NEW YORK
Newsday
BY CAROL EISENBERG
STAFF WRITER
August 12, 2005
The high-profile Roman Catholic priest accused in court papers of having an affair with his married secretary resigned yesterday as rector of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan.
Msgr. Eugene Clark becomes the third top archdiocesan official in three years to resign or be forced out as a result of sexual allegations. The others were Bishop James McCarthy, who resigned in June 2002 after admitting to several affairs with women, and Msgr. Charles Kavanagh, who was suspended in May 2002 after allegations made by a former seminarian.
"Although Msgr. Clark continues to deny the allegations against him, he offered his resignation for the good of St. Patrick's and the archdiocese," archdiocesan spokesman Joseph Zwilling said in a statement. "He will not be celebrating Mass or the sacraments publicly until this matter has been resolved."
Clark, who has overseen the most influential pulpit in New York since 2001, was named last week in divorce papers filed in Westchester Family Court by Philip DeFilippo, 46, of Eastchester, who accuses the priest and his wife, Laura, of adultery.
DeFilippo's allegations that the 79-year-old priest and his 46-year-old wife have used the cloak of work - as well as an East End motel - to conduct an adulterous affair have become grist for the tabloid mill since DeFilippo's attorney made copies of a private investigator's videotapes available to some New York media earlier this week. The tape shows the priest entering the White Sands Motel in Amagansett wearing one shirt and leaving wearing another a few hours later. DeFilippo also claimed that the DeFilippos' teenage daughter was exposed to the relationship. The lurid allegations include signed statements that the daughter saw her scantily dressed mom sitting on the priest's lap in a Jacuzzi in the priest's Amagansett home.