BOSTON (MA)
Daily News Tribune
By Associated Press
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
BOSTON - Boston Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley has not met with a clergy abuse victim for six months, angering those who believe repairing the damage done by the abuse scandal in the archdiocese should remain his top priority.
As of October, O'Malley had met with 110 victims and family members, according to his aides. Since then, meetings with two dozen others were postponed as he dealt with the reconfiguration of the archdiocese and the closing of 80 parishes.
"Seventeen months? How timely is that?" said alleged abuse victim Christine Hickey, 48, of Cambridge, of her wait to see O'Malley. "What's an hour of your week when this is supposed to be the most important thing you were sent here to do?"
O'Malley declined to be interviewed, but the Rev. John Connolly, who oversees the archdiocese's efforts to address the abuse crisis, called the length of Hickey's wait "very unusual."