NEW JERSEY
Star-Ledger
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
BY JEFF DIAMANT
Star-Ledger Staff
For almost a decade after he was barred from serving as a Catholic priest for sexually abusing minors, James Hanley lived in a senior citizens housing complex on Day Street in Paterson.
But his move last month to a bigger apartment on McBride Avenue across town has his new neighbors questioning whether the church should have alerted residents and police to his presence.
Church officials said they didn't know until last weekend that Hanley had moved, but even if they had, they said, they would not have said anything.
"He's a civil individual now. He's not a priest," Paterson Bishop Arthur Serratelli said yesterday. "He's been laicized. That's the furthest the church can go -- to basically disconnect someone from the priesthood."
On McBride Avenue, where Hanley lives in the upstairs apartment of a two-story house, his new neighbors had strongly different views.