Agenda and information on Voice of the Faithful ≠ VOTF

Catholic Charities "Companions" program

And to think that Dr. Doolin claims that Catholic Charities is in line with the Church teaching !

From the Editor of Faithful Voice.com

Those with responsibility for the overall integrity of the Church should be aware that in the Archdiocese of Boston there are parishes and other more general chapels and places of Catholic worship that are actively and aggressively recruiting homosexual congregations. The membership drives are usually carried out under the guise of an "outreach program" to victims of discrimination or people afflicted by the aids virus, even though no one keeps anybody out of churches and all are invited. These

campaigns often form part of a whole program including a more or less ambiguous catechisis concerning sexual ethics marked at times by a clear disregard or even noticeable hostility toward the guidance and

teaching which Rome provides in matters of morality. The Diocese is aware of these specialized and concentrated apostolates based on a sexual criterion.

Dear Editor@FaithfulVoice.com

I thought you might be interested to see the article I'm sending you from Bay Windows about what

Fr. Richard Lewandowski is up to. Remember, he was one of the planners of the Catholic Charities "Companions" program that Dr. Doolin supported.

The other planners and participants :

Fr. Phillip Earley, St Thomas ,Wilmington,MA. Member Board of Catholic Charities

Paul Merullo ,Pastoral Asst St Thomas, Wilmington ,MA. [ later convicted of sexual assault against a Woburn teen and served 2 1/2 years sentence),

Fr. John J. White (co-owner of gay bed and breakfast, in CA. ,with Fr. Paul Shanley ),

Fr. Walter Cuenin, OLHC ,Newton , MA.

Fr. Robert Congdon instructor atSt. John Seminary ,Boston, MA.

Charles Connors pres. of Boston PFLAG in 1999),

Pat Dunn (Catholic Charities Social Worker)

Vivian Soper (Catholic Charities Social Worker) and

Jean Proia ,leader of Catholic Parents Network/New Ways Ministry at Immaculate Conception parish, Stoughton, MA.(Fr. John J. White often helped her in her "ministry").

And to think that Dr. Doolin claims that Catholic Charities is in line with the teachings of the Catholic Church!

I still wonder whether Catholic Charities Family Services at the Joseph Center on the grounds of St. Patrick parish, Natick, still recommends that parents join PFLAG!!

They certainly aren't recommending Courage/EnCourage!! --Alice

A 1971 Boston Globe file photo of Shanley at Rivendell Farm, a retreat house for youth workers in Weston, Vermont (Photo: AP)

Paul Richard Shanley

Summary of Cases: Shanley's career had four stages. He spent the 1960s as a junior parish priest at St. Patrick's in Stoneham (a suburb north of Boston) and at St. Francis of Assisi in Braintree (a working class suburb south of Boston). In the 1970s he was a "street priest" designated as the Boston archdiocese's minister to "alienated youth." In the 1980s he was a priest and pastor at St. Jean's in the working class Nonantum section of Newton, west of Boston. And in the 1990s he was a fill-in priest in the San Bernardino diocese and an acting director of Leo House, a Catholic hostel in the New York archdiocese. He is accused of sexual abuse in each decade. His alleged victims were mostly male, but some women have come forward. Ages of the alleged victims at the time of the abuse range from 6 to 26, and the alleged offenses range from fondling to forced oral sex and anal rape. Shanley is now free on $300,000 bail, awaiting the Commonwealth v. Shanley criminal trial.

We first present a table that correlates Shanley's assignments with selected accusations made against him and with relevant archdiocesan documents and news reports. Then we offer links to key discussions of his career and to more than 70 key documents.

Born: 1/25/31 in the Dorchester section of Boston MA

Seminary: St. John's Seminary in Brighton MA, class of 1960

Ordained: 2/2/60 at Holy Name church in West Roxbury MA

Incardinated: Boston MA

Former Priest Shanley Convicted of Child Rape

By Greg Frost | February 8, 2005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Reuters) - Defrocked priest Paul Shanley was convicted on Monday on all counts of raping a boy in the 1980s in one of the most high-profile cases to stem from a U.S. Catholic Church clergy abuse scandal.

The case had hinged on a 27-year-old firefighter who said Shanley raped and molested him at a Boston-area church years ago. The man said he had forgotten about the abuse, but that the memories came flooding back in 2002 as a pedophile priest scandal rocked the Archdiocese of Boston.

Flanked by his wife and family members, the fireman wept openly as the verdict was read out in court. Shanley appeared to show no emotion.

