NEW YORK
Newsday
August 11, 2005, 2:42 PM EDT
NEW YORK (AP) _ A 79-year-old monsignor named as "the other man" in a Westchester County divorce case resigned Thursday as rector of St. Patrick's Cathedral, the New York archdiocese said.
Cardinal Edward Egan accepted Msgr. Eugene Clark's resignation despite Clark's denials that he has been carrying on an affair with his 46-year-old private secretary, the church said.
"He offered his resignation for the good of Saint Patrick's and the Archdiocese," the statement said. "He will not be celebrating Mass or the sacraments publicly until this matter has been resolved."
Clark was named in divorce papers filed in Family Court in White Plains by Philip DeFilippo, 46, of Eastchester, who claimed that a private investigator taped his wife, Laura, and the monsignor entering and leaving a hotel in Amagansett, on Long Island. The videotape was shown Monday to New York City newspapers.
DeFilippo also claimed that the DeFilippos' teenage daughter was exposed to the relationship.