William Nicholas Garding

Ordained in 1982 at 43 years old, Father William “Bill” Garding was accused of sexually abusing a 20 year-old man over a three year period in 1989. Garding pled guilty to third degree criminal sexual assault and was sentenced to six months in jail and a 10 year stayed sentence. He was ordered to undergo counseling and have no unsupervised contact with juveniles for ten years.

Fr. Garding was serving at St. John’s in Buffalo, MN when the abuse accusations surfaced. Father William Garding’s privileges were removed in June 2002 and moved to Little Birch Lake. He died in November 2005.