METUCHEN (NJ)
Courier News
By RICK MALWITZ
Gannett New Jersey
Eugene O'Sullivan, whose past was hidden from the Diocese of Metuchen when he came to serve as a priest in Hillsborough, North Plainfield, East Brunswick and South Brunswick, has been defrocked by the Vatican, the Archdiocese of Boston announced Friday.
When O'Sullivan came to New Jersey, church officials here were told by church officials in Boston that he was a recovering alcoholic. But they were not told he was convicted in Massachusetts of sodomizing a 13-year-old altar boy.
"This was typical of the Boston Archdiocese," said Monsignor Michael Alliegro of St. Bartholomew's Church in East Brunswick, describing the lax attitude of the Boston church in a sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.
"Now that all this has come forward, it hurts even more, knowing that at the time (O'Sullivan) was only the tip of the iceberg," Alliegro said Friday. "Not only did they flim-flam the pastors, but the bishops as well."