BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe
By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff | October 3, 2005
Concerned that the Archdiocese of Boston may be suggesting that the attorney general's office is an enforcer of church financial policies, Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly is demanding that archdiocesan officials not attribute to his office any decision to audit or discipline priests.
Reilly's office, which has become increasingly engaged in both adversarial and cooperative ways with the archdiocese since the clergy sex abuse scandal erupted three years ago, has become concerned by reports that priests are saying they have been threatened by the archdiocese with prosecution, according to a letter sent to the archdiocese.
The attorney general's concerns were intensified by the ouster of the Rev. Walter H. Cuenin, pastor of Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Newton, for alleged violations of diocesan financial policy.
''We continue to receive reports that archdiocese representatives have asserted that the recent actions taken against Father Cuenin and other priests are the result of an agreement with this office," Jamie Katz, chief of the public charities division in Reilly's office, wrote in a letter to Wilson D. Rogers Jr., an attorney for the archdiocese. ''These reports suggest that the Archdiocese is scrutinizing the financial affairs of priests and parishes at the direction of this office, and that certain priests have been fired based upon an agreement with this office. These misrepresentations must stop."