BishopAccountability.org
	Clergy Sex Abuse Victims Still Await Meetings with O'Malley The Associated Press, carried in Daily News Tribune [Boston MA] May 24, 2005 BOSTON - Boston Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley has not met with a clergy abuse victim for six months, angering those who believe repairing the damage done by the abuse scandal in the archdiocese should remain his top priority. As of October, O'Malley had met with 110 victims and family members, according to his aides. Since then, meetings with two dozen others were postponed as he dealt with the reconfiguration of the archdiocese and the closing of 80 parishes. "Seventeen months? How timely is that?" said alleged abuse victim Christine Hickey, 48, of Cambridge, of her wait to see O'Malley. "What's an hour of your week when this is supposed to be the most important thing you were sent here to do?" O'Malley declined to be interviewed, but the Rev. John Connolly, who oversees the archdiocese's efforts to address the abuse crisis, called the length of Hickey's wait "very unusual." However, other alleged victims said they had similar stories. Robert Costello, 43, of Milford said he has been waiting to meet with O'Malley for more than a year. "I just wanted to see what he planned to do. Was it just going to be, 'Call this office,' or was he personally going to get involved, which is what people wanted?" Costello said. "Eventually, I stopped asking. I didn't want to get my hopes up." O'Malley reached an $85 million settlement with 541 abuse victims months after he was installed as Archbishop of Boston. But many wanted to meet with O'Malley in person, to tell him their stories and be reassured that the abuse would never be repeated. Connolly said O'Malley expects to resume meeting with victims by the end of this month. "It remains a paramount priority for him," he said. "From the first moment, Archbishop Sean articulated his commitment to do everything it took, for as long as it took."