GREAT NECK (NY)
Newsday
BY RITA CIOLLI
STAFF WRITER
August 5, 2005
A Catholic lay group is asking Bishop William Murphy to remove the name of Msgr. Alan Placa, a suspended priest at the center of diocese's abuse scandal, from the parish bulletin of St. Aloysius in Great Neck.
Listing Placa as "in residence" implies he is a priest in good standing, charges a letter sent yesterday to the Diocese of Rockville Centre by Voice of the Faithful. The group said Murphy is not honoring his promise that no priest with a credible allegation of sexual abuse would serve in pastoral ministry.
Sean Dolan, a spokesman for Murphy, said Placa was abiding by the terms of his suspension by not celebrating Mass in public or wearing his Roman Catholic collar. "He is not presenting himself as a priest in public," Dolan said. He noted that the bishop has given Placa permission to say some funeral Masses.
However, Voice of the Faithful argues the front-page listing, with a phone number under his name, invites the public to contact him. "How is that not representing himself as an active priest and how is that not representing himself as being active in ministry?" said Dan Bartley, the group's co-director.
Placa, a former vice chancellor, founded the "intervention team" that handled the internal investigations of complaints against priests. A 2003 Suffolk County grand jury report said he was the architect of a scheme to shuffle offending priests and trick victims into keeping quiet. Placa, who has denied any wrongdoing, was unavailable for comment, as was Msgr. Brendan Riordan, pastor of the parish where Placa lives in the rectory.