Rev. James A. Beine (aka Mar James)

Summary of Case: Beine was removed from ministry in 1977 due to allegations that he had sexually abused children. He went on to run a "youth hostel" from his home, and to work in St. Louis public schools as a counselor and teacher. He also claimed to be a bishop of the Old Catholic Church. He is known to have had a position as a priest/teacher 1979-1980 at a Catholic School in WV. Beine was convicted in 2002 of sexual misconduct involving a child by indecent exposure and was sent to prison. He was convicted in March 2003 of possession of child pornography. That conviction was overturned later that year. The indecent exposure conviction was overturned in April 2005, and Beine was released from prison. By then the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's office had received at least 36 complaints of child sexual abuse by Beine dating from his time in the priesthood. He was defrocked by the Vatican in March 2005. Beine moved to Las Vegas, NV after his release from prison. He has also gone by the name Mar James.

Ordained: 1967

   

Start Stop Assignment Town/Accusations State Position Notes
    St. Mary Magdalen St. Louis MO Deacon  

1964

St. Louis archbishop was Joseph Elmer Ritter (1946-1967)

  St. Monica's

Creve Coeur

Beine was accused by a 53 year old man in a 2005 lawsuit of having sexually abused him when he was in sixth and seventh grades at this parish. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch
August 26, 2005 )

MO Deacon  

1967

Ritter was replaced by John Joseph Carberry (1968-1979)

1970 St. Peter's

St. Charles

Accused in a 1994 lawsuit of having sexually abused two boys in 1967, while he was at St. Peter's. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch [Missouri]
June 10, 1994)

MO 3/4 Parish had a school with 684-646 students.
1970 1972 St. Andrew's

Lemay

Accused in a 2005 lawsuit of having sexually abused an 11 year old boy in the early 1970s while at this parish. The accuser said that Beine took him and five other boys on a camping trip to Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park, where the abuse took place. (Post-Dispatch [St. Louis MO]
June 27, 2005)

MO 2/3 Parish had a school with 473-412 students.
1972 1976 St. Francis De Sales St. Louis MO 2/3 Parish had a grade school with 570-375 students, and a high school until 1974 with 231-209 students.
1976 1977 "Retired"       Beine was removed from ministry in 1977 due to child sex abuse allegations (Post-Dispatch [St. Louis MO]
April 12, 2003)

1979

Wheeling-Charleston Bishop was Joseph Howard Hodges (1962-1985)

1980

St. Joseph Central High School

Huntington WV

Although not indexed or listed as such in the Directories, Beine appears-still as a priest-in the 1980 St. Joseph's yearbook.

    New Haven High School

New Haven

Accused in a 2005 lawsuit of having sexually abused a male student of this school for about a year, beginning in 1978. (SNAPmidwest.org Aug. 27, 2005)

MO counselor

Beine is said to have been allowed to work in nearly a dozen schools after leaving the priesthood. (snapnetwork.org 2002)

Lived at some point in Highland, IL. (Associated Press April 28, 2005)  

    Community of St. John Bosco/Sancto Joannes Bosco Maryland Heights MO   This was a non-profit that Beine started.
1994   St. John Center Warren County (Incline Village) MO   St. John Center was a youth hostel in Incline Village in Warren County MO, which Beine ran from his home. Beine claimed to be a bishop of the Old Catholic Church in North America. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch [Missouri]
June 10, 1994)
1991 1994 Bryan Hill Elementary School St. Louis MO counselor This was a public school. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch
June 11, 1994)
  2002 Patrick Henry Elementary School

St. Louis

Accused and convicted of exposing himself to three students from this school in 2000-2001. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch [Missouri]
April 27, 2005)

  counselor

Beine was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2002 for sexual misconduct involving a child by indecent exposure.

Beine also went by the name Mar James. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch [Missouri]
April 27, 2005)

2002 2005 Farmington Correctional Facility

St. Francois County

Convicted of possesion of child pornography in March 2003. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch [St. Louis MO]
June 2, 2005)

MO inmate The child pornography conviction was overturned in Dec. 2003 by a federal appeals court, which said the investigators did not have the necessary warrant.
2005     Las Vegas NV  

The indecent exposure conviction was overturned in April 2005. By then the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's office had received at least 36 complaints of sexual abuse by Beine from when he was a priest. He was defrocked by the Vatican in March 2005 (Post-Dispatch [St. Louis MO]
May 19, 2005), and released from prison in June 2005. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch [St. Louis MO]
June 2, 2005)

Beine relocated to Las Vegas. (Belleville News-Democrat
January 8, 2007) His teaching and counseling licenses were revoked in Missiouri in Oct. 2007. (News-Leader
October 13, 2007)


Source
: Official Catholic Directory (New York: P.J. Kenedy and Sons, 1965-2009)

Priests in a Parish: We use the following convention to show a priest's place among the clergy of a parish: 1/2 means that he is the first priest listed in the Official Catholic Directory (usually the pastor) and that there is a total of two priests at the parish. The shorthand 3/4 means that the priest is listed third on a four-priest roster. See our sample page from the Directory.

Note: The Official Catholic Directory aims to report the whereabouts of Catholic priests in the United States on January 1 of the Directory's publication year. Our working assumption is that a priest listed in the Directory for a given year was at the same assignment for part of the previous year as well. However, Kenedy and Sons will sometimes accept updates well into the year of publication. Diocesan clergy records are rarely available to correct this information. The Directory is also sometimes misleading or wrong. We have tried to create an accurate assignment record, given the source materials and their limitations. Assignment records are a work in progress and we are always improving the records that we post. Please email us with new information and corrections.

This assignment record collates Beine's career history as it is represented in the Official Catholic Directory with allegations as reported in the media. We make no representation regarding the truth of the allegation we report, and we remind our readers that the U.S. legal system presumes that a person accused of or charged with a crime is innocent until proven guilty. Similarly, individuals who may be defendants in civil actions are presumed not to be liable for such claims unless a plaintiff proves otherwise. Admissions of guilt or liability are not typically a part of civil or private settlements. For more information, see our posting policy.

This assignment record was last updated on May 7, 2021.