After the verdict, Judge Stephen Neel revoked Shanley's bail and he was taken into custody. The former priest, now 74, could be sentenced to life in prison. Neel scheduled the sentencing for February 15.

The jury took nearly 15 hours to find Shanley guilty of all charges: two counts of child rape and two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child.

Shanley's attorney, Frank Mondano, said he would appeal.

"It appears that the absence of a case is not an impediment to securing a conviction," Mondano said.

During the trial, Mondano subjected the accuser to hours of stinging interrogation and questioned whether the man fabricated the allegations as a way of getting out of the United States Air Force.

VICTIMS FEEL RELIEF, VINDICATION

Massachusetts prosecutors commended the victim for coming forward and sticking it out on the witness stand.

"He never doubted himself," prosecutor Lynn Rooney said of the fireman.

The accuser, who received $500,000 last year as a settlement of his civil lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Boston, left the courthouse without speaking to reporters but Rooney said the man was "overjoyed."

Clergy abuse victims present for the verdict said they felt vindicated, with some saying their pursuit of justice had been stymied by the statute of limitations.

"So many of us had to count on this case because we could not go to court," said Ann Hagan Webb, the New England coordinator of SNAP, a group of people who say they were abused by priests.

John Harris, who said Shanley raped him in 1979 when he was 21 and went to the priest for counseling about his homosexuality, told journalists that it was a "release of emotion" to witness the verdict.

Paul Shannon, a friend of Shanley's, called the verdict a "catastrophe," and accused the media of distorting Shanley's record and image.

"The story told by the four original accusers is a preposterous story," he said.

Shanley was indicted in 2002 on charges of child rape and indecent assault and battery on a child. Prosecutors dropped most of the charges because three of the original four accusers either would not testify or could not be found.

The Vatican defrocked Shanley last year, more than two decades after his superiors received complaints about the priest's views on sex between men and boys.

Internal church documents released in 2002 showed the Boston Archdiocese knew in 1979 that Shanley had attended a meeting of men involved in sexual relationships with male youngsters -- a meeting that gave rise to NAMBLA, the North American Man Boy Love Association.

The abuse scandal forced the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law as Archbishop of Boston in late 2002.

TIME MAGAZINE:

In Plain Sight

by Amanda Ripley, Boston

Father Paul Shanley didn't hide his interest in pedophilia. So why didn't the church recognize him as a problem?

Monday, Apr. 22, 2002

In this season of relentless scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, there has been much hyperbole -- sweeping condemnations of the priesthood, predictions of the end of a 2,000-year-old religion. Many Americans watched, sighed and waited for it to pass. But then came the story of the Rev. Paul Shanley. Last week, after all the adjectives had already been used, the details of his sordid career became public -- and suddenly there truly were no words too strong.

"It's incomprehensible," says the Rev. Robert Bullock, who has been ministering in Boston for nearly half a century and who has known Shanley just as long. "The revelations have been so staggering and so shocking that there is no way to integrate this material into some kind of orderly narrative of events."

Shanley, now 71, didn't just have sex with children; he publicly endorsed the concept. He didn't just use his collar to get access to minors; he ran a special ministry for the most vulnerable among them. And he didn't fly below the radar of the church hierarchy; the 818-page archive released by the Boston Archdiocese under court order shows that two Cardinals and a phalanx of deputies knew about allegations of his abuse going back more than 30 years. But instead of handing Shanley over to police or at least defrocking him, they ignored, protected or promoted him. More than 40 alleged victims have now claimed abuse.

If any scandal can bring down the most powerful Cardinal in the country, it could be this one. The steady drumbeat for the resignation of Bernard Cardinal Law grew louder last week, with the Boston Globe and some of Law's staunchest former defenders saying he must go. Several major donors to the diocese's Catholic Charities are withholding funds. Law issued a statement on Friday saying he intends to stay -- but this drama is not over.

To begin to understand how this implosion came to pass, it is necessary to learn another language. Church officials have responded to Shanley in the dialect of the Roman Catholic bureaucracy -- which is fluent in the language of forgiveness and secrecy. "I am sure that all the legal activity will add to your stress," wrote one of Law's top officials to Shanley. "I will do all I can to make sure that you are cared for and supported." But it is also necessary to understand the unique allure of Shanley.

Paul Shanley was a media darling, a nationally known "hippie priest" who busted out of the Catholic stereotype at a time when the country was craving just such a novelty. "There was something highly seductive about him," says Bullock, who attended seminary with Shanley. In the 1970s Shanley grew thick sideburns and wore overalls. He gave irreverent lectures about the foolishness of the drug war and the normalcy of bisexuality. And most of all, he made it his lifetime pursuit to help wayward children, running a special ministry for teenagers who had run away or were confused about their sexuality. In a 1970 letter to the Archdiocese, one thankful parishioner wrote: "They flock around him as if he is the Pied Piper...[It's] a feeling of, 'When I am with Father Paul, I am somebody.'" And according to alleged victims, once Shanley had their trust, he molested them.

It can't be the case that the Church was just looking to avoid scandal by putting up with Shanley, because he already was a scandal. In 1978 he was present at the founding meeting of the North American Man-Boy Love Association. He was quoted in GaysWeek, a short-lived New York publication, as questioning the morality of pedophilia laws, praising the "deep love" possible in a man-boy relationship and bemoaning the pain that moral condemnation of such liaisons can cause youngsters. "We have our convictions upside down, if we are truly concerned with boys," he said. "The 'cure' does far more damage." This was not Shanley's only endorsement of pedophilia. Two other times, in 1977 and 1985, laypersons reported similar comments to the Archdiocese. Even the Vatican inquired about Shanley -- writing in 1978 to Boston's then Cardinal, Humberto Medeiros, to complain about Shanley's endorsement of homosexuality. In response, the Cardinal ordered Shanley not to minister to gays anymore. Shanley's unfettered access to children continued, however.

The first document accusing Shanley of molestation is dated 1967. A priest at another church near Shanley's wrote that a boy had told him he had been abused by Shanley at a cabin in the woods. In 1983, according to two lawsuits recently filed against Law, Shanley began repeatedly molesting two 6-year-old boys in his parish, St. John the Evangelist, in Newton, Mass. Gregory Ford and Paul Busa both say Shanley would regularly pull them out of catechism class and make them play the card game War. Whoever lost had to perform a sexual act, says Busa, now 24. The abuse lasted for about six years, he says. No criminal charges have been filed yet against Shanley.

In 1990 Shanley moved to California. Even though his personnel file had multiple allegations of child abuse, then Rev. Robert Banks, a top deputy to Law, sent the San Bernadino diocese a letter vouching for him. "I can assure you that Father Shanley has no problem that would be a concern to your diocese," he wrote. There were no restrictions placed on his access to minors. Shanley wrote that he handled all baptisms and youth retreats at St. Anne's in San Bernadino. On the side, he and another priest also owned a hotel for gay guests in Palm Springs, Calif. Last week San Bernadino officials said that there had been no problems with Shanley, but that they would never have allowed him to come had they known of his past.

Banks, now the Bishop of Green Bay, Wis., expressed little remorse for his letter in an interview with TIME last week. He said he had never heard of any abuse allegations, and he doesn't remember if he ever looked in Shanley's file. "If the priest had an assignment in the diocese, my presumption was that he was in good standing, and everything was fine. And that's the way I operate still."

In 1996, when Law granted Shanley's retirement, he wrote, "For 30 years in assigned ministry you brought God's Word and His Love to His people and I know that that continues to be your goal despite some difficult limitations." The next year, after the Church had settled multiple cases filed against Shanley, Law said he had no objection to the priest's bid to become head of a New York City Catholic guest house -- which occasionally housed children and teenagers. Shanley, who had already worked there for two years, didn't get the job. After he returned to California in 1997, he joined the San Diego police department's voluntary senior patrol. Fellow volunteers and neighbors told Time recently that he never mentioned he was a priest. They said they have not seen Shanley for weeks. He has not responded to interview requests.

Twenty-eight years ago this month, Shanley lectured at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass. According to a local newspaper account, he railed against the chasm between church teachings and practices. "The sexual morality of the Catholic Church is a shambles," he said. His legacy makes it even more so.

With Reporting by Amanda Bower/New York, Matt Kelly/Boston and Jill Underwood/San Diego

THE NEW YORK TIMES

April 15, 2002

Sent to California on Sick Leave, Boston Priest Bought Racy Gay Resort

By NICK MADIGAN

PALM SPRINGS, Calif., April 12 -- When Boston church officials granted the Rev. Paul R. Shanley a medical leave 12 years ago and allowed him to move here, they saw it as a chance for him to heal various physical ailments, primarily allergies, in the desert air, and to do a little pastoral work if and when he was well enough.

At his insistence, Father Shanley's Boston superiors arranged for regular checks to be sent to him for living expenses and medical bills, and sent laudatory letters of recommendation to their counterparts at the Diocese of San Bernardino, carefully avoiding mention of a swirl of accusations that he had molested more than two dozen young boys in Massachusetts going back to 1967.

What his superiors appeared not to know, however, was that the address to which they were sending Father Shanley's checks for most of his time here was the Cabana Club Resort, one of the many hotels that cater to the town's gays. Father Shanley became an owner of the hotel, along with the Rev. John J. White, another Boston priest who was also on sick leave and receiving money from the Boston Archdiocese. Father White was the sole owner of a second hotel, the nearby Whispering Palms.

Neither remains in business, although the scene they were part of is thriving, with 40 such hotels and bed-and-breakfasts, mostly in the Warm Sands enclave. These clothing-optional places, protected from prying eyes by walls and towering bougainvillea, do year-round business for gay men from around the world.

Interviews with some of his acquaintances in Palm Springs paint a picture of a man who immersed himself in the local gay scene soon after his arrival in 1990, although most people who remember him said he was quieter and less outgoing than Father White. On occasion, he helped out at St. Anne Church in San Bernardino, celebrating a weekend Mass or leading youth retreats.

"My biggest surprise was that Paul was a priest at all," said John Kendrick, 47, co-owner of Inn Exile, a hotel that he expanded after buying the Whispering Palms, next door, from Father White in 1994. "I didn't know you could be a part-time priest."

The disclosures about Father Shanley, 70, who vanished from his San Diego apartment building almost three weeks ago, have added heat to the controversy surrounding Cardinal Bernard F. Law of Boston, depicted in documents released on Monday as being consistently supportive of priests like Father Shanley and John J. Geoghan.

Both were shuttled from parish to parish, even as evidence of abuses gathered against them, without regard to whether they had further contacts with children. Father Geoghan was later defrocked and convicted of indecent assault. Father Shanley has not been charged with a crime, although the Boston Archdiocese has settled at least three lawsuits against him.

Officials at the San Bernardino Diocese who were supposedly watching over Father Shanley during his sojourn in Palm Springs said last week they had known nothing of his activities in Warm Sands.

Kevin Rice, 46, who has lived in Palm Springs for 14 years, got to know Fathers White and Shanley after he sold them space in Frontier News magazine for advertisements promoting the two hotels.

"I knew Jack was a priest and thought he wasn't practicing," Mr. Rice said. "Jack introduced Shanley as someone he knew from his days in the seminary."

Mr. Rice said that Father White "seemed to be a little off the wall" but that Father Shanley was a "very nice guy, personable." Father Shanley was "more of the business person," Mr. Rice said. "He had his head on straighter. There's no question about it, he's a very charismatic man."

Having once stayed at the Whispering Palms, Mr. Rice described the resort as "one of the friskier places." Nude sunbathing was encouraged, and sex by the pool was permitted, he said.

The two priests sold the Cabana Club Resort for $185,000 in 1997, three years after Father White had disposed of the Whispering Palms for $389,000. It is not clear how much they profited from the sales of the hotels, or at which point they stopped receiving money from the Boston Archdiocese.

Father Shanley seemed unable to understand that he had hurt anyone in his years as an active Roman Catholic priest, and painted himself as a victim.

"I have done nothing wrong," he wrote in a letter dated March 14, 1991, to Father John B. MacCormack, then a senior aide to Cardinal Law and now bishop in Manchester, N.H. In the letter, he also wrote: "Do the decent thing. Allow me, quietly, to retire, or put me on permanent disability. Remove the unpredictability and my health will return. This is cruel and unusual punishment."

Yet diocesan officials went out of their way to help him. In 1995, they transferred Father Shanley to New York, where he became acting director of Leo House, a guest house for students and clergy members. Two years later, he was denied a permanent post there when one of his accusers came forward. Then, with a longtime companion, Dale E. Lagace -- who had been with him for part of his time in both Palm Springs and New York and is 21 years his junior -- Father Shanley moved to Hillcrest, a district of San Diego favored by gays.

Reached at her home in Maine, Mr. Lagace's mother, Mona Stefanik Lambert, said tearfully that she had not spoken with her son in two weeks and did not know where he was. "This is a complete surprise, all of this," Ms. Lambert said. "I'm very hurt inside about the whole matter."

PALM SPRINGS, Calif., April 12 ã When Boston church officials granted the Rev. Paul R. Shanley a medical leave 12 years ago and allowed him to move here, they saw it as a chance for him to heal various physical ailments, primarily allergies, in the desert air, and to do a little pastoral work if and when he was well enough.