Posted Sunday, August 17 --- 11:00am

JUNEAU, Wis. (AP) -- An 86-year-old former Catholic priest has been sentenced to a total of one year in jail for sexually assaulting three young Wisconsin girls in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Rev. Bruce Duncan MacArthur now lives in a Missouri nursing home. He pleaded guilty in Dodge County yesterday to six felonies, including sexual intercourse and indecent behavior with a child.

The judge sentenced him to a six-month jail term, plus one month in each of the next six years.

Defense attorney Alex Flynn says MacArthur suffers from Alzheimer's disease and heart ailments. Flynn didn't return a message left at his office Saturday.

Prosecutors say three women accused MacArthur of assaulting them when they were patients at a Beaver Dam hospital and he was a chaplain there.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.