SEATTLE (WA)
KGW
02/21/2006
Associated Press
The Vatican has approved the permanent removal from ministry of a priest accused of child sexual abuse by a man who later committed suicide.
The Seattle Archdiocese on Monday announced the action against Gerald Moffat "as a result of sex-related misconduct allegations."
Moffat had been on administrative leave since July 2002, when allegations against him began to surface.
Jeff Alfieri, who publicly accused Moffat of abusing him on church trips when Alfieri was a boy in the 1970s, committed suicide in 2003 in the parking lot of Holy Family Catholic Church in Kirkland, the parish where the abuse occurred.