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  8 Former Hub Priests Defrocked by Vatican for Abuse

By O’Ryan Johnson
Boston Herald
March 18, 2006

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=131021

Eight men whose tarnished careers in the Boston clergy date as far back as 1957 have been defrocked over allegations of child sexual abuse in a vast house-cleaning by the Vatican, the Archdiocese of Boston said yesterday.

"The violations of childhood innocence, under the guise of priestly care, are a source of profound shame," said Boston Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley. "I pray and hope that the emotional, physical and spiritual wounds carried by survivors will be healed and their trust renewed."

The highest-ranking priest to lose his collar yesterday, Msgr. Frederick Ryan, was suspended four years ago from his job as vice chancellor, third from the archbiship in control of the archdiocese, when two former Catholic Memorial High School athletes alleged he plied them with alcohol then performed sexual acts on them more than two decades ago.

"It's a great feeling. It's a fight, but it's worth the fight," said Dave Carney, one of Ryan's alleged victims. "He'll die as a regular joe, like the rest of us. Not that he was anything above us as a priest, but that's how society saw him. Now he's just a sex offender."

The former priests will no longer be allowed to perform public ministry and have lost all financial support of the church. Also defrocked were:

The Rev. Anthony Buchette, who was accused of molesting two teenage brothers after using trophies to lure them to his room at St. Hugh's in Roxbury in the late 1970s, according to records.

The Rev. Thomas Forey, suspended in 2002, who carried on an affair with a married woman and molested her son, according to church documents.

The Rev. Patrick Tague, who was accused of abusing a former Department of Youth Services client when on the staff of a Hyde Park facility in 1971. The archdiocese said yesterday Tague had not worked as a priest since 1969.

The Rev. Paul Finegan, who was accused of multiple allegations of sexual misconduct with minors. The archdiocese suspended him in February 2002.

The Rev. Robert Morrisette, who worked in Lynn and Bellingham and took leave in 1993.

The Rev. Ernest Tourigney, who worked in Weymouth, Holliston, Revere and at Matignon High in Cambridge. He retired in 2000.

Deacon Joseph Crowley, who was a deacon in Readville, and at Boston Children's Hospital from 1998 to 2003.

 
 

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