Abuse Scandal Priest Defrocked

Paul Shanley, the priest who was a key figure in the clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Boston Archdiocese, has been defrocked, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.

In a letter dated May 3, Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley told Shanley he was being removed from his duties as a priest, and that Pope John Paul II made the decision on Feb. 19.

Shanley has pleaded innocent to pending criminal charges for raping Paul Ford, Paul Busa and two other men at St. Jean's Parish in Newton in the 1980s. He was released on $300,000 bail, and is awaiting trial, which has been tentatively set for October.

The church settled lawsuits from four men and their family members against the church over Shanley's alleged misdeeds.

Once known for his street ministry to gay and troubled youth, Shanley became a focal point of the clergy sex abuse scandal after plaintiffs' attorneys forced the church to release internal church records showing complaints about Shanley.

Among the records were documents indicating that Shanley had attended a forum with other people who later went on to form the North American Man-Boy Love Association.

Earlier this year, a panel of prominent Roman Catholics rebuked U.S. bishops for failing to stop widespread clerical sex abuse over the last half-century, calling the leaders' performance "shameful to the church."

The comments came as the National Review Board, a lay watchdog panel formed by the bishops, issued two highly anticipated studies documenting the molestation problem from 1950 to 2002.

One report is the first church-sanctioned tally of abuse cases: It found there have been 10,667 abuse claims over those 52 years. More than 80 percent of the alleged victims were male and over half said they were between ages 11 and 14 when they were assaulted.

About 4 percent of all American clerics who served during the years studied — 4,392 of the 109,694 priests and others under vows to the church — were accused of abuse.

The second report examines the causes of the molestation crisis and puts much of the blame on American bishops for not cracking down on errant priests.

"These leadership failings have been shameful to the church," the review board said in a summary of its findings.

The tally of abuse cases, conducted by John Jay College, found that churches had paid out $572 million in abuse cases. But that figure does not include 14 percent of dioceses that have cases still pending, or some high-profile recent settlements like Boston's $85 million payment.