Word: spagnolia
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...statutes of limitation. Law has suspended every priest who has ever come under a hint of suspicion over the past 30 years, even at the risk of being accused of a “witch hunt” by some Catholics, as was the case with Fr. D. George Spagnolia earlier this month. Law discarded the program for his meeting with 3,000 lay Catholic leaders this week, and instead took the time to simply listen to the faithful, hear their concerns, and let them vent their frustrations to him. On Saturday the Cardinal’s Commission...
...didn't have to. Father Spagnolia had given the same account of his years outside the priesthood to Thomas Farragher of the Boston Globe. When Farragher's story appeared, the reporter began receiving e-mails about Spagnolia's long-term relationship with Winston F. Reed of Boston. When Farragher put the question to Father Spagnolia last Thursday night, he was given another untruth: Yes, Father Spagnolia told him, he had had a five-year sexual relationship with Reed, but no other partners. At a frantic Friday noon press conference at St. Patrick's, Father Spagnolia admitted there had in fact...
...want to put these people here through having to defend me on this issue," Father Spagnolia told me later Friday afternoon. Did he think Lowell would continue to support him? "I really don't know." Was his credibility ruined? "We will find out." Why had he told me what he told me? "The only way I can respond to that is my overall attitude..." He paused. "I wanted to cut off the private aspect of those four or five years. I wanted it kept to itself. I found myself saying those kinds of things. That does not mean...
...child abuse. Wendy Murphy is a lawyer and the founder and director of the Victim Advocacy & Research Group in Boston, and it was her client, who she says is now a 45-year-old father and "a very respectable, responsible, highly regarded citizen," who brought the allegation against Father Spagnolia. She feels the Lowell priest's campaign has, if anything, damaged the search for justice. "By making himself the poster boy for false accusations, he did a great disservice to the very course he professed to be forwarding," she said Friday after Father Spagnolia's lie was revealed...
...Friday, Father Spagnolia said he would persevere, and much of Lowell said the same. I talked with a friend of mine, Dave Perry, a reporter for the Lowell Sun, who said, "Lowell's such a huge fan of the underdog, and we do love our own. Even now, he's not down and out here. Of course, if it turns out there's truth to the allegation..." Dave trailed...