WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette
By Kathleen A. Shaw TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
kshaw@telegram.com
WORCESTER— James D. Campbell, 59, a former Catholic priest who was sentenced to 90 days in the Worcester County House of Correction, asked the Vatican to release him from priesthood and his request was granted about a month ago.
Mr. Campbell pleaded guilty Dec. 22 to sexually abusing two teenagers during the 1970s in Uxbridge. Judge Peter Agnes in Worcester Superior Court sentenced Mr. Campbell to 90 days in jail and 10 years on probation. Capt. Thomas Chappel of the House of Correction said Mr. Campbell was released Friday.
Mr. Campbell was assistant pastor at St. Joseph Church in West Warren, R.I., from 1975 to 1978, when the abuse occurred. The teenagers, who were members of the parish, were brought over the state line into Uxbridge, where the abuse occurred.
The Rev. Raymond Diesbourg, spokesman for the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Aurora, Ill., said yesterday that Mr. Campbell was not defrocked, which means forced removal from priesthood, but sought laicization on his own. Laicization is a term the church uses in reference to men who leave the priesthood and return to the lay state, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Mr. Campbell was a member of the Sacred Heart order. Permission to leave the priesthood came from Rome about a month ago, he said.
Mr. Campbell was living with the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Pennsylvania at the time he was indicted in 2003 by a Worcester County grand jury in connection with the abuse.