Free Republic

BOSTON -- As defrocked priest Paul Shanley faces sentencing on child rape charges, inmate advocates are worried that sending him to prison could amount to a death sentence for a man who was at the very center of the Boston Archdiocese sex scandal. After all, another key figure in the scandal, former priest John Geoghan, was beaten and strangled behind bars in 2003, a year after he was convicted of molesting a 10-year-old boy. A fellow inmate told investigators he killed Geoghan "to save the children." Some are worried that the 74-year-old Shanley could be the next mark for an...

07:47 PM CST on Monday, February 7, 2005 Associated Press CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Defrocked priest Paul Shanley, the most notorious figure in the sex scandal that rocked the Boston Archdiocese, was convicted Monday of raping and fondling a boy at his Roman Catholic church during the 1980s. The conviction on all four charges gives prosecutors a high-profile victory in their effort to bring pedophile priests to justice for decades of abuse at parishes around the country. Mr. Shanley, 74, could get life in prison for two counts each of child rape and indecent assault and battery on a child when...

EAST CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Jurors weighing the fate of a Boston-area priest accused of raping a young parishioner went home Friday without a verdict after about seven hours of deliberations. Five men and seven women began deliberations Thursday afternoon in the child sex-abuse trial of defrocked priest Paul Shanley, after the defense rested its one-witness case and lawyers delivered their closing arguments. Shanley faces life in prison on two counts each of child rape and indecent assault and battery. A fifth count of child rape was dropped from the indictment Monday after Shanley's accuser was unable to testify about one...

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) _ Faced with the threat of a criminal indictment, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester has avoided charges by allowing state oversight and admitting it failed to protect children from predatory priests. The move came as one of the priests at the center of a sex scandal in neighboring Massachusetts prepared to be released on bail and pressure continued to mount for the Catholic leader of that state to resign. Under terms of the deal announced Tuesday in New Hampshire, the diocese agreed to the rare step of giving state prosecutors oversight of its policies, including an...

Since the first batch of documents relating to Father Paul Shanley was made public by Roderick MacLeish Jr., attorney for the Ford family of Newton, in an April 8 press conference, their content has generated a fierce backlash against Cardinal Law for his handling of the issue. In their coverage of the Shanley case, the media have almost exclusively seemed to cite as facts, not the full content of the documents, but the interpretation of a few select passages highlighted by MacLeish -- to the point that many now believe that those interpretations are "facts" extracted from the documents. The...

<p>NEWTON, Mass. -- A retired priest charged with raping a boy in his parish for seven years arrived in Boston Monday night and was escorted to the Newton Police Department, wearing a bullet-proof vest.</p> <p>The Rev. Paul Shanley, who exited the police car with apparent difficulty, was expected to spend the night in a Newton police cell. He will be arraigned on three counts of raping a child at 9 a.m. Tuesday in Newton District Court, which is now sitting in Cambridge.</p>

In short, there is an inextricable link between Shanley’s insubordination with impunity in matters of theology and his perverse behavior

<p>It was an idea that was radical in 1975 even for Boston's renowned street priest: open a retreat house in Sharon for what he called ‘‘sexual minorities."</p> <p>The Rev. Paul Shanley raised the idea in a newspaper interview at the time, saying he was nearly ready to put a down payment on a former kosher hotel on Highland Avenue.</p>

<p>If prosecutors' evidence against the Rev. Paul Shanley comes largely from the account of a man who says he blocked out the alleged abuse for years, their case could hinge on the legally problematic issue of whether ''recovered'' memories can be admitted as evidence at trial.</p>

McCormack regrets overlooking Rev. Shanley's deviant views By KATHRYN MARCHOCKI Union Leader Staff Manchester Bishop John B. McCormack yesterday said he regrets not picking up on former Boston priest Paul R. Shanley’s deviant views on adult-child sex, but didn’t think Shanley meant what he said nor would ever act on it. “I wish I did zero in on it more,” McCormack said about a 1985 speech on homosexuality in which Shanley was quoted as saying children seduce adults into having sex with them. “But, at the time, Paul was known as one who would push the envelope and kind of...

<p>BOSTON -- WBZ-TV reported tonight that it has located Father Paul Shanley, accused of sexually abusing dozens of young boys, at the house of a companion in San Diego.</p> <p>The man believed to be Shanley, found last night outside a residence WBZ says belongs to his longtime companion Dale LeGrace, refused to answer a producer's questions. A cameraman filmed the man concealing his face with two jackets and getting inside of a car.</p>

An alleged victim says he was abused for years. A Boston priest at the heart of a sex abuse scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church taught children how to inject drugs, his diary has revealed. Reverend Paul Shanley, who was involved with the North American Man Boy Love Association which promotes sex between men and children, also suffered from sexually transmitted diseases, he wrote. Personal papers and other documents relating to Mr Shanley have been discovered by the Boston archdiocese and handed to lawyers suing the Church on behalf of an alleged victim of molestation. Revelations about...

<p>POPE JOHN PAUL II will wrap up his summit with American cardinals today on the priest sexual abuse scandals. That the pope has called for this meeting is a sure sign that he has recognized the dire straits in which the American Catholic Church leadership is, even if some members of that leadership do not.</p>

Tuesday, April 9, 2002 Damning internal church documents on the Rev. Paul R. Shanley make clear that the Archdiocese of Boston knew the priest was a child rapist yet devoted large sums of money and decades of personnel resources to cover up his crimes. The documents also show that Shanley spoke in favor of sex between men and boys at a formative 1978 meeting in Boston of the ``Man Boy Lovers of North America,'' a precursor of the North American Man-Boy Love Association, or NAMBLA. Shanley, now 71, was last known to be living in San Diego and working as...