Officials at the Archdiocese of Cincinnati said they lifted Rev. Edward Burns' administrative leave after investigators from the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office conducted a forensic review of the computer and found "no evidence of any criminal, pornographic, or inappropriate material of any kind."
"This matter is now closed, and no further action will be taken," the sheriff's office said in a statement.
The investigation began several weeks ago when a parish employee contacted the archdiocese after discovering that potentially inappropriate websites had been accessed on the computer. Archdiocese spokeswoman Jennifer Schack said the investigation determined that no one, including Burns, had done anything wrong.
Instead, she said, the person who reported the matter to the archdiocese mistakenly concluded that websites appearing on the computer's anti-malware program were part of the computer's cache of sites that had been viewed by someone using the computer.
"The initial list of concerning websites ... was not in fact a list of websites that had actually been accessed by anyone," archdiocese officials said in their statement about the investigation.
"This investigation by the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office exonerates Father Burns of any wrongdoing."
The archdiocese provided additional background on the origin of the investigation Wednesday, but some details remain unclear.
According to the archdiocese, a parish employee discovered the potentially inappropriate websites while refurbishing the computer and reported the findings to the archdiocese's Pastoral Center, which is essentially the church's human resources department. The archdiocese's statement said the son of the parish employee generated the list of websites, though it didn't say how he did so or why that list was generated.
Church officials said they did not examine the computer themselves but instead turned it over to the sheriff's investigators, who then determined the websites on the list were part of the anti-malware program.
Burns could not be reached for comment and Schack said he did not wish to talk about the matter. Burns is pastor of several suburban parishes, including St. Michael in Sharonville, St. Gabriel in Glendale and St. John in West Chester. Before becoming pastor in 2018, Burns worked as the director of campus ministry at Wright State University for more than a decade.
The investigation is the second this year involving the possible use of a church computer to access pornography.
In late May, Rev. Martin Bachman at Our Lady of the Visitation in Green Township left the parish after admitting he viewed adult pornography and played inappropriate video games on a computer that was not owned by the parish.
After Burns was placed on leave weeks ago, parishioners complained to the archdiocese and on social media about a lack of information from church officials. Schack was critical of those complaints Wednesday, and of media coverage that she said amplified those voices.
"The resulting coverage contributes to fear and fatigue in communities wounded by past scandal," Schack said.
"The archdiocese respectfully asks that media outlets who previously covered this matter give equal attention to the findings in the investigation and the full exoneration of Father Burns," she said. "His good name deserves to be restored as clearly and publicly as it was questioned."