Boston Priest Defrocked by Vatican

Yahoo News ^ | July 29, 2005

[NYer]

The Vatican has defrocked the priest who was the first in Massachusetts convicted of sexual abuse more than two decades ago, the Boston Archdiocese said Friday.

In 1984, Eugene O'Sullivan was sentenced to probation after he admitted sodomizing a 13-year-old altar boy. A condition of his sentence was that he not be allowed to work with children.

But O'Sullivan was later assigned to four New Jersey parishes. He was recalled to Boston in 1992 after church officials learned of another allegation against him dating to his time in Massachusetts.

The Vatican's action to defrock O'Sullivan means he may no longer function as a priest in any capacity, except to offer absolution to the dying. Defrocked priests also are cut off from any financial support from the archdiocese.

Documents from O'Sullivan's personnel file, made public in 2002, show that that the archdiocese was alerted as early as the 1960s to allegations against him.

In a 2003 deposition he gave in lawsuits filed against the archdiocese, Cardinal Bernard Law defended his decision to allow O'Sullivan to transfer, saying he wanted to give O'Sullivan a chance at "redemption."

Law resigned as archbishop of Boston but remains a cardinal.

A second priest, Paul E. McDonald, also was defrocked. According to McDonald's personnel file, he was accused of sexually abusing several boys in the 1960s, when he was a priest at St. Joseph Church in Boston.

[Peelod]

Did you mean Willie Wiggle dance?

I don't think we want to start a thread developing this concept.

[ELS]

Thanks for those links.

[Lady In Blue]

The Catholic Church(Rome)will be around long after anti-Catholics like you are gone. You might just take a look at yourself and whatever denomination you belong to.

[George W. Bush]

Always nice to see the sheep defending the right of the wolf to prey on the fold...

This isn't a theological matter, much as you might like to pretend it is. It's about Rome, as an institution, helping babymashers to escape justice for decades and some people acting insulted when it's described in plain words.

[The Red Zone]

I also suspect that Law is in Rome because Benedict wants Law where he can keep an eye on him until Law's time comes to answer for his actions.

hoo-old it, didn't he go there long before Ratzinger became Pope? And what's keeping him if he wants to go someplace else?