But the head of a national support and recovery group for clergy abuse survivors said criticism of the Servants and their Vianney Center is "misguided."

Sue Archibald, director of The Healing Alliance, just outside Louisville, Kentucky, said she met Lechner during a presentation on her work with survivors, and he invited her to share her story in Missouri. She visited in April 2005 and found Vianney's program to be secure and tough on offenders.

"There's a lot of worry about what happens to a priest when the church cuts him loose," she said. "The Servants are housing and treating them, and keeping them in a much safer environment where they don't have the opportunity to offend again."

Visiting with the offenders also proved to be the "biggest step forward I'd ever made in my own recovery," she said.

"I asked them questions, which I never had a chance to do with my offender," she said. "They were compassionate. Some of them apologized. It helped me, it helped them. They were crying when I was telling my story.

"I saw that they were human beings too."

The Servants still run a retreat center in Jemez Springs, but for years it housed and helped priests suffering from depression, alcoholism and mid-life problems. In the 1970s, the Servants introduced professional therapy, and gradually the facility treated an increasing number of priestly molesters.

But bishops and religious superiors returned many residents to active ministry against the advice of therapists. After a spate of lawsuits, the Paracletes shut down the program in 1996.

Hoare said the Servants suffered in those days, when "'pedophile center' was sadly perpetrated upon us."

"Today," he said, "we're part of the solution."