Word: ferrario
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Worse than the loss of money are the feeling of betrayal and the erosion of esteem for priests among many parishioners. The potential for such spiritual devastation escalated considerably last week, as a federal civil lawsuit was filed against Honolulu bishop Joseph A. Ferrario, 65, the first member of the U.S. hierarchy to face a sex-abuse suit. A spokesman for the bishop said in response, "These are old allegations, made by the same people. The bishop has denied them every time...
...bishop's accuser is David Figueroa, 32, a cook living in Florida who has tested HIV-positive. He first made charges against Ferrario anonymously in 1989 and went public on Geraldo Rivera's TV show last year. Now he has decided to try to make his charges stick, in detail and under oath. "No amount of money will make up for what he's taken from me," says Figueroa. "He used me. He ruined my life...
Figueroa's sordid account runs as follows. Beginning in kindergarten at St. Anthony's church in Kailua, Hawaii, he was continually molested by the parish priest. When the boy was in his teens, the priest died, but Ferrario, his successor, continued the sex abuse for years, paying Figueroa for odd jobs in return. Ferrario also aided Figueroa in quitting high school just before graduation and joining the gay community in San Francisco. Figueroa alleges that the sexual entanglement continued even after Ferrario became a bishop, with trysts at church residences in Honolulu and Menlo Park, Calif. Figueroa's lawyers claim...
Higher authorities played a role in the Hawaii case. As early as 1985, Figueroa's mother informed the then Vatican pronuncio, Pio Laghi, of the allegations against Bishop Ferrario. Figueroa contends that Laghi sent an investigator, who did a cursory check while staying in the bishop's residence. Apparently on this basis, the U.S. hierarchy declared the 1989 accusations to "lack substance." Ferrario's spokesman said last week that the Vatican Congregation for Bishops had judged them to be "baseless...
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