- BOSTON A Roman Catholic
priest, who according to church documents told his superiors he sodomized
children, was arrested on Thursday on child rape charges in a case that
has engulfed his then-superior, Boston Cardinal Bernard Law, and
reverberated
all the way to the Vatican.
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- Father Paul Shanley, who faces three counts of child
rape involving one child, was arrested on Thursday morning in San Diego
on criminal charges filed in Massachusetts.
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- The complaint accuses Shanley, now 71, of raping a boy
inside a suburban Boston church confessional, rectory and bathroom between
1983 and 1990, when the boy was between 6 and 13.
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- "Almost on a weekly basis, as he was a student in
(a religion) class, Father Paul Shanley, who was the pastor at the time,
would come to take not only him but others from that class for talks for
various reasons," Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley said
at a press conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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- "They would be removed from the class, the priest
would take them to one of three locations " to the bathroom, often
across the street to the rectory, or to the confessional " and that
is where the sexual abuse would occur," Coakley said.
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- The alleged incidents took place at St Jean's parish
in Newton, outside Boston. Coakley said her office has received statements
from other children who took the weekly religion classes.
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- Shanley's alleged victim, now 24, came forward in the
past month with allegations that previously had not been reported to police
or the church, Coakley said.
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- The case is separate from civil lawsuits already brought
against Shanley by alleged abuse victims.
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- "This man was a monster in the Archdiocese of Boston
for many, many years," Roderick MacLeish, who is representing
Shanley's
accusers in the civil case, said on April 8.
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- If Shanley waives extradition in the criminal case, he
could be in a Cambridge District Court as soon as Friday to be formally
charged. Each count of the complaint carries a maximum prison sentence
of life.
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- Revelations about Shanley that emerged in April as a
result of the civil case came less than two months after another Boston
priest, John Geoghan, was sentenced to nine to 10 years in prison for
fondling a 10-year-old boy. More than 130 people have accused Geoghan
of molesting them during his 30 years as a Boston priest, a catalyst for
the mushrooming sex abuse scandal engulfing the U.S. Catholic
Church.
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- Boston's Cardinal Law, the senior U.S. Catholic prelate,
met secretly with Pope John Paul II last month after church documents
released
in the civil case against Shanley revealed the cardinal supported the
priest even after Shanley admitted he raped and sodomized children.
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- The documents also showed that Shanley advocated sex
between children and adults and that he was an early adherent of a group
that later became the North American Man-Boy Love Association.
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- Law and other U.S. cardinals met with the pope in Rome
last month in an unprecedented council to discuss the scandal in America,
which is rocking support for the Catholic Church amid charges it did not
do enough to protect children from predator priests.
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- At a meeting in Texas next month, American Catholic
leaders
hope to establish national standards for dealing with priests involved
in sex abuse.
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- The Boston Herald recently reported the Vatican might
reassign Law, which he denied. Nevertheless, one of the attorneys in the
civil lawsuits has asked a Boston judge to bar Law from traveling outside
the country.
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- In a statement, Boston Archdiocese spokeswoman Donna
Morrissey said: "Our hope is that the arrest of retired priest Paul
Shanley will bring some level of relief and contribute to the healing
of those who have been sexually abused as children and teenagers, their
families, and all who suffer during this horrific time."
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- The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had no official
comment on charges against Shanley. "He's now in the hands of civil
authorities, so that's where it belongs," said Conference spokesman
Michael Hurley.
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- The sex-abuse scandal has not been confined to the United
States and has swept many countries across Europe and Africa.
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- There have been sex scandals in the Catholic Church from
Mexico, to Brazil and even in the pope's native Poland.
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- Protests in predominately Catholic Ireland last month
forced the resignation of a bishop because of the way he had dealt with
allegations of sexual abuse by a priest.
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- Last year, a French court gave a three-month suspended
sentence to Bishop Pierre Pican, who was accused of covering up for a
priest
who has since been jailed for 18 years for the rape of a boy and sexual
abuse of 10 others. (Compiled from wire reports)
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