LODI (CA)
Amherst Times
Written by Ross Farrow
Tuesday, 25 April 2006
A former priest at St. Anne's Catholic Church in Lodi has been accused of sexual misconduct concerning a St. Anne's School student in the mid-1990s, according to the Stockton Diocese.
Diocese Bishop Stephen Blaire said in a prepared statement that Father Murty Fahy, who died in 2001, allegedly abused a child. Blaire's statement was read at the end of each Mass on Sunday and e-mailed shortly before noon on Sunday to the News-Sentinel and other newspapers as far south as Turlock.
Fahy was an associate pastor at St. Anne's from 1985 until his death. He taught at St. Mary's High School in Stockton the previous 15 years.
Fahy is the second former priest at St. Anne's to be accused of sexual misconduct. Oliver O'Grady, an associate pastor at St. Anne's from 1971 to 1978, served seven years at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione after pleading guilty in 1993 to four counts of sexual abuse with children under the age of 14 in Calaveras County. O'Grady was paroled in late 2000 and deported to his native Ireland a short time later.
Blaire didn't indicate the child's gender or age in the Fahy allegation, but an official from the support group, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, also known as SNAP, says the victim was a girl.