Linus Giesler, and the associate pastor, Father Casper, a future superintendent of Catholic schools. The archdiocese says it has received no other complaints against Father Casper, who died in 1991 at age 61, or Fr. Giesler, who died in 1999 at 84.

        “I didn't come forward to inflict pain on anybody,” said Mr. Mills, who added that he has lost friends who are Catholic since his lawsuit was reported. “My goal is to bring closure to it all. It wasn't about monetary issues.”

        Another lawsuit accuses Father Creed of making sexually inappropriate comments during confession to a boy who told him of having been abused by Father Miller at a summer camp in the 1950s. Mr. McMurry filed the suit on behalf of Joseph A. Ball Jr.

        Mr. Ball does not allege being physically abused by Father Creed, who died last year at 75. The archdiocese says it has received no other accusations against him.

        Brian Reynolds, chancellor and chief administrative officer of the archdiocese, said accusations against deceased priests are especially difficult.

        “I worry about the naming of people who cannot defend themselves and cannot explain their perspective on that time in their lives, who cannot even dispute dates and places and events,” he said

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