MIDDLETON (MA)
Tri-Town Transcript
By Nadine Wandzilak/ tri-town@cnc.com
Friday, May 19, 2006
Archbishop Cardinal Sean O'Malley will visit Middleton next Saturday, May 27, to a offer Mass at St. Agnes Church. The appearance is part of a "pilgrimage of repentance and hope: a novena to the Holy Spirit" in nine communities that experienced "an especially painful history of sexual abuse of children by priests and, at one parish, a lay youth worker."
Christopher Reardon, who ran the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine program and the youth ministry at St. Agnes parish, pleaded guilty in 2001 to 75 counts including rape, indecent assault and battery on a child and disseminating pornography and was sentenced to 40 to 50 years in prison.
"The services will include a public acknowledgement of the sins and crimes committed," according to the Archdiocese, "and an act of reparation that will enable the Cardinal and clergy to join in an expression of repentance for priests and bishops whose actions and inactions gravely harmed the lives of children and young people entrusted to their care."
A person who was assaulted will speak at the service, according to archdiocese spokesperson Betsy Kelly.