ABC 12
October 19, 2006
http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=nation_world&id=4675590
Rome (AP) - - (10/19/06)-- A Catholic priest insists that his relationship with a young Mark Foley wasn't sexual.
But he says the two used to go naked in a sauna.
Reverend Anthony Mercieca tells The Associated Press he was "friends" with Foley when the future congressman was a boy in Florida. Mercieca says they "loved each other as brothers."
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While denying their relationship had a sexual nature, he insists it wasn't unusual for a priest and young boy to be naked in a sauna, saying, quote, "everybody does that."
Mercieca also takes issue with a story in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, which reported the two skinny-dipped, and that the priest massaged Foley while naked. Mercieca claims the paper wrote many things he didn't say.
Mercieca now lives in Malta.
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