Dino Cinel (1941-2018) was an Italian-American

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

, priest and a Distinguished Professor of Italian-American Studies at

College of Staten Island The College of Staten Island (CSI) is a public university in Staten Island, New York, United States. It is one of the 11 four-year senior colleges within the City University of New York system. Programs in the liberal arts and sciences and pro ...

. He is known for evading prosecution and conviction of his self-made child sexual abuse material that he filmed and created at St. Rita's Parish in New Orleans while living there due to his ties to

Harry Connick Sr. Joseph Harry Fowler Connick Sr. (March 27, 1926 – January 25, 2024) was an American attorney who served as the district attorney of Orleans Parish (New Orleans), Louisiana, from 1973 to 2003. His son, Harry Connick Jr., is an American musician a ...

, who was a St. Rita's parishioner at the time.

Life

In 1988, he was a Roman Catholic priest at St. Rita's Church,

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

. He was investigated over his possession of child sexual abuse materials, which he had created of himself abusing boys in the rectory of St. Rita's, where he was living at the time. The following lack of prosecution created public outrage and he was not charged by the New Orleans District Attorney until 1995. He was acquitted by the jury because child pornography laws had not yet been enacted at the time he filmed himself abusing the boys. He sued over the public release of the information and it wasn't until 2010 that the Vatican formally revoked his priesthood. He taught at

Tulane University The Tulane University of Louisiana (commonly referred to as Tulane University) is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by a cohort of medical doctors, it b ...

. The scholarship of his book, ''From Italy to San Francisco'', has been questioned. After his abuse in New Orleans came to light, he fled to Italy and later took a position at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York. Upon learning of his eventual charges, he was suspended with pay from the university. He and his wife, fellow Tulane professor Linda Pollock, divorced in 2015 after many years of separation. Cinel was stabbed to death in Medellin, Colombia in February 2018 by an 18-year-old man with whom he had been in a relationship.

Awards

*1984

Merle Curti Award The Merle Curti Award is awarded annually by the Organization of American Historians for the best book in American social and/or American intellectual history. It is named in honor of Merle Curti (1897–1996). A committee of 5 members of the Organ ...

in Social History

Works

* *

References

External links

"Review: ''The National Integration of Italian Return Migration, 1870-1929'' by Dino Cinel, ''The Historical Journal,'' Volume 35, Number 4 (December 1992), pages 1004-1005
* *Asesinan en Medellín a exsacerdote italiano envuelto en pornografía. El Tiempo; Medellin, Colombia, February 3, 2018. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cinel, Dino 1941 births 2018 deaths 20th-century Italian historians 20th-century Italian Roman Catholic priests 20th-century American Roman Catholic priests 21st-century American LGBTQ people Italian LGBTQ writers American LGBTQ writers College of Staten Island faculty Tulane University faculty Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals Deaths by stabbing in Colombia American people murdered abroad People murdered in Colombia