WASHINGTON — A federal lawsuit filed in Missouri April 18 against Bishop Anthony J. O'Connell marked the fourth accusation of child molestation against the former bishop of Palm Beach, Fla.

Bishop O'Connell has been in seclusion since March 8, when he announced his resignation as bishop and acknowledged sexual misconduct with a high school seminarian in Hannibal, Mo., many years earlier when he was the seminary rector. The victim had received a $125,000 out-of-court settlement in that case in 1996.

On March 18 a second former high school seminarian filed a lawsuit claiming that then-Father O'Connell had turned counseling sessions at the seminary into an opportunity for sexual activity. A third suit was filed March 22.

Following the new accusation Bishop John R. Gaydos of Jefferson City, Mo., said the Hannibal seminary, which already faced low enrollment and significant annual deficits, would close at the end of the current school year. It is run by the Jefferson City Diocese. He said survival would have required an enrollment increase, but the new revelations of abuse in the 1970s would make new recruitment "very difficult."

Unlike previous lawsuits, the April 18 claim alleges that the relationship begun in the high school seminary lasted well beyond, ending only in the 1990s. Bishop O'Connell was made bishop of Knoxville, Tenn., in 1988 and became bishop of Palm Beach in 1998.

The complaint also alleges that since 1994 the plaintiff has received more than $21,000 in monthly payments from Bishop O'Connell, with a final $400 payment received March 4, four days before the bishop announced his resignation.

Minnesota attorney Jeffrey Anderson represents all three plaintiffs who have come forward since the bishop's resignation.

Anderson filed the March 22 and April 18 suits under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, also known as RICO, claiming what Anderson called a conspiracy among bishops "to conceal wrongdoing, avoid prosecution and public scandal and obstruct justice."

An effort to invoke the RICO statute in a clergy sex abuse lawsuit in New Jersey was dismissed in 1995.

Anderson said the new plaintiff, identified in the suit as John T. Doe, is a 49-year-old computer programmer who now lives in Massachusetts.

Named in the suit along with Bishop O'Connell were the Vatican; the dioceses of Palm Beach, Knoxville and Jefferson City; and Bishop Raymond J. Boland of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo.

The plaintiff alleges he reported the abuse to Bishop Boland in 1994, but on April 19 Bishop Boland denied the claim, saying he has no recollection of any conversation with anyone alleging sexual abuse by Bishop O'Connell.

Since January -- when national attention focused on the criminal child abuse trial of defrocked Boston priest John Geoghan and past failures in the Boston Archdiocese to remove child molesters from ministry -- the clergy sexual abuse scandal has spread across the country, with new allegations of past crimes emerging almost daily.

In New Jersey the first of several court hearings was under way in mid-April in a class-action suit by 18 people claiming to have been molested by clergy of the Camden Diocese. Early testimony in the hearing focused on allegations that Msgr. Philip Rigney, 85, now retired and living in Florida, repeatedly molested two teen-age brothers from 1978 to 1982.

In Los Angeles police said Father Stephen Hernandez, 68, tried to kill himself April 15 when he learned he was being investigated for alleged child abuse. According to police, the retired priest, who was living at the rectory of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, was in stable condition in an undisclosed hospital three days after he took an overdose of pills and slit his wrists.

Less than two weeks earlier Father Don Rooney of Cleveland committed suicide after a woman approached diocesan officials with an allegation that he had abused her when she was a child.

The Cleveland Diocese April 18 announced the selection of 21 members of an independent commission to undertake a thorough review of diocesan policies and practices for preventing sexual abuse and dealing with allegations.

Benedictine Abbot John Klassen of St. John's Abbey In Collegeville, Minn., announced April 19 that retired Abbot John Eidenschink, 87, who was abbot 1971-79, has acknowledged that he abused two adult monks while they were undergoing formation for priesthood, one before and one during his tenure as abbot.

In an interview Abbot Klassen told the St. Cloud Times daily newspaper that a second abbey priest molested two area boys in the late 1970s and the abbey is investigating whether a third priest molested several local children around the same time.

In the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Fla., Father Robert Schaeufele, 54, resigned as pastor of St. Michael Parish in Hudson after he was confronted with an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor in the 1970s. In a letter to parishioners April 20 Bishop Robert N. Lynch said the complaint was considered "credible and substantial" and the priest immediately submitted his resignation.

Another priest in Florida was exonerated of a sex abuse allegation shortly before Father Schaeufele's resignation. Salesian Father Louis Molinelli returned as principal of St. Petersburg Catholic High School after being suspended briefly while his order investigated a sexual abuse claim.