NEW YORK
New York Daily News
Msgr. Eugene Clark, still denying allegations that he has been canoodling with his longtime secretary, Laura DeFilippo, nevertheless did the right thing yesterday and resigned from his post as rector of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Neither will he celebrate Mass nor the sacraments in public, according to the Archdiocese of New York.
This is as it should be; a monsignor is someone around whom there ought not be even a whiff of scandal. But this particular monsignor's conduct - at best, questionable - has invited the heaping of scandal upon his head and that of the church. Scandal and mockery.
That is what happens when a 79-year-old cleric checks into a motel with his much younger, married female employee and spends more than five hours there, with both emerging wearing different clothes than when they went in, and then claims the only reason all this happened was that the lady was a bit sleepy. (Hey, c'mon, anything is possible.)