BOSTON (MA)
Milford Daily News
By Associated Press
Sunday, January 9, 2005
BOSTON -- The former school superintendent for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, accused of sexual abuse in a lawsuit filed last week, has taken a leave of absence from his Weymouth parish.
The Rev. Eugene Sullivan, pastor of St. Francis Xavier Parish, took the voluntary leave "for the good of the parish," the archdiocese announced Friday.
On Tuesday, attorney Mitchell Garabedian filed 10 clergy sex abuse lawsuits against the archdiocese. In the suit, Sullivan is accused of molesting a boy in his car in 1977 as he and the boy, who is now 42, rode in his car to a Catholic summer camp in New Hampshire.
Sullivan, reached at the parish on Wednesday, said he had not seen the lawsuit and had no immediate comment.
His attorney said it could be a case of mistaken identity, as another Eugene Sullivan pleaded guilty to molesting a choir boy in 1984. Garabedian said the lawsuit names the correct Sullivan.