Category Archives: William Lynch
Priest charged with violating ban on ministry to children freed on bail
Priest charged with violating ban on ministry to children freed on bail
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on May 22, 2013 at 8:04 PM, updated May 24, 2013 at 7:15 PM
From the link: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/05/priest_charged_with_violating.html
The Roman Catholic priest charged with violating a ban on ministry to children was released from jail late Tuesday, less than 12 hours after making his first appearance in a Bergen County courtroom.
The Rev. Michael Fugee, 52, walked out of the Bergen County Jail in Hackensack sometime after 7 p.m. A spokesman for the county sheriff’s department, which oversees the jail, declined to say who posted Fugee’s bail, which had been set at $25,000 with a 10 percent cash option.
The Archdiocese of Newark, to which Fugee is assigned, did not secure the priest’s release, said Jim Goodness, a spokesman for Archbishop John J. Myers. Goodness would not say whether Fugee was returned to a parish or other housing owned by the archdiocese.
Fugee was required to surrender his passport as a condition of the release.
Investigators with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office arrested Fugee at a parish in Newark Monday night, charging him with seven counts of contempt of a judicial order for interacting with children despite the ban.
The restriction grew out of a 2007 agreement Fugee signed with the prosecutor’s office to avoid retrial on charges that he groped a 13-year-old boy.
Following a Star-Ledger report on the priest’s continued contact with children and teens, authorities found he gave confessions to minors at youth retreats and a private home outside the archdiocese and at two parishes inside the archdiocese, which includes Bergen, Hudson, Union and Essex counties.
Fugee’s lawyer, Michael D’Alessio, did not return calls seeking comment.
D’Alessio, who represented Fugee when he signed the agreement, told the Record newspaper the priest did not violate the terms because Fugee was under the supervision of other adults when he was with children, the same defense initially mounted by the archdiocese.
Goodness, Myers’ spokesman, later reversed that position, saying that while Fugee did violate the agreement, he did so without the archbishop’s knowledge.
“Father Fugee is not guilty of this offense,” D’Alessio told the Record.
The lawyer added that prosecutors, to win a conviction, would have to prove in court the priest “knowingly and purposefully” flouted the agreement.
“If there are other adults in the room, other adults in the vicinity, he was never in a position where he could not be observed,” D’Alessio said. “That’s the key to this, and that’s the key to what he thought.”
More priest abuse files must be released by September, judge says
More priest abuse files must be released by September, judge says
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
From the link: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news%2Flocal%2Flos_angeles&id=9119560
LOS ANGELES (KABC) — Catholic Church officials have until September to release secret files on priests accused of molesting children in the Los Angeles archdiocese.
Superior Court Judge Emilie Elias made the ruling Tuesday and attorneys say the first files could be made public within the next few weeks.
After a five-year legal battle to keep the documents sealed, the archdiocese released files on 120 priests earlier this year, but many clergy members who worked within the archdiocese weren’t included if they belonged to separate religious orders.
Religious order priests often were assigned to work in Los Angeles parishes but belonged to separate organizations, each of which had its own chain of command and specific mission.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Abuse cover-up ‘shocking’ – Cowen
Abuse cover-up ‘shocking’ – Cowen
From the link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8384372.stm
Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen has said the cover-up by the Catholic hierarchy in Dublin of child abuse by priests was shocking and disturbing.
A report revealed decades of abuse was concealed by the church in Dublin in an attempt to save its reputation.
It said some senior police officers colluded in the cover-up.
Mr Cowen said it was a crushing verdict that the good name and standing of the Church as an institution was placed above the basic safety of children.
“Where this was facilitated by servants of the state, it was a betrayal of trust and a complete abandoning of duty,” he said.
“It is a savage irony that a policy of cover-up that may have been borne of a misguided effort to avoid scandal has shaken the faith and confidence of many people.”
Released on Thursday, the Report of the Commission of Investigation into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin covered a period from 1975 to 2004.
Some offending priests were shifted from parish to parish, leaving them free to abuse again.
The Taoiseach said it was the Irish government’s priority to ensure the highest possible standards of child protection, within the Church and elsewhere, and that perpetrators of abuse are brought to justice.
“As to the implications for other individuals of the report’s findings, I believe that just as there must be no ambiguity about the fact that all institutions and individuals are answerable to the law of the land, whatever their status, it is for those institutions and their members to determine the appropriateness of any individual to hold ecclesiastical office,” he said.
The report investigated how Church and state authorities handled allegations of child abuse against 46 priests made by 320 children. Eleven priests were convicted of sexual assaults on children.
Witness: Priest plied me with booze, molested me
From the link: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/147586455.html
Witness: Priest plied me with booze, molested me
By Joseph A. Slobodzian
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
The Philadelphia Catholic clergy sex-abuse trial began its fourth week this morning with testimony by a former Philadelphia man who told of being plied with liquor and sexually molested by his parish priest in a King of Prussia hotel room.
The 50-year-old man, who grew up in Immaculate Heart of Mary parish in Andorra, told the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury about an incident when he was in the seventh grade.
The Rev. Thomas J. Smith had offered to take him and another boy on a trip to Hershey Park, driving a recreational vehicle borrowed from the second boy’s parents.
But the RV got no farther than King of Prussia, the man testified, when Smith said the vehicle had mechanical problems and they would have to stay overnight in a nearby Holiday Inn.
There the two boys spent the afternoon playing cards with their pastor, drinking Southern Comfort liquor and sodas.
Later that day, the man testified, Smith began chasing them around the room putting ice cubes down their underwear. When it came time for bed, the man continued, Smith told them to sleep naked because their clothes were wet.
While his friend slept on the floor, the man testified, he slept in bed with Smith and quickly fell asleep because of the alcohol he drank.
The man said he awoke on top of Smith – who was also naked – and realized they both had erections. When Smith saw that he was awake, the man continued, the priest pushed him to the other side of the bed.
The man said he went back to sleep and told no one until the incident became part of the 2005 report of the Philadelphia County grand jury report about the cover-up of sexual abuse of minors by priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” asked Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington.
“I asked myself that question for years,” the man replied. “I think I was more afraid of getting in trouble. I was brought up to respect my elders and figures of authority.”
Though Smith continued to visit his parents and five brothers, the man testified, he withdrew from contact with the priest, whom he said enjoyed wrestling with his brothers in the basement of their house.
In questioning the man, defense attorney Jeffrey Lindy elicited the fact that the man did not come forward to authorities until 2004 – two years after Msgr. William J. Lynn, one of the two clerics on trial, left his job as the Archdiocese’s chief investigator of wayward priests.
Though not criminally charged in the 2005 grand jury report, Smith was left in his parish two years after Archdiocesan officials learned of the abuse in 2002. Two years later, after additional allegations of abuse arose, Smith was removed from active ministry.
Like most prior victims of clergy sexual abuse mentioned during the trial, Smith was not directly involved with the two clerics on trial. Rather, prosecutors have been permitted to bring in other cases to try to prove to the jury their theory of a long practice in the Archdiocese of ignoring or covering up after priests accused of sexually molesting children.
Lynn, as secretary for clergy, was responsible for investigating allegations of sexual abuse of minors made against priests. He is the first church official criminally charged with enabling or covering up such allegations against Catholic clergy.
Lynn’s codefendant, the Rev. James J. Brennan, is charged with attempting to rape a 14-year-old boy in 1996.
Both have denied the allegations